You can create a Website in less than 20 minutes – then what?

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It’s very easy to create a website. Why not? Almost every business and professional person of note has a website. Surely, if you create a website your business will flourish, and with billions of web users to target – wow, the money is there to be made.

A recent blog page by wix.com “7 Tips for Creating a Stunning Website for Free” achieved 3.7 million likes. Indeed, the people want websites.

So you can start to create a website. It’s very easy…

How to create a website

There are many posts that instruct you on how to create a website. The most mentioned steps are as follow:

1. Search the internet to find a credible website host (e.g. Texo.co.za);
2. Choose a website hosting plan;
3. Pick a domain name;
4. Fill in your details;
5. Finish your registration; and
6. Create a password.

A website host provides server hardware and network infrastructure so that your website can operate optimally. Texo, for example, also hosts WordPress, a free and open-source content management system.

In fact, WordPress powered 26% of the internet in 2016 (Manage WP).

Types of websites that you can create with WordPress

With WordPress, you can create about any type of website that you want. The Theme Country listed the 12 most popular WordPress websites:

1. Blog or Personal Website – creating a blog or personal website is one of the most common reasons for using WordPress.
2. News and Magazine Website – WordPress makes it easy to set up a news and magazine website.
3. Business Website – you can choose from thousands of business themes for your WordPress site and then tweak the layout to better represent your business.
4. eCommerce Website – there are several high-quality WordPress plugins and themes that incorporate eCommerce features.
5. Online Job Board – create a community job board using WordPress. By using a forum theme for WordPress, you can easily organize job categories and create a space for people to post or find jobs.
6. Business Directory – you can also use WordPress to create a business directory.
7. Online Communities – create your own online community dedicated to a topic that you love. Share information with other people and use the subscriber option to build an email list.
8. Portfolio Websites – showcase your talents with a portfolio website. There are hundreds of premium and free WordPress themes for setting up your own online portfolio.
9. Knowledgebase / Wiki Websites – start building a large knowledgebase or wiki-style website using WordPress. One of the great features of WordPress is the ability to use categories and tags to categorize your content.
10. Niche Affiliate Websites – affiliate marketing can be a useful way to earn extra money, especially if you go about it in the right way.
11. Photography Websites -as with portfolio themes for WordPress, you will have a large variety of photography themes to choose from. These also focus on the images used on your website, instead of the content.
12. School or College Websites – WordPress could be a useful option for creating a school or college website. You can easily design a professional website for the school or college while adding resources that faculty and students will find useful.

So, you’ve created a website, and chosen your website type – what now?

Because it’s relatively easy and cheap to create a website, many people only think about what to do with their site after it’s been activated. Some people spend lots of money promoting their new websites with AdWords and Facebook with little or no success.

As it should be with any other business, you need a business plan for your website. You can read more here: Every Business Needs A Business Plan. After you’ve established what business you’re going to do with your website, you need to find out where your business will come from.

If you want to make money from your website, you to make the following happen:

• Get people to visit your website;
• Give the visitors what they was looking for on your website;
• Get them to subscribe, buy or contribute to your site;
• Let their online experience be so great that they bookmark your site and tell their friends about it.

You therefore need to know:

• Who are your audience? (your target audience).
• What do they want from your website (their needs – problem solving, entertainment, etc.)
• Where and how can you communicate with your target audience (your digital marketing strategy – e.g. on Facebook or Google’s AdWords?)
• Who else is after your target audience? (Who are my competitors?)

I think you’ll now start to realise that it takes a lot of planning, money and knowledge to get your website to work for you.

Concluding

So, next time you click on a link like: “How to make a million dollars with your website in 20 minutes”, you’ve helped the owner of the website to achieve her goal – getting traffic to her site. It’s good for her business (ad income), although not many users will return or register with her site. Then again, there’s billions or other users looking to make money online…

If it’s too good to be true, it is probably just that. To make honest money online takes a lot of time and resilience.

Remember, you need a well researched and written Business Plan to get your business off to a good start!

Read also: 7 Steps to Start an Online Business

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Video: Raiken Profit