Planning a Website to Make Money

Planning a website is one of the most overlooked aspects of creating an online presence. Over the years, I've planned and created dozens of work related websites, mostly for educational organizations or to provide online training or instruction like an online class. But my personal interest in web development is in creating an online business or money making website so this guide will be slanted in that direction.

The principles discussed for planning a website to make money, however, are applicable to any kind of website whether it's one for the local little league, a personal website, or for a Fortune 500 corporation. No matter what you want from your website, getting it to do the things you want it to will depend largely on how well you plan for your website success.

If you're trying to make money from your website then success will be easy to measure... you'll be earning income every month and that's a great thing! How much income your site earns will depend on the type of website you choose, how well you plan your website, the research you do on keywords and competition, and finding the right site concept or niche to be successful.

Planning a website and doing the requisite research are extremely important for a money making website because there are a couple of extra steps involved compared to making a website for a local club or your softball team.

What You Need to Know Before Creating a Website

What kind of website should I create?
How much will my website cost?
What knowledge and skills must I have?
Are there any legal requirements I should know about?
What web platform should I use? A Blog? A traditional website?
What is the best way to make money with my website?

Following the steps outlined here will help you achieve success.

Steps to Planning A Website to Make Money

Step 1. Business Goals
When planning a website, it is vital to connsider what you're hoping to achieve as a business in the next 24 months. If you're very clear in what you want to achieve as a business, then you can begin to think about the ways that your website will help you achieve this. Read more about business goals here...

Step 2. Objectives for your Website
If you don't know the objectives of your website, you won't know whether or not you've achieved them and you won't know how to build your website so you can accomplish your objectives. A business website could have several purposes.

• Advertise and Sell Products. If you want to generate sales, you can focus on the benefits of the products you're selling. This type of site may concentrate on providing information about the products for sale and the price. You should use a shopping cart for ease of ordering.
  
  
• Promote and Sell Your Services. You may want your website to provide visitors with information about the services you provide and how they can benefit the visitor or your site. If your service lends itself to selling online, you could make sales directly from the website or use it to drive visitors to your offline business.
  
  
• Provide Information. Content sites educate visitors with articles, information, and resources as a way to pre-sell products and services. Content websites are typically designed to earn income from Google AdSense or to earn commissions through affiliate marketing programs. My Old-Woodworking-Tools website is a good example of this. I earn money from Google ads and through affiliate programs on the site.
  
  
• Enhance Company Image and Provide Company Information. Perhaps you want to create a website that provides information about your company, the products or services that you provide, general contact information, customer support, etc. This type of web site can be used to enhance your company image and build credibility, drive traffic to your offline business, or boost brand awareness.

Step 3. Website Planning
A website should focus on the needs of your customers as opposed to the products and services that your company provides.

3a. Knowing Your Target Audience?

Once you've identified the things you want your website to achieve, it will now be possible to identify the key audiences for your site. Identifying your target audience and their needs is a very important step before building your website. Think about the potential visitors to your site. Who are they? What information do they need? How old are they? Male or Female? Are they existing customers or new customers?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help in determining the look, structure, content, keywords, and design that you build into your website. The more you know about your audience and their needs, the more relevant you will be able to make your website.

While all of the groups below may be important to you, some will take priority if your are to achieve your website objectives. Your key user groups may include:

• Existing customers
• Prospects (new customers)
• Suppliers
• Stakeholders
• Partners and associates
• Club members
• PTA members
• Prospects interested in the products featured on my website
• People interested in old woodworking tools

Try to be as specific as you can as you describe the key groups.

Rank the key user groups in terms of their importance to achieving your website objectives. Consider how important each group is when compared to your website objectives. Your website can cater to all users, but some will be a higher priority for you and this should be reflected in your website plan.

3b. What will users of your website want to do?

Now that you've identified the key groups in the audience for your website, you can begin to identify the specific tasks that they will complete at your website.

Users visit a website to perform specific tasks and when planning a website these tasks need to be identified so that users who visit the site are satisfied. By identifying these specific tasks, the pages, content, and other services that your website will need, can be identified.

After identifying what you users will want to do when they visit your website, answer the following questions about what you will need to make that happen.

• What pages will it require to achieve this on my site
• What content will be needed on those pages?
• What services will be needed on my website?
• How will I monetize the website so

4. Keyword and Competition Analysis (For money making websites)

Information on keyword analysis coming soon.

More Articles on Planning Your Website

• Website Topics
• Types of Websites
• Blogs as Wesbsites
• Wordpress as a Website
• Blooger as a Website
• Website Objectives
• The Right Website Niche

 

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