Starting a Website.
The abundance of user-friendly, DIY web builders available to consumers today has made starting a website simpler and less expensive than it ever was.
You must first decide what kind of website you want to create and what features you need. The following are some things to think about before choosing a website builder to help you create the perfect personal or business site for yourself.
Today I am concentrating on a business website, namely Affiliate Marketing. However, the basic considerations apply to all types of websites
Choose a Niche.
It’s important to choose a good niche for your website. But first, what is a niche site? A niche website is anything that caters to a particular audience or topic. It can be about anything with topics like business, travel, food, fashion, and education but could also include more obscure things like “beers of the world”.
Google Trends can also help you choose a niche that is currently trending.
Be Passionate.
Your imagination and passion for your topic are the only things stopping you from exploring different ideas. And the reason it is crucial is that you will be writing a lot of articles about your chosen niche, and you don’t want to run out of ideas and have nothing to write about.
So, the first thing you need is to be passionate about your niche. Choosing something from personal experience or interest is a great way to make sure you are passionate about something.
Commercially Viable
You need to make sure your niche has adequate products available to sell within that market. Also, you need to make sure that there are an adequate number of products to sell across various price ranges. It would be very frustrating if after all the work done, the maximum commission on any given product would be in the low to medium dollar value range.
A Broad or Narrow Niche?
The next step is to assess the level of competition you’ll be up against after deciding whether or not your specialty is commercially viable and whether or not there is a market.
If you select a broad niche, you may face competition from established websites. You could use the analogy of a supermarket versus a corner store. Where the supermarket has a broad range of products and the corner store has a more limited range of products.
However, you can see how much simpler it will be for you to establish a group of people interested in just one topic (Or product) rather than having a group of people interested in a myriad of topics or products. There will be a lot less competition to contend with if you concentrate on a smaller niche, rather than a larger one..
Therefore, be careful about your competition from those who are currently ranked, or have authority, for pertinent keywords in that market. You can find out more about authority here at “How to improve website Domain Authority.”
On the other hand, going with too narrow a niche may mean you’re going to run out of things to talk about. Now, when choosing your specific niche, especially if you have an initial “5-year plan” in mind, you will want to try to hit 20 articles per month.
Realistically, at the 5-year mark, you should be around 1,000-1,200 articles published on your website.
For me, this all comes down to domain name selection.
Basically, choose a domain name that allows you to expand on your niche at a later date.
Choose a Domain Name.
Should I go for dot com, dot org, dot net or even dot com dot UK or does it even matter in 2022?
Basically, pick a domain name that will enable you to enlarge your niche in the future.
And before you start worrying about catchy keywords in domain names, in 2022, it won’t really matter that much.
Of course, if you’re developing a brand and planning to keep your website up for 10, 20, or more years, having a catchy name can come in handy.
However, in 2022 there isn’t such a requirement to “remember” domain names. When people are looking up or searching for something they will not type in your website name they will search via the content they are looking for. So, if they are looking for “black shoes for men” they will type in “black shoes for men”, not a website.
However, dot com still seems to be the preferred choice when it comes to choosing your suffix. But don’t get overly caught up on domain names.
You can use “Instant Domain Search” to help find a domain name.
And you could purchase your new domain via a Domain Registrar like “GoDaddy“.
What Themes and Plugins should I use?
I suggest using WordPress for the actual site build because it is very adaptable and cost-free. It is crucial to think about using a nice theme with a built-in page builder because the default installation looks rather plain.
As a result, you’ll be able to use the drag-and-drop feature to design an attractive website that may compete well with well-known brands and merchants. This is crucial since it aids in building authority and trust with website visitors.
You want to keep your theme lightweight and easy to navigate. Any added bells and whistles will slow down your website and make it load slower.
There are clearly thousands of themes to choose from, but I’ll usually start with;
- GeneratePress
- Astra
- Both are lightweight themes, easy to navigate, and they look very plain and simple (that’s what you want, let your content do the talking, don’t fall into the trap of having a website that “looks great” but provides absolutely no value).
As for plugins, just stick with the basics like;
Google Sitekit
WP Headers & Footers Script.
These are fine for at least your first year of blogging.
Creating Great Content.
The most important thing when you have got your website up and running is creating content.
Your first target should be to produce 50 articles for your website. This would include a personal introduction and your privacy pages. You will want to do this ( The 50 articles) before you even begin to think about trying to sell anything. Your aim after that is to consistently write 20 articles per month. This will provide some trust for google and you will start to see an increase in organic traffic.
Your 5 year goal should be to have about 1,000 to 1,200 articles published on your website. This is why it is important that you are passionate about your topic and also you have enough “space” in your niche so you can expand what you talk about.
SEO Friendly Content.
Creating content that attracts organic traffic is one of the most difficult challenges for web marketers. One technique to improve the ranking of your posts is by using SEO authoring.
Although SEO specialists generally agree that content is a key component of their strategy, there seem to be varying opinions about what constitutes “great” and even the significance of highly skilled content production.
Additionally, writers employ diverse strategies while creating “SEO-friendly” content. Some focus on the audience while others focus on Google and others assert that the most crucial element in creating content that ranks is the use of keywords. And it is probably a mix of all of the above.
You can read more about content here at “Tips to Writing Great Website Content“
Final Thoughts.
Setting up a website is a lot easier these days with web builders like Word Press. However, you still need to choose a niche that you can write a lot of content about and the niche has suitable services and products that you can link to it.
There are several points we haven’t covered like “keywords” and different linking ideas, but these are topics I have talked about before if you wish to look through my website.
Make sure you choose a niche with high-ticket items, create killer content, and build links. It’s as simple as that.
Any or all links on this site may be affiliate links, and if you purchase something through those links I will make a small commission on them.
There will be no extra cost to you and at times due to my affiliation, you could actually save money.
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