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Welcome! I'm guessing you're visiting my site because you want to learn how to build a website - one that gets traffic and makes money.

If you're not interested in creating a website, you're welcome to stick around - but be warned :) - this site is focused entirely on showing how to plan, build, promote, and profit from a website.

A quick introduction - my name is
Tim Feijer and I've been creating websites as a hobby since 2005. (That's me in the picture...)

Over the years, I've learned a lot about creating successful websites - one of my sites now receives more than 2800 visitors a day!

I love building websites - and it's a great hobby - there aren't many hobbies where you can make good money (rather than spend it).

When my family and friends learn that I build websites - and that I make money from them - they want me to teach them to build a website!

Over the years, I've taught several of them - and some are almost making more money than me now! What can I say? The system works!

Just like your favorite apple pie is made by following your 'tried and true' recipe, there's a tried and true 'recipe' to follow when building a website. If you follow the 'recipe', your site will be successful.

It's now come to the point where I don't have the time to personally teach everyone who asks me for help with creating a website.

For that reason, I decided to build a website about building websites :).

On this site, I'll teach you how to plan, build, promote, and profit from a website. If you follow the 'recipe' that I outline on this site, there's no reason why you cannot build a successful website!

How to Plan For a Successful Website

If you're going to create a successful website, you need to start at the beginning - with planning. I know, I know... I'm stating the obvious...

But I mentioned that because, even though it's so 'obvious', you'd be amazed at the number of people who fail to properly plan for building their site, and then are surprised when their website fails!?!

They just show how true the proverb 'those who fail to plan, plan to fail' is and how planning is the key to success - in everything you do!

Once you're sure you have what it takes to build your own website, and you understand the basics of building a website, it's time for you to do some brainstorming - thinking about a topic for your site.

When deciding on a topic for your website, it's important to choose a niche that you are both knowledgeable AND passionate about.

Trust me - you'll find it very hard to create an original, informative, and interactive site (which are all key to being successful) about a topic you either don't know a lot about or aren't very interested in.

Once you've sorted through your ideas and decided on a website topic, you should focus on making a detailed website plan.

This website plan should include setting site goals, outlining your website structure, and planning what keywords you want to target.

How to Construct an Effective Website

Once you have a plan in place for your website, you are ready to start deciding on your site design - how you want your site to look.

With all the free (or very reasonably priced) website templates available online - I would recommend you use them to design your website.

These site templates require little (if any) coding skills, and usually include clear tutorials to show you how to modify the template if you wish. For more help, you can check out the HTML tutorials section of this website.

Choosing your website design is important, but don't waste too much time on this step. Spending hours and hours trying to find the 'perfect' color combination or website design is NOT worth the time.

A 'flashy' and 'cool' design is not necessary for your website to be successful. A neat and clean looking website will do just fine!

After deciding on a design, you will need to choose a domain name and select a web host provider. Once you have a domain name and host, you are ready to upload your website - you are ready for visitors!

Write Quality Content for Your Website Visitors

In the real world, location is key. If you build something in a good location, you will be successful - 'build it and they will come'.

It is different online. On the web, information (read: content) is key. If your website has good content, it will become a successful site.

If you want to get visitors to come to your website, you have to start writing quality content. Not just any content - QUALITY content.

People look for information online - answers to their problems. If you provide original, interesting, and informative content on your site, you can be sure that visitors (traffic) will come (and return).

One of the critical mistakes you need to avoid is your website being similar to all the other sites on your specific topic. For your site to be successful, you must stand out in your niche - be uniquely you!

Also, make sure your passion about your topic shows - your visitors will easily be able to tell if you know (and love) the topic you are writing about - or if you are just trying to sell them on something.

If you are having trouble with writing content, or if writing has never been your strong suit, I suggest the Netmasters Writing Course.

In addition to making your content 'pleasing' to your visitors, you also need to make it optimized for the search engines.

How to Increase Traffic to Your Website

If you have done a good job of planning and building your website, and if you are adding quality content to it, you will see your traffic increase.

That's great because targeted traffic is key to a successful website. The more targeted traffic to your site, the more opportunity to profit!

(I'll explain more about how to make money from your targeted traffic later - for now, just focus on getting more traffic to your website.)

Although it is possible to purchase traffic to your website, I would suggest that you focus on getting traffic from the search engines.

Search engine traffic is very targeted - and best of all - free! :)

One of the keys to getting search engines to send you traffic is to build links to your site. I'll explain this more in the 'building links' section, but basically, the search engines see links to your site as 'votes' for it.

The more 'votes' your site has (and the more it has from other quality sites), the more likely you will rank high in the search engines when someone searches for information on your topic/niche.

While search engines will probably be the main source of targeted traffic to your website, make sure that you have at least some other sources of traffic - don't put all your eggs in one basket!

Building Links is Vital for Website Success

If your goal is to increase the number of visitors to your site, you need to focus on building links. Link building results in targeted traffic.

As you work on linking, focus on three specific areas: links coming in to your website, your internal linking, and links from your site to other sites.

By getting other websites to link to your website, you are likely to increase your visitors from the search engines and from that website.

Search engines view links to your site from other sites as 'votes' by those webmasters. The more 'votes' you have from other sites (especially from quality sites in your niche) the more likely you are to rank high in the search engines for keywords related to your topic, and the higher you rank in the search engines, the more traffic you will get.

Also, when a quality site related to your topic links to you, it is likely that some of their visitors will click on that link and visit your site as well!

Links from other websites are not the only important links - internal links are essential to ensure that each of your pages is found by the search engines and that they rank high for their specific keywords.

As you go about finding websites willing to link to your site, remember to also link to other quality sites - ones that you would recommend.

In all this, it is important for you to have a link building strategy to ensure that you are effective in increasing targeted traffic to your site.

Building Relationships with Your Site Visitor

For your website to be successful, you need to grow your credibility and reputation in the niche that you have chosen. Visitors to your site are looking for information - and whether or not they should trust you.

Just think about it - would you trust me to teach you how to build a successful website if I, myself, had never done that before?

In your niche, you want to become the expert that people know and trust - and who they will tell their friends and family about as well!

This trust and authority can only be gained by engaging your site traffic - letting them get to know you and getting to know them.

One of the great ways to engage visitors is by getting them involved. People love to share stuff about themselves - just think about people's tweets and Facebook statuses - so ask them to share their tips, stories, mistakes, advice, experience, dreams... I'm sure you get the point.

As a bonus - this increases the unique content on your site - which other visitors (and the search engines) like. That's a win-win-win situation!

Using social networks (like Facebook and Twitter), is another way to interact with your visitors - and other experts in your niche.

A couple of other great ways to stay in touch with your site visitors is by publishing a newsletter and by using an autoresponder.

If done correctly, engaging your visitors will keep them from forgetting about you. That way, when they have a question about something in your niche, they will think of you and come to you for help and answers!

Making Money from Your Successful Website

You will probably notice that this section on making money from your website comes at the very end. That was purposefully done. :)

There is nothing wrong with profiting from your website - however, you need to remember that you will only make money from your website if you plan it well, build unique content, and gain the trust of your visitors.

With that in mind, and once you have a steady stream of targeted traffic to your site, there are many ways to make money from your website.

A basic starting point is to put ads on your website. You can sell the ad space yourself, or you can partner with companies (like Google Adsense) who will do the sales part for you. Usually you are paid for each 'click' or by the number of visitors who see the ad (the impressions).

If you sell a product or offer a service related to your niche, you can promote them on your website and make money in that way as well.

Additionally, you can promote other peoples products or services. This is known as becoming an affiliate. Basically, you are paid a commission when someone buys a product or service that you recommend.

If you have become an authority in your niche, people will trust your recommendations. Just be careful what you recommend - trust, when it is lost, is very hard to gain back. Ask yourself: "Would I recommend this product or service, even if I was not going to make a commission?"

As traffic to your website increases, you will find there are many ways to make money. Trust me - if you focus on building unique content and engaging your site visitors, the money will come.

To Build a Website - In Conclusion :)

I know this has been a long read so far, but I hope that it has given you a better idea of what it takes to build a successful website.

Building a website is like building a business. It takes hard work and motivation - but you can learn from those who have succeeded.

By sharing what I have learned - both my successes and failures, I will help you plan, build, promote, and profit from a website.

If you are passionate and knowledgeable about a topic and you follow the method I have laid out, you too, can create a website that works!

What Topic Do You Want to Learn More About?