Building a website and making money from it
64How easy is it to create your own Website?
Creating a website is not as difficult as some people might think. A lot of people tend to give up on the idea of making a website as soon as they hear the word 'programming' or 'html code' They think it`s going to be too difficult or too much hassle to try and learn something new and complicated like a computer language. But actually the most basic language used for web pages i.e. HTML, is actually quite simple to understand.
So what is HTML?
The letters HTML stand for Hyper Text Markup Language. For learning purposes, just think of it as a language that the computer understands, or more specifically, your web browser understands. For example, when you type the address of a website into your browser address bar, whether it be Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, or any other type of web browser designed to read web pages, it will quickly decipher and interpret the code that has been used to create the web page and then display it in a way that we can understand it, i.e. with readable text, graphics and digital photos.
Basically HTML is mainly used to format the page layout and how and where the text and images will appear on the page. To do this we use 'html tags'
For example......
<TITLE>My web page</TITLE>
The wording 'My web page' seen above between the two <TITLE> tags (the 'tag' is defines the command which is place between the two < > marks) tells the browser what the title of the web page is. In the case of Internet Explorer this is what you see in the blue bar at the top of the screen.
Notice that there's a start tag <TITLE> and an end tag </TITLE> which includes a forward slash. The end tag tells the browser where the command ends. Most of the HTML tags used require both start and end tags, but not all end tags are essential.
It's easy to create a html document using a basic text editor such as notepad.
All you need to do to try it out is create some simple code (see below) and save it using the .html file extension (not.txt) and when you open it it will appear in your web browser as a web page.
Here's an example you can copy and paste to try it out...
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>This is my first web page</TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="my homepage">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="This is my first attempt at html">
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#COCOCO">
<FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">
‘This is my homepage’plain text<br>
<b>‘This is my homepage’</b> bold text<br>
<u>‘This is my homepage’</u> underlined text<br>
<i>‘This is my homepage’</i> italicised text<br>
<b><u>‘This is my homepage’</u></b> bold italicised text<br>
<p>creates a new paragraph</p>
<center>centers the text or graphics on the page</center>
<h1>h1 creates a big bold headline</h1>
<h2>h2 does the same only smaller</h2>
<h3>h3 is even smaller</h3>
<h4>and h4 is smaller still</h4>
<font size="1">This size is 1</font>
<font size="2">This size is 2</font>
<font size="3">This size is 3</font>
<font size="4">This size is 4</font><br>
<font face="arial">This font is arial</font><br>
<font face="verdana">This font is verdana</font><br>
<font color="FF0000">This text is red</font>
<font color="00CC00">This text is green</font>
<ul>
<li>Item 1</li>
<li>Item 2</li>
<li>Item 3</li>
</ul>
<font face="arial" color="FF0000" size="6">This is the font arial in red size 6</font>
<hr></hr>
<A HREF="http://www.500ways.co.uk">500 Ways to Make Extra Cash</A>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Can you see what each tag does?
There are many tags you can use to do various things and the ones described below are the most common ones used....
(By the way, it doesn't really matter if the tags are typed out in upper case or lower case)
<HTML> This tag is one of the most important tags and is placed at the start of the web page code. It simply tells the browser that the page is a html document and everything between this tag and the closing tag </HTML> should be treated as such.
<HEAD> This is the 'head' tag which is placed just before the <TITLE> tags and any 'META' tags used in the document. (Meta tags are used mainly to tell the search engines what the page is about, and do not actually appear on the page, so the viewer doesn't see them)
<BODY BG COLOR="#COCOCO"> This tells the browser where the main body content of the page begins, and in this case what color the background of the page should be. (#COCOCO signifies the color silver - see the link below for a table of other web safe colors)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors
<FONT COLOR="#FF0000" SIZE="-2" FACE="Arial,Helvetica"> This command tells us what color and size the font should be for any textual information which follows. It also tells us which font face should be used. Notice how each piece of information is enclosed within the quotation marks " " e.g. "Arial,Helvetica" (In this case two similar font types are specified in case one of the fonts is not available on the users system) The closing </FONT> tag will end this command.
<A HREF="http://www.500ways.co.uk>500 Ways to Make Extra Cash</A> This tag and closing tag is an example of HTML code which tells the browser this is a hyperlink to another web page.
There are some simpler tags which are also often used and can be seen above in the example such as ...
<br> Which creates a line break
<p> Which starts a new paragrah
<b> Which tells the browser the text should be bold (e.g. for a heading)
<i> Which tells the browser the text should be italic
<hr>Which creates a horizontal line across the page
and many others which are too numerous to mention in a short article like this.
For some people though, writing and coding the HTML language can still be a bit too difficult and time consuming, so many website designers prefer to use a programme such as Dreamweaver (used by many professional web designers)or Microsoft Frontpage to design their web pages. This type of software will automatically generate the HTML code. These are not the only ones though. There are many other good programmes available, some of which are free and available to download from the internet. These programmes can speed up the process of designing a website significantly, but there is still a learning curve to them. Plus, it's still a big advantage if you know at least some of the html language so that you can understand the code that these programmes produce.
I personally learned HTML from reading an excellent book entitled 'HTML 4 in 24 Hours' which may still be able to buy. But there are many other good books available on this subject and there's plenty of free information on the web if you search for it.
There are other languages that have been created since HTML first appeared, and you may have heard of some of them. Java, php, CSS and javascript are just the main ones. However, for most of your needs, using HTML is perfectly adequate.
Making money from your website
So...... let's assume you have a good idea for a website. Let's also assume you have either learnt HTML or have managed to get your hands on a good website design program and learnt how to use it.
You're now ready to design and build your website. And you want to be able to make some money from it too!
What options have you available?
Well, you may be considering the idea of selling something direct from your website. And this is a good idea, providing the items you're selling are easy to get hold of (or make yourself), easy to post, provide a good profit margin and most importantly, are in popular demand.
However, I personally think that if you have something to sell, even a range of items, then why not just sell them on ebay? It will be a lot easier to find the customers who are seeking the items you're selling. You can also set up an ebay store if you wish.
But what if, like me, you prefer not to sell tangible goods online, along with all the problems associated with trying to produce or finding a reputable source to buy the goods for resale. Not to mention the time and effort it takes to pack them and post them, keeping track of the orders and refunds, and all the other hassles associated with selling goods direct?
If you're going to sell stuff yourself then you're probably better off selling digital products that the customer can pay for and immediately download online for instant delivery. There's a lot less involved in this type of selling and it can prove to be very profitable. As you may be aware, digital products cost next to nothing to produce. Every internet marketer knows this. Some of them have become millionaires through this method of selling.
Of course there are other ways to make money from your websites, even if your website is purely an information based site only.
For example, if you design and create a site with content related to a subject you're knowledgeable about, you can easily incorporate some AdSense code into your web pages, and share the revenue with Google that their sponsored advertisers provide from the clicks on their ads. Most hubbers reading this will understand this concept, but if you want to know more then visit https://www.google.com/adsense/
Another popular way to generae an income from your website is through affiliate marketing. Again, many seasoned web designers and marketers are aware of this method, and for some it provides a full time income.
In case you don't know, affiliate marketing is an internet based practice whereby an individual (or company) signs up to be an affiliate with a merchant to promote the merchants products or services. The affiliate is then rewarded when they send a potential customer to the merchants website through one of the affiliates text links or banners (which incorporates a tracking code) and that customer then goes on to purchase an item from the merchant.
For example, let's say I sign up as an affiliate with Amazon.com. I can then log into the affiliate area of their website and retrieve the code required to place within my own web page code which could generate one of their banners on my site. If then a visitor clicks on my affilaiet banner and is taken to Amazon's website then buys a book, I will receive a commission for the sale. It may not be huge, perhaps a couple of dollars, but many sales will add up to a nice affiliate check at the end of the month. So successful affiliate marketing mainly depends on the amount of traffic you can generate and send to the merchant's website.
Of course, this is just one example. Apart from Amazon there are literally tens of thousands of affiliate programs you could choose from. Many of them may not suit your needs. It's important therefore to sign up with a merchant who sells products or services that relate to the subject matter of your site.
Now, I've only scratched the surface here regarding the opportunities available to generate an income with AdSense and affiliate marketing. But these are the two main methods you should consider when trying to make money from your website. There's lots more you can learn about these techniques so it will pay to do some more research online.
I'm sure there's lots of good advice here on hubpages as well.
Here's a couple more articles that may be of interest....
http://hubpages.com/hub/Improve-your-earnings-with-adsense
http://hubpages.com/hub/10-tips-for-more-website-traffic
To learn more about creating a website you should also read this article here How to design build and publish your own website
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Lgali says:
10 months ago
good hub