General Pages

Software Section

Website Section

Marketing Section

We at Shed 18 are interested in helping people to create profitable websites, but we have never seen anything laid down telling exactly what's involved. We shall redress that here, by laying down the key points that need to be considered. Over time we shall be expanding on each heading, but if you want to know more we recommend that you scour the Internet for details

1. Decide on the core business of your website
2. Build the first few pages
3. Find a hosting company
4. Choose and register your domain name
5. Sign up with the hosting company
6. Select ways of payment for your products
7. Upload the webside
8. Advertise the website

" Decide on the core business of your website"
When you have a website there's eventually no limit to potential ways for making money. But you must start with a single clear idea of what your website is going to be about and who will be your customers. If you're already in business this is not an issue, but otherwise there are a number of possibilities.

• Make your own products - software, ebooks, videos etc.
• Sell other people's products - reselling rights
• Promote other people's products - enrol for affiliateships
• Sell from your site for delivery by others - drop shipping.
• Cash in on your special knowledge of any subject - maybe a hobby.

Until you know what you need from your website it is difficult to progress much further. Don't be in too much of a hurry at this stage; jot down ideas and test them by trawling the search engines.

If your website is to be about autos, you're going to face a lot of competition. It's probably better to narrow it down to a particular group or even one model of auto to create a 'niche'. There are millions of surfers on the Internet. There's bound to be plenty of them who also love your choice.

"Build the first few pages"
Before publishing your website or even finding a hosting company you should make up a small website on your computer. It may only be a couple of pages or even one, but should be enough to say what your website is about or will be about. All the links should lead somewhere, not just to a page that says 'Under Construction'; that's a turnoff. And the home page should give a brief explanation of what the website is about.

"Find a hosting company"
If you have a contract with an ISP, like AOL, Wanadoo, Tiscali etc. (Internet Services Provider) they may offer website hosting for free. So do some other institutions like Yahoo.

They are fine for many purposes (I have a hobby website on Wanadoo). But for maximum effect you need a private, paid hosting company where you can have your own domain name -more about this later- that looks more professional, but also has other important advantages.

There is always the problem of finding a suitable hosting company. There are thousands upon thousands, many being quite small operations leased from larger companies.

This website is hosted by a company that offers every facility you could wish for, is a huge concern unlikely to let you down, and offers very reasonable monthly rates. Don't take our word for it; take a look for yourself. Click on 'Web Hosting'. We use 'Baby' . It offers 5gb disk space and 75gb bandwidth which is more than adequate for most purposes.

"Choose and register your domain name"
Domain names are made up in two parts such as "mysite.com" where "mysite" is the name you choose and ".com" is the descriptor. There are many descriptors and more are being added all the time. The descriptor is essential for the full identity of the website. For example "mysite.com" is a completely different website from "mysite. org" or "mysite.gov"

Descriptors are supposed to give an idea of the type of website, so .com is "commercial" and probably the best known. .org is usually adopted for a charity. Then there are the descriptors for countries, such a ".co.uk" for the UK

Vacant .com domain names are getting hard to find, and popular domain names can even be bought and sold.

You need to choose a domain name that is relevant to your website. For example if your website features dogs a good name might be -wait for it- dogs.com, but I'd be very surprised if it's available. You have to be imaginative. If you're Swiss you might favour "dogs.ch" .ch is the Swiss descriptor.

Domain names don't have to be a single word; they can be several words put together in different ways. Sometimes two or more words can be put together and look OK such as "dogcollars.com". If in doubt it can be split as "dog_collars.com" or "dog-collars.com" We prefer the latter as we believe it can help with search engines. There's no reason why you shouldn't have a domain name "the-best-website-you-ever-saw.com" if the idea grabs you.

Go along to Hostgator and have a look at their domain name finder. You just type in your ideal name, press the button and up comes all the variations of that name that's available. There's also a panel where variations of the name are shown, which can be quite helpful.

Domain names are not bought; only rented by the year. When a domain name subscription remains unpaid that name is returned to the pool for re-allocation. But the rules are quite complicated.

Domain names are usually, but not always, prefixed by www., standing for world-wide-web. And a full URL might be http://www.mysite.com but most browsers and search engines can now dispense with the http:// bit.

"Non-specific Domain names"
As in the case of "shed18.com" domain names don't need to reflect the business of the website; it's up to you. Good examples are Google.com and Yahoo.com. Other domain names might include the company's name.

Some hosting companies offer the facility of unlimited subdomains, whilst just renting one domain name. Hostgator is one. It works by putting a word or two before the domain name, separated by a period. So some interesting names can be made up from a neutral type of name. So from www.shed18.com we could make www.swimming-at.shed18.com or www.trymagic-at.shed18.com and so on.

These subdomains can be for all purposes regarded as different domains on one host. They can be used for any purpose but are often used as one or two-page mini-sites.

"Sign up with the hosting company"
Unless you have previous experience or have a recommendation, here is where you have to sign up and pay up. Before doing so carefully read their terms and conditions. In particular what are the financial terms; are they reasonable for what the hosting company is offering and how about if you want to terminate the agreement?

Hostgator can be paid for monthly by direct debit from a bank account, credit or debit card. There is no long-term commitment; you can leave at any time.

But another important point is what happens if you want to move an existing domain name to or from the hosting company. Some hosting companies make this easy, others do not; and there may be money to pay! So check it out.

"Select ways of payment for your products"
It's no use selling on your website unless you're able to collect the cash. One way is to put an order form on the site that can be printed out, completed and sent to you with check. This is a method I use on a charity website I manage. It works OK for the charity but has limitations.

The ultimate way is to make a direct contract to accept debit and credit cards direct. But this is only viable if you're a very big operation

There are now many operators that will, for a fee, accept payment by card on behalf of the website. Probably the two best known are PayPal and Clickbank. ClickBank is only used for downloadable products such as software and eBooks. In each case you have to set up an account before commencing trading. These are suitable for even small operations and PayPal, a subsidiary of eBay, can also be used for buying and selling on the eBay auction.

"Upload the webside"
Now is the moment of truth when you upload your new website up to your chosen host's server. You'll find it looks just the same as it did on your computer, but you must check all the links.

If it's a new website you'll have a time before anyone but yourself sees it; it takes time for the search engines find it or your advertising takes effect. So if anything's wrong you'll have time to put it right.

"Advertise the website"
You won't sell anything until people have found your website. You need to advertise it just as you would any other business. If you want to get a kick-start to your website you'll need to invest in advertising and there's a tremendous number of ways to do this. The quickest and easiest is to pay for pay-per-click, but it can be expensive and using PPC efficiently is a skilled job. Come to think of it, all internet advertising requires a lot of research and application if it's to be effective.

After a period of time the search engines will find your website, but rather than waiting you can submit your domain name to the search engine. Making a website 'search engine friendly' must be aimed at. There are whole libraries on this subject and your best bet to start with is to search the databases of the search engines themselves. Just type SEO (search engine optimisation) into the search engines and take your pick.

The basic concept is that each separate page is built around a 'keyword'. When somebody types that keyword or key phrase into a search engine your webpage may be selected depending on a number of factors known only to the search engine.

"Drawing the sections together"
We've taken you on a quick tour of the main factors when starting a website from scratch and taking it through to actually taking money. We've taken it in logical steps but you may take a different course.

Each section could easily be expanded to almost any size. Every day there's something new to learn and for the keen marketer there are new techniques to try such as audio and video clips.

But websites don't need to be flashy to be profitable. A website must be easy on the eye, filled with good content, quick to load and easy to navigate.

"The easy solution"
If you're a beginner who wants a good start with the minimum of bother we strongly recommend that you take a look at SiteBuildIt!. This is a system designed specifically to build not just a website but a complete business. It gives all the help you need to learn marketing from the bottom up and cuts the technical side to a minimum. Allowing you to concentrate on building your business. Find out more about it here.