HOW TO BEGIN
Once you’ve decided to start a website, the fun begins.
I have four websites, and each time I started a new one it felt like birthing a baby. They are all my children because I’ve nurtured them right from the beginning.
My four websites are as follows:
Crunchy Menopause, KatFit Stitch, StorytellerKat, and Hungry Old Lady. They are all merged into one under Crunchy Menopause now, but they hold a special place in my heart.
I signed up to a hosting service called HostGator, and it guided me through the process of buying my own domain name which is required when starting a self-hosted website on WordPress.
Self-hosting just means that you own it. In other words, it’s not a free platform like Wix, Blogger, or Weebly. You don’t own those sites.
They are free to set up, but you don’t own the content. They also don’t perform well in Google searches, and you won’t acquire domain authority.
After a few failures on free website builders, I realized that I had to be more professional and get a real website. That meant I had to pay for it.
I took a course on building a website, signed up to HostGator (a Hosting service) and bought my own dot com domain name.
That is the proper way to do it if you are serious about creating a website that Google will be able to fine, that will gain domain authority, and that will get back links.
You need this so you can own your own content, and make a living from it.
HostGator brought me through the process of choosing my own dot com domain name and then directly connected me to WordPress so I could get started building a professional website.
WHAT IS WORDPRESS
WordPress is a content management system used to put blogs and websites on the Internet.
It’s basically a platform that writers can use to write articles and blogs for their websites.
WordPress has to be installed on a web server through a web hosting company and is used to create the websites we see on the Internet.
In other words, WordPress it is like a notebook. That notebook remains blank until you fill it with your own words. Once you fill it with your own words people can read it.
WordPress is a notebook for the Internet where people write their content to be found by the masses.
You can manipulate WordPress in anyway, by changing themes, adding plug-ins, and even adding your own code if you are tech savvy.
FREE VS PAID
WordPress comes in two variation: Free and paid. If you use the free version of WordPress, not many people will find you.
The free version of any website creator, is simply not feasible if you are hoping to make a living from your website.
Search engines like Google will not push your content because it is not as trustworthy as those with domain authority.
Domain authority is obtained by purchasing your own domain name. That gives credibility to your website, which Google loves.
In order to be considered more professional, whether that be as an author, webmaster, or affiliate marketer, you must have domain authority.
Sites that offer free websites like Wix, Blogger, or Weebly, do not get backlinks. Back links help your website get found on the Internet.
Free website builders do not let you own your own content. That is a big downfall if you want to fill your website with your own content and make money from it.
If you have a sewing business in your hometown for example, and all you want to do is create a website to show what kind of selling you do, then perhaps you don’t need anything more than free website software.
Even then, if you want to be professional, you’re going to have to have a domain name and own your own content. Not only will people find you on the Internet, but they will be able to purchase clothing that you make directly from your website.
Free website builders cannot be monetized.
Sticking with a paid website builder is a must if you want to be known as a professional in your industry.
Purchase a dot com domain name. Buy a monthly subscription to a hosting service. Connect it to WordPress and become a professional.
Monetize your website with ads, affiliate programs, your own books, or info products, and make a real living.
WEBMASTER TOOLS
There are many webmaster tools that are included in WordPress.
Plugins – There are several pieces of software that can be added to WordPress with just a click of a button. Anything from menu builders to decreasing the size of a photo can be done by adding a plugin.
Themes – You can change themes as you wish on WordPress. Depending on what type of website you want, there are many different kinds of themes that you can choose from. You can choose a newspaper theme. You can have a simple theme. You can have a current year theme. It all depends on the user. Many themes are free, but you can also pay for themes if you want.
SEO – Search engine optimization is available to all webmasters. It comes in the form of plugins. You can install a plugin that analyzes Google’s search engine and keeps track of how each post is doing on your website. This is an absolute must in order to understand how your website is functioning and what you need to do to maintain proper SEO.
Security – There are several plugins that you can use to make sure your website is as secure as it possibly can be. Without a proper security system in place on your website, cyber-attacks are possible. There will always be someone who wants to hack your site and steal your information and content.
Back Ups – Backups are necessary when creating a website. If you don’t have a good backup system in place, you may lose your entire website and all its content.
You can get both free and paid plugins. Whichever version you decide to use, always make sure that you backup your website on a regular basis, not just internally but externally to the cloud, or a service that will keep it safe.
Blocks – Every WordPress website has writing software. After all, you need to write the content that goes up on the website that you created. It is similar to Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and can be formatted into blocks for editing purposes. These blogs allow you to create content and segments by adding on photos, videos, for plain text.
MONETIZING YOUR WEBSITE
Monetizing your website is important if you want to make a living from the content that you write.
When you first start a website, it usually sits for a while without getting much traffic. But as you continue to add content, your website gains authority and visibility on Google.
Basically, the more you write, the more traffic you will get to your website. Sometimes that takes months, and sometimes that takes years. It depends on what your niche is, and how well you set up your website and blogs.
Sometimes, even if you do everything right, it just takes a while for your website to grow. One deciding factor is whether or not you should buy an aged domain, or start from scratch.
Buying an aged domain has its advantages because it’s already got authority and backlinks which helps Google know that it is a trustworthy website.
However, when you buy aged domains, sometimes the back links are a bit shady. You might not know where they came from. Someone may have purchase them in a black hat way, giving Google reason to give your website a low ranking.
Sometimes, you may not know there are bad links. You may pay $3000 dollars for an aged domain, just to find out a year later that the backlinks are no good.
It’s a risk you will have to decide to take or not.
For me, I decided I wanted to buy a brand-new domain name and start from scratch. That way, I know what’s in it, and I have nothing to hide. Sure, it will take longer to rank, but in the long run it will pay off.
It’s only a matter of years, it will gain its own authority, completely white hat, and it will be able to make you a lot of money.
You can monetize the website once it starts getting enough traffic. I will list some of those ways to monetize below:
TYPES OF MONETIZATION
Ads – signing up to an ad company is one of the best ways to monetize a website. You can use Google AdWords, which is Google’s own ad company. This is the least profitable ad company you can use, but there is no limit in the amount of traffic that you must have.
In other words, if you only have 3000 pageviews a month on your website, you can apply for Google AdWords, and they will most likely accept you depending on what your niche is. They are a bit particular with that, but not for page views.
Affiliate – Monetizing through affiliate programs is also a great way to go. You can sign up for the Amazon associate program, or any other affiliate program out there like Share-A-Sale, eBay Partner, Shopify Affiliate, Bluehost Affiliate, HostGator Affiliate, or many other programs available.
Amazon just happens to be the top contender, and you can make quite a bit of money just by linking to products that you have used or reviewed.
The amount of money you can make will depend directly on the product that you are trying to sell. Amazon has a different affiliate percentage available for each type of thing you are trying to sell, so be sure to choose wisely.
Info Product – An info product is something that you create that is downloadable and fore sale to anyone who comes across it on your website.
You might create a downloadable PDF file people can purchase. As you charge something for it, you will steadily make income.
Perhaps you have a photography or a travel website where you want to charge money for a downloadable PDF of a map, or an instruction guide about using specific lenses with your camera. Think of the possibilities!
Books – I’m an author, and therefore I link to books that I’ve written. I link directly to Amazon where you can purchase my books.
Take a look at some of my books here.
You don’t even have to use Amazon as a platform to sell your books. You can get 100% royalties by selling your books through your own downloadable links instead of going through bookselling sites. I just like Amazon because I don’t have to deal with money on my site. I let Amazon handle it all.
Bear in mind, if you don’t use a platform like Amazon to sell your books, you will have to set up a way to take payments through your website. Sometimes that’s costly, and sometimes customers don’t trust your website. But most people trust Amazon.
I suggest if you sell books, use Amazon or other bookselling platforms to link externally to. That way, customers will form trust with you especially if you’re just starting out.
Courses – A great way to monetize your website is by creating online courses to sell. There are many platforms that will help you create courses quite easily. Udemy, and Teachable are good ones. But there are many others.
You can link externally to course selling platforms, or you can create courses on your own and have complete control over it.
Membership – Membership sites do well for monetizing a website. All you have to do is create something people want to sign up for, providing them with value.
An example of that might be a dating website. If you sell memberships for $10 a month, you can turn a profit quite easily and it will be a regular thing.
Perhaps you might have a writing website where people can join for $50 a year and contribute as writers. You might even consider running writing contests that members can enter every month.
Services – Providing services is a great way to monetize your business especially if you have a niche that specializes in a certain area.
If you have a consulting website for example, you can charge for consulting services. If you have an accounting website, you can charge for accounting.
The potential to monetize service-related websites is endless.
EMAIL List – I just wanted to include email lists as a way to monetize a website for the simple fact that people still do this deplorable thing. As you can tell, I am not a fan of building email lists to spam your products.
It’s not that it doesn’t work, it’s that I refuse to do it. I’m quite adamant about it and if that means I lose $10,000 a year because I won’t do it, then so be it.
I would rather take the higher ground, then be that person that sends email after email just to get sales.
Let me explain.
In my opinion, this is a Black hat practice. It deliberately targets unsuspecting people with spam emails that often are not even related to that particular website they were once interested it.
And I say once loosely, because they may have looked at your website nine months ago, but that doesn’t mean they are regular followers. That just means you sucked them into getting their email address somehow, and now you’re taking advantage of them by sending them spam advertisements.
I don’t do that. I will never do that! I think it’s totally wrong!
Ask anyone out there if they like getting email advertisement and they will say absolutely not! In fact, most people I know don’t even open their emails because of that reason.
It’s an old archaic method that should be banned!
I get so many emails from so many different websites I’ve visited simply because they got my email. Yet, the worst of it is, these people think they own my email now. Well I have news for them. You do not!
Sure, by law, you can always unsubscribe from newsletters being sent to you, or companies that have been soliciting to you through your email. But who’s got time for that.
Most people have over 1000 emails in their inbox that they haven’t even touched. They don’t open them because they don’t trust them because you can get viruses from emails. You can easily have your identity stolen just by opening a spam email.
I know of people who have gotten their life savings stolen because they trusted a telemarketer. Email marketing is telemarketing too. People don’t trust it, so don’t do it.
Just don’t!
CONCLUSION
I didn’t want to end this article on a bad note but it seems I have. Email marketing always hits a nerve for me. I know so many people that have been hurt by opening spammy emails from scammers. It makes me sick!
There are so many White hat ways to monetize your website that you don’t have to stoop to spammy Black hat ways like email marketing.
Choose your website monetization wisely, and do it ethically so that your website will gain credibility and authority on Google that will last a lifetime.
When you do that, you’ll be making a living from your website in no time.
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Author Kathleen Morris
Kathleen Morris is a successful published author, blogger, and YouTuber. She enjoys writing about things she’s passionate about and making a difference in the world.