(Avaliable as a PDF here.. BestWebsite.com/shortbook.pdf )
If you gave me five minutes to tell you how to build a website that makes money, this is what I’d say . . .
This method shows the best way one person can create a Web business that earns $10,000 to $20,000 per month in profit. I learned how to do this after 14 years of founding and building some of the Web’s most-successful websites. The easiest way to make money online is with a product or service you own the rights to. Forget about affiliate programs and promoting other people’s products. Stick with things like your own membership site, newsletter sponsorship, videos you produce, books, e-books, advertising space, licensing rights, or any other original product or service you have ownership of. Also, always go for a niche market: the smaller, the better. Expansion can come later if necessary. You don’t have to start out knowing how your website is going to make money, just start out with what you’re interested in most and allow it to morph into something that can earn money. The way you think your website will earn its money and the way it ends up earning its money are rarely the same. Also, your best-laid plans for marketing the site are almost assuredly not going to work. This is actually good because it keeps your competition out. Be prepared to rework your business four or five completely different ways before it earns money. Getting past the start-up phase is extremely difficult, so here’s my quickest way through it. Go for a two or three word, keyword-generated domain name like BabyCribs.com or BuySellWebsite.com. Register it with GoDaddy.com and say no to everything they try to up-sell you. Point your domain name DNS servers to NS2.Intermedia.net and NS3.intermedia.net and set up a Basic Windows hosting account with the Web Hosting Company Intermedia.net on a Windows 2008 server ($19.95 a month). This is very robust and can handle almost any type of programming or design tool you’d like to use. Also, their customer support is top-notch. (Note: I do NOT receive compensation form anything I recommend.) If you don’t want the three-to-four month learning curve of either Expression Web or Dreamweaver. Go with either TypePad.com or WordPress.com to build your website. They were both originally Blog-only tools but have expanded to allow you to add additional web pages, do podcasts, and upload audio and video ($9.95/mo.). One of these two choices will be the best option for most people because it cuts out much of the technical aspect of building and managing a website. You have much less flexibility, but much quicker start-up time. The next step is to select three or four highly-targeted keywords to write three or four compelling, high-quality, useful articles around and post them on your website. Use the Google Keyword Tool (adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal ) to find your keywords and save your articles in your root directory, for example, like this BestWebsite.com/internet-marketing-book.htm You’ll want to use the keyword, in this example, “internet marketing book” as the title of the web page, in the meta tags, and a few times within the article. If you’re using TypePad.com or WordPress.com, just post the articles as blog posts and the rest is done for you. To get fast search engine rankings, use Digg.com to submit your articles to and delicious.com to bookmark them and also copy and paste your articles onto Squidoo.com with a link pointing back to your website URL or permalink URL if you posted them on your blog. The reason these work is because they “teach” the search engines what your website is about very quickly. Two more things, use PRWeb.com to do a press release, which costs $149, and then find 5 to 10 other websites in your market to get links from by making relevant comments on one of their blog posts or e-mailing them and requesting a link to one of your articles. This is hard to do, but separates those people who make money online from those who don’t. These promotion tools just mentioned are incredibly powerful and amazingly fast. As an example, using this method, it took me only 11 days to get a first-page ranking on Google for “internet marketing book,” and I make sales every single day from this one keyword alone. I also now rank for more than 520 different keywords just by initially targeting my first four highly-targeted keywords . . . all for free! And the best news of all! If you can get your website making even a minimal profit, let’s say $1,000/mo. You then have the opportunity to sell duplicates of that website around the world and make hundreds of thousands of dollars! Watch my free video BestWebsite.com/video/ that explains it in-detail or read the Best Website® Book. This opportunity exists because of how separated each country is online: The World Wide Web is, ironically, much less global and much more local now, and you can take advantage of this rarely mentioned fact.
For the best options designing and managing your website, use either Microsoft Expression Web or Adobe Dreamweaver. They are difficult to learn initially; however, they produce the absolute best options for long-term success. Don’t use Flash to design your site; it’s much more difficult to search-engine-optimize and properly promote. *Check the Best Website® Book for a quick way to cut out 90% of the learning curve for Expression Web.
Also Paypal.com should be your preferred choice for credit card processing. It has a fantastic shopping cart system if you have many products to sell and also has quick “Buy Now” buttons for single items.
