The user basically just wanted to know what to do after his website was built.

My thoughts were as follows:

The most important step in building your website is the planning.  A lot of people have great ideas and they just run out and start building.  While that gets you on to the web quickly, it makes it hard to rank at Google and therefore you have lousy traffic.  If we want lots of visitors and  good ranking we need to plan accordingly so that our website is optimized.  This means building your website around keywords that your visitors will use to find you on Google.

A brief look at the overall process:

1.Deciding on your niche and keyword research. (Extremely important)  You will use your keywords to design your web pages.

2. Choosing a domain, also very important, try to include your main keyword in your domain

3. Choosing a reliable hosting service.

4. Choosing a site builder of software that you are comfortable with.

5. Building and optimizing your website.  Building traffic.  (Building traffic is a topic in itself, you need to be active in forums, post articles, join article directories etc…)

Now obviously there is much too much to cover in an email, but here are a few items….

In terms of keyword research and choosing your niche….it is great to already have a topic but you must make sure that it is a topic that visitors want.  Very important.
So you need to find out what people are looking for when they search your topic.  If there isn’t a lot of people searching  for your topic on the web then…you can create a great site but you won’t have any visitors.  So you must be careful.

To research your topic you can use Google adwords Keyword tool.  Here is the link.  It is totally free.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

The best research tool that I have found is Market Samurai.  Not only does it do the research but it also analyzes your competition  and how many links they have.(very important).   There is a free trial period.  Here is the link.  http://www.marketsamurai.com/c/Marketdata

In terms of purchasing your domain, they are all kind of the same.  However I would choose a domain at the same place that I am going to host my website.  It is just more convenient.  No other reason really.

In terms of a site builder or website host I have tried several things.  My preference is SBI as a site builder.  I used SBI to build www.you-make-a-website.com

Take a quick video tour of SBI, http://videotour.sitesell.com/Enterprise4.html

It has features for beginners as well as those with advanced skills.  In addition the SBI price includes your domain, it includes website hosting, website submission to search engines, it has a keyword research tool for free, it has everything that you need to get started.  If you need help, I can help you with that also.  As mentioned before I use it now on one of my sites.

I have also built a websites without a site builder.   This is the option to choose if you want to do it without any help at all.   I use Kompozer  (http://www.kompozer.net/) as my Web page software/HTML editor.  It is free.   For a hosting service for my second website I used and now recommend Hostgator.  Here is the link.

http://secure.hostgator.com/~affiliat/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=steeloblk

I list the other hosting services on my website (check out the best hosting web page).  I think Hostgator is the best though.

There is more stuff but I have given you the basics.   In addition to the above information, my website has tons of other things you should read up on.  Don’t be in a rush, this beginning stage is very important if you want to rank well.

Warren

Note: this was just a brief reply to an email.  Should anyone have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me using my contact page email.

I don’t think that it is that hard but it does take time.   The process is manageable.

Just think, internet advertising earned Google 20 billion last year.    Part of this money could be yours.  Google shared that amount with its friends.  Any ideas with whom?  It shared its revenue with the site and blog owners that had Google Adsense ads on them.   After you have built your website, there could be some money waiting for you too.

I see the blueprints for your website now.  The only thing that you really need to bring to the table is your ideas and your passion.  You don’t have to be an expert.  If you are not as knowledgeable as you would like to be, don’t worry.  The first thing that you need to do is research your idea.  One tool that you can use to help is Google’s Adword Keyword Tool.   This tool allows you to identify keywords that are in demand and what advertisers are paying for them.  Confirmation of strong advertising and demand is important.

Next, carefully choose a domain name and select a website host.   Don’t rush; choosing your domain does take some thought.  You want to choose a name that will please both human visitors and the search engine spiders.  You do this by creating a domain name that is catchy for humans and keyword laced for the spiders.   Moving right along, you also want to decide on a home for your website, a website host.

Finally, choose some web page software and start building.  It does not matter if you don’t have an HTML background.  If you have it great, if you don’t it is not a problem.   Obviously I have given you the abbreviated version of the process.  It does take some time and hard work to make a website but you can do it.  All you really need to get started is your passion and the desire.