Thomas W.P. Slatin

Let me let you in on a little known secret.  The ultimate goal of any webmaster is to create a website or series of websites that have as much information as possible about any specific topic.  It doesn’t matter much who will get any use out of such information just as long as their website is the definitive source for said information.  In these days of data and information technology, we have become flat-out obsessed with information, so much in fact that we are constantly overloaded with new and exciting information on a daily basis.  The same ideal applies to any successful website; the more information is available, the better.

When I first started doing websites professionally, back in early 1998, you needed to have a good working knowledge of HTML.  Back in those days when the Internet was still in its infancy, WYSIWYG editors hadn’t come into the reach of the general public and were generally only available to professional website developers.  Not only were they quite limited in their ability to create HTML code from a visual input, they were also very expensive.

Inspiration
Before you even begin a website or blog, you need to decide what you will have on it.  Websites and blogs can and are about every conceivable topic out there.  Some are about our daily lives, our pets, relationships, or sex life.  Others are more reserved and are strictly e-commerce or business and marketing.  Whatever your vision, make sure it is a topic that will keep you inspired to write about it for the long haul.  My website covers everything that floats into my mind, including my photography, writing, travels, and video, among other things that will likely be added.

Software
These days, software and technology have evolved to the point where just about anybody can publish a halfway decent website.  I’m not saying that every website created will be useful, informative, entertaining, or successful, but instead of having to go to college or take classes in website design, there is software available to do the job of coding for you, which accounts for 90% of the work involved.  Many programs that emulate the early WYSIWYG editors that were once ridiculously expensive are now available for free download.  For your general information, this website runs on WordPress, and the editor that is used for times when an Internet connection is unavailable is Windows Live Writer.  Both of these very powerful applications are free.  By the way, WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get; it’s a term that was coined when the visual web page editors started to become the latest trend.

Starting Out
Think you’ve got what it takes?  There are a handful of things to think about when starting a new website for the first time.  First of all, you need hosting.  Hosting is basically space on a server, enough bandwidth, and a team of professionals who sit around and make sure the server stays running.  This site was started back in 1998 on Tripod.com, though there are a multitude of free hosting providers out there, many of which will provide you with free WYSIWYG online editors.  As you progress into making your site bigger, one thing to think about is getting your own domain name.  Domain names range in cost from under $5 a year to $50 a year or more, depending on who sells you a domain name.  Take my advice and find the cheapest domain name out there, because it doesn’t make a lick of difference who you buy it from.  But with that said, if you are planning on launching a successful website (or making a career out of it, like I did), reserve your domain name as soon as possible before someone else does.  In other words, put your dot com name out there before someone else reserves the dot com name you’re dreaming of.

Keep Going
Once your website is set up (which can take anywhere from a couple of days to several months or more), the only thing to do next is to maintain it.  Add as much content as possible, regardless if anyone will find it useful or not.  The fact is that most of what I see on the Internet is useless drivel, but the fact that it is actually on the Internet will get the attention of at least some folks, or it may not.  It’s all a matter of chance.  But besides all that, never stop adding to your website, because websites that remain unchanged for a long period of time get little or no visitors, and nobody wants that to happen.

Pitfalls
Beware of folks offering you SEO services.  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it has become the latest trend in rip-off money-making schemes that prey upon the fears and insecurities of newbie webmasters.  The fact is that while each search engine is different, they are designed to find you the content that best matches what you are searching for.  Don’t let someone fool you by saying that they can improve your rankings in search engines, because it’s not an exact science.  What does improve your rankings is how many different websites link to yours.  A website that has 10,000 or more other websites linking to it will not only gain a lot of traffic, but will likely rank closer to the first on the list of search engine results, or it may not; it’s all a matter of chance and it’s not an exact science.  If someone asks you for money to link to your website because theirs draws one million or more hits a month, then it’s worth it, but to pay someone for SEO services is stupid.  This website does its own SEO using automated software that was downloaded free off the Internet.  You should never pay for something you can get for free.  If traffic is what you crave, read other websites and fill in comment boxes with real comments (NEVER spam comment boxes or guest books), and in doing so, include the URL to your website.  Submitting useful and informative comments to the right websites will get you loads of traffic.  Not only is it free, but you are enjoying the fruits of another webmasters labors.

Your Turn
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Posted under Web Design, Writing