Making money via a website for beginner advice needed

mrsyardbroom

If you build a website around an interest you can have a lot of fun doing it and the visitors will come. It does take time to get your site listed in google and to get the traffic but if you work at it you will succeed. I absolutely hate CMS. I find it far better to have a knowledge of HTML, php and javascript and build the site with an HTML editor. I use FrontPage 2003. A lot of people poo poo it but I find it's easy to use. You can flip between the code and display modes easily and just hit f12 to preview the page you're working on. The only problem with FrontPage is that if you're using the display mode to write new content the program tends to put in a fair amount of unnecessary code. Dreamweaver is supposed to be good web editing software but it is expensive.

InsideInsurance

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

I find it far better to have a knowledge of HTML, php and javascript and build the site with an HTML editor. I use FrontPage 2003. A lot of people poo poo it but I find it's easy to use.

The use of a CMS really isnt just about ease of use but also speed of use.

For anything beyond 3 pages of static content a CMS based site will almost certainly be quicker to deploy than a hand coded or 3rd party mashup.

I am not a fan of them either but cannot deny if I had an ecommerce site and wanted to add a forum which uses the same log in details, reports any system/ security etc violations to the same event log etc this would be a 5 minute job using a decent CMS but a significant job of either coding from scratch or taking an opensource solution and having to rewrite the logging and security aspects to harmonise with the existing ecommerce site.

Terry_Bam

For any beginner I would suggest the use of wordpress. You can have a site up in a matter of minutes using wordpress and a simple install process from the host. You can then post articles etc as and then you wish and its very easy to update

Lienshare_2

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Depends what you define as "making money online". If you are literally taking about making 1p a month then yes you can do that with no planning, no research but potentially a fair amount of effort. I have seen hundreds of sites that were built without the fore work and most dont even pay their domain/ hosting costs because whilst technically the person knew how, for example, to make a reverse telephone lookup they didnt think how to generate traffic, income etc.

Most people want to maximise their return on investment and to do that you either need to be very lucky or do the leg work up front. Failing to plan is planning to fail (to maximise the opportunity). For the sake of a couple of sheets of paper, a 7p biro and a few hours of your time is it really worth skipping?

I own a Wordpress Blog plus I write for two other people and their Blogs and get a share of the revenue generated.
Okay it isn't something that you can do overnight but with a bit of tenacity and the willingness to learn something like this then it's absolutely possible to make a decent income online.
I do and I know through my network of friends and business colleagues many others that do to.

This can be done within a year.

I do have a Business Plan, I have to but for the OP of this Post he doesn't necessarily need one.
If he likes using Facebook then the ideal scenario would be to continue using Facebook and create a Fan Page.

There is no need to know CMS, about the only thing that will come in handy is learning about HTML Code but even then it isn't really necessary.

Costs if you want to run a hosted site is a domain name and hosting. Cheapest place to buy a DM from is GoDaddy and for hosting Hostgator.
Then install Wordpress which is Free, this will be on the Cpanel ready to be installed on the server, all you have to do is follow the instructions.

I have a dedicated server which is slightly different again.

Terry_Bam

I don't have much knowledge of the facebook fan style pages but I would think a website would offer more opportunities for monetization and in turn becomes an asset in itself.

Lienshare_2

Terry_Bam wrote: »

I don't have much knowledge of the facebook fan style pages but I would think a website would offer more opportunities for monetization and in turn becomes an asset in itself.

In that case decide on what you going to write about or base it on your Group.
Start by writing some content first as you will need some to put on your site.
I would go the Wordpress Route as this is the simplest.
Decide on a Domain Name, go to GoDaddy then decide what sort of hosting you will require.
Hostgator does give the best prices for Hosting no matter what country you are from.

hostgator.com/shared.shtml

Jingo

I have to agree with Lienshare (and not just because I live in the same town) and others here. I spent several years learning HTML, CSS, PHP, etc, and over the years have built myself numerous websites. All of them have now been converted to Wordpress because it is just so much easier to make site-wide changes quickly than if working with HTML and CSS files (even if you have good template set up). Wordpress is very good at pretending to be a cms and after just a few days practice is very simple to use. Wordpress also handles SEO well (even better with a few free plugins added).

I have several websites, all of which make money (enough for me to live well on...) The most important thing to remember if you plan to earn online income solely from advertising is that it takes time and effort. If you have something to sell or plan to earn from subscribers, etc, that is slightly different. In that case, you could draw traffic from Adwords and start earning straight away (do some studying up on how Adwords works first though...).

Facebook, be it group, profile or page, can really help to drive traffic to a website. But in my opinion, that is all it should be used for: marketing a proper website.

scaredy_cat

how do you get paid though website advertising? does it have to go though a special account or via paypal?

Mr_Soft

scaredy_cat wrote: »

how do you get paid though website advertising? does it have to go though a special account or via paypal?

If it's Adsense based, Google will pay it directly into your bank account, or issue a cheque.

Remm

If you are happy to then it might be worth starting a self-hosted Wordpress.org website. Fully customisable but that might take a bit of tech know-how. I've set up a number of blogs/sites this way and they make a fair bit of money per month.

If you are going to blog then look into Social Spark, Ebuzzing and Unruly Media. All will pay you to post videos/content if you have good traffic. Sometimes around £100 per post.