Greetings my fellow Webmasters, the following are some guidelines concerning the trouble that comes along with being a Webmaster, creating, owning and managing a successful website.
Although short, this article is mostly directed towards newcomers who are interested into getting into the game, it will contain pointers, suggestions and guidelines and covering pretty much everything you need to know as a novice to websites and the process that goes on with creating one, of course it can also be useful for people who already own a website as far as making it a better one goes.
However, if you had an idea of creating a website, I'd suggest you read this article thoroughly and then think about it again.
Based upon my experience, I wrote this to serve a place to start off for new webmasters, it's never too late to be Webmaster!
Without further ado, let us begin, first and foremost, don't think further, think this:
Budget!
Everything depends from the above word, get a paper and a pen by your side, calculate everything, including costs for the Domain, Hosting, Theme, Design, SEO and Coders costs, write down everything you think is worth spending money on, and believe, those things are!
Vision!
Think big, think money, think success.
Domain:
You need creativity, a easily remembered Domain with of course a suitable extension behind it.
Motivation!
Is it money? Or for a good cause perhaps.. huh?
It is important not to loose interest on the site, you need to be focused throughout the whole time, make it interesting on your self.
Goals!
What do you expect from your website in 6 months from now?
Planning!
What is it going to be about?
Don't just go on with it, don't create another forum, that is by far the most cliche thing you can do.
Forum means community, community means members, members mean commitment, commitment means time, time means work, work means team, you can't do it yourself!
Forums require a lot of work and effort put into them, that involves much more than it would with a blog or a normal website.
However, if you have set your mind for a Forum, find a team of experienced members you will need to assist there as Staff members.
Niche!
Healthy life, Fitness, IT, get yourself a niche.
Competition!
Let's be honest, shall we?
There are probably plenty of websites doing the same thing you plan to do, and they've already been around for a longer time.
You need to study your competition, what makes them so good? Their longevity, the content or the community?
Either way, you're going to have to come up with some of those..
Time Consuming!
Managing a website is a very tedious process which requires well thoughts put into it before it comes to life, will you be having time to manage it by yourself or will you need help?
Partners!
A month has passed, your website is up and running, getting decent traffic, but just as it's on the right track, something has come up, you need to stop focusing on it and do more important things.
Think this one very carefully, you can either partner up with someone in a Joint Venture project by investing a amount of money and sharing the profits, or you can either get help from your friends for a temporary period of time.
Uniqueness!
You already know it, there are like 250 websites created at this moment of me speaking and you reading this article.
You need to think, what will make your site set the bar from the rest of trashy websites than are made every minute.
Will it be it's content or it's design perhaps? It's goals maybe?
I don't know, you know that.
Profitable!
As you know, Illegal does not translate well in money, therefore, it has to be legal enough to allow Google Ads on it, why not take advantage of other options such as banner ads and others too?
Okay folks, have you answered to the fields with an exact plan on how you plan to do it?
The above paragraphs are what is going to make you special, you better make good use of them.
As soon as you'll have these figured out, there will still be much time and financial investment to be spent, but you'll know the rest when you get there.
But, we can also help you with your website, do you need others' thoughts on it or suggestions?
Feel free to post your site in the Site Reviews section, we speak our honest opinion on it.
if you need a Partner make sure you post a topic in the Community Cooperative section providing enough information to make people interested to work by your side.
Do you need help with securing your website on a VPS?
I have posted an article a while back on How to Secure and Optimize your VPS
Do you need help with Migrating your website from one host to another?
You can either ask your host or follow my tutorial over here
Good luck.
Although short, this article is mostly directed towards newcomers who are interested into getting into the game, it will contain pointers, suggestions and guidelines and covering pretty much everything you need to know as a novice to websites and the process that goes on with creating one, of course it can also be useful for people who already own a website as far as making it a better one goes.
However, if you had an idea of creating a website, I'd suggest you read this article thoroughly and then think about it again.
Based upon my experience, I wrote this to serve a place to start off for new webmasters, it's never too late to be Webmaster!
Without further ado, let us begin, first and foremost, don't think further, think this:
Budget!
Everything depends from the above word, get a paper and a pen by your side, calculate everything, including costs for the Domain, Hosting, Theme, Design, SEO and Coders costs, write down everything you think is worth spending money on, and believe, those things are!
Vision!
Think big, think money, think success.
Domain:
You need creativity, a easily remembered Domain with of course a suitable extension behind it.
Motivation!
Is it money? Or for a good cause perhaps.. huh?
It is important not to loose interest on the site, you need to be focused throughout the whole time, make it interesting on your self.
Goals!
What do you expect from your website in 6 months from now?
Planning!
What is it going to be about?
Don't just go on with it, don't create another forum, that is by far the most cliche thing you can do.
Forum means community, community means members, members mean commitment, commitment means time, time means work, work means team, you can't do it yourself!
Forums require a lot of work and effort put into them, that involves much more than it would with a blog or a normal website.
However, if you have set your mind for a Forum, find a team of experienced members you will need to assist there as Staff members.
Niche!
Healthy life, Fitness, IT, get yourself a niche.
Competition!
Let's be honest, shall we?
There are probably plenty of websites doing the same thing you plan to do, and they've already been around for a longer time.
You need to study your competition, what makes them so good? Their longevity, the content or the community?
Either way, you're going to have to come up with some of those..
Time Consuming!
Managing a website is a very tedious process which requires well thoughts put into it before it comes to life, will you be having time to manage it by yourself or will you need help?
Partners!
A month has passed, your website is up and running, getting decent traffic, but just as it's on the right track, something has come up, you need to stop focusing on it and do more important things.
Think this one very carefully, you can either partner up with someone in a Joint Venture project by investing a amount of money and sharing the profits, or you can either get help from your friends for a temporary period of time.
Uniqueness!
You already know it, there are like 250 websites created at this moment of me speaking and you reading this article.
You need to think, what will make your site set the bar from the rest of trashy websites than are made every minute.
Will it be it's content or it's design perhaps? It's goals maybe?
I don't know, you know that.
Profitable!
As you know, Illegal does not translate well in money, therefore, it has to be legal enough to allow Google Ads on it, why not take advantage of other options such as banner ads and others too?
Okay folks, have you answered to the fields with an exact plan on how you plan to do it?
The above paragraphs are what is going to make you special, you better make good use of them.
As soon as you'll have these figured out, there will still be much time and financial investment to be spent, but you'll know the rest when you get there.
But, we can also help you with your website, do you need others' thoughts on it or suggestions?
Feel free to post your site in the Site Reviews section, we speak our honest opinion on it.
if you need a Partner make sure you post a topic in the Community Cooperative section providing enough information to make people interested to work by your side.
Do you need help with securing your website on a VPS?
I have posted an article a while back on How to Secure and Optimize your VPS
Do you need help with Migrating your website from one host to another?
You can either ask your host or follow my tutorial over here
Good luck.