Easy ways to make money with a web site
How do you make money with a web site? Understandably finding easy ways to make money with a web site is something every budding web designer wants to know, so how do you make money with a web site? Nobody is keener to know this than my mate's 12 year old son George Day, who lives in Watford, Herts in England. I had a rather lengthy conversation with him on messenger about this, so here it is and I hope it helps:
George had just got back from a summer holiday:
Rick: where did u go?
George: oh bout 1 hours from malaga a place called salobrena
Rick: oh right - haven't been down there for ages
George: where's your caravan
George: hey did u no there a new version of dreamweaver out
Rick: Vinaros - sue wrote a bit about it on my motorhome site http://www.motorhomesdirect.co.uk/spain/peniscola.htm
George: you have a motor home site ?
Rick: yes mate
George: how much does it cost to host all these sites
Rick: i have a virtual server which is about £450/year, but you can do it cheaper
Rick: i keep all my sites on that
George: how much space do you have on that
Rick: unlimited
Rick: these people are cheaper http://www.123-reg.co.uk/affiliate.cgi?id=AF20643
Rick: some of my sites have 10,000+ pages and are about 5Gb
George: wow, how long did it take you to design all of them
Rick: a few years!! although some cheating went on with the big ones
George: what do u mean
Rick: creating pages with PHP from a database etc
George: oh write
Rick: the motorhome site earns about £250/month from google adsense alone
George: wow
Rick: and I get 4% of the hire fees
George: cool
George: are u gonna get the new Macromedia suite - version 8
Rick: absolutely - dead easy to integrate RSS feeds into web pages etc. hang on just talking to your dad
George: oh ok - is he online
Rick: yeah
Rick: he doesn't know how to use it though
George: (laughing)
Rick: hang on gotta reboot
George: how come
Rick: just installing adobe audition
George: what the new cool edit pro
Rick: yep
George: how come a week after i leave you get more good software
Rick: do you want it?
George: yeah and the new dreamweaver (nd can you use flash cause that's confusing trying to figure it out)
Rick: haven't got DW yet
George: yeah true
George: can u use flash ?
Rick: yes, but I don't anymore - search engines don't like it
George: what do you mean
Rick: see http://www.ricklomas.com/seo/golden-rules-seo.htm
George: where do you get your virtual sever
Rick: tollon.net/hosting/nt-web-hosting.shtml
Rick: you can host on linux too
George: cool, that's useful
Rick: 123-reg is probably better for yourself though - do a site about something you like - fill it full of useful content and look at google.com/adsense to make money - I earned US$600 last month
George: how come?
Rick: if people click the ads - you get paid - that's it - the ads are geo targeted and come up relative to your text on that page
George: so when someone clicks you get money, man I am definitely gonna do that
George: what do u think i could do a site on
Rick: you are leaving money on the table if you don't!
Rick: u may have to lie about your age though
George: why how old are u supposed to be
George: doh!
Rick: not sure 16/18 something like that - look at http://www.ricklomas.com/change-xp-taskbar.htm this was just copied out of the history from messenger, but that page earns enough to buy a few beers
Rick: original text is the key to successful web sites
George: hey what stop me going to the library and just clicking on the links over and over again
Rick: even better - encourage readers to contribute to the site e.g. classified ads or something
Rick: clicking at the library will work a bit...but multiple clicks from the same IP address will get your account suspended
George: what do you do if your account is suspended
Rick: your google adsense account will be stopped and you won't get paid!!
George: how do u get it back working
Rick: groveling?? best to just build honest content and get genuine traffic
George: yeah true
Rick: there used to be loads of ways to make money using the net - but you always get sussed out
George: (laughing)
George: what do u think i should do a site on
Rick: dunno - pcs games, whatever you are into
Rick: steer clear of porn and gambling though - not really worth it - to many people doing dishonest stuff
George: well rick i don't think there the kinds of site id want to make at the moment - (laughing)
Rick: i know - it's not a moral issue, just a business one
George: yeah - how do u get your site from dreamweaver to www.????.co.uk
Rick: you use dreamweaver's FTP thing
Rick: put and get commands
George: so you buy the domain from the 123-reg place then use dreamweaver to get it there
Rick: yep
George: and i suppose you use that to update it as well
Rick: of course - it's just copying files from one computer to another
George: cool, so its a well of a lot easier than people think
Rick: yes - but designing sites that search engines like is another matter
George: hell of a lot easier*
George: so what kind of things do you need to have on the site to make search engines like it
Rick: ok search for 'ebay snowboards' tell me who comes top
George: that's your site
Rick: yep - i get paid for people buying/bidding and registering the stuff on there
Rick: the main thing is it's a good key phrase 'ebay snowboards' which i found using www.wordtracker.com - the free version is fine
George: so you need to have titles which are very popular searches
Rick: and i use that phrase in the <title> tag and the <h1> tag
George: h1?
Rick: it would be better to write my own content, but the ebay content works too
Rick: H1 tags - standard HTML, you will understand when you start using dreamweaver
George: oh ok where do they appear
George: do you write your sites in html
Rick: dreamweaver does it for you ...click view>source in your browser, you can see where <h1>ebay snowboards</h1> is
George: so is the h1 tag the same as the title
Rick: yes - certainly google likes that
Rick: also calling the page ebay-snowboards.htm helps too
George: so basically if you name your page a popular search and you make the h1 tag it and name the file it you'll be high in the google results
Rick: even having a image on the page called ebay-snowboards.jpg helps especially if the alt tag is "ebay snowboards"
Rick: however you have missed the point slightly
George: how does Dreamweaver know to make the h1 tag ebay snowboards
Rick: it doesn't - you do it
Rick: it's not exactly a popular term you are looking for
Rick: you are looking for a phrase that a lot of people look for, but not many sites are optimised for
George: ok
Rick: it;'s called the KEI - keyword effectiveness index
George: ok
Rick: www.wordtracker.com explains this
Rick: as far as basic page design goes, look at www.123promotion.co.uk
Rick: that site is brilliant - it's by a guy i have worked with - he's brilliant
George: cool
Rick: all this isn't money for nothing - it is actually quite hard work, but it's a real buzz when you get paid
George: well especially for me cause i don't get paid for anything
Rick: I have always said that you get out of life what you put into it - hard work gives rewards!! I've gone philosophical now!
George: (laughing)
George: u do no that now i've got my mind set on making a web site and making money I am gonna be asking you things all the time about Dreamweaver and advise and how to do things
Rick: that's fine - although I think you are capable of teaching yourself everything you need to know
George: yeah but its always nice to have someone who's done it before and knows how to get it right
George: this is the closest i've got to a my own web site (jake did absolutely nothing except tell me what the top en were i still had to go and do the page) knutsford.herts.sch.uk/childrenspages/SiteCentral/jamesbond/index.html
Rick: absolutely...it's still happening to me all the time.....btw one of my high KEI phrases was "remove drm from wmv" - I'm still in the top 10 for most search engines with that
George: cool
George: i did the james bond expedition bout 1 and half years ago now
Rick: shit that bond thing is horrible - it crashed firefox!
George: i no
George: it was my first and to date only web site did it on some crap program called site central
Rick: lots of text (450 words/page is good) - no javascript - use CSS as much as possible - that's the way to go
George: what's css
Rick: http://www.ricklomas.com/cascading-style-sheets-css.htm
Rick: it's all to do with keeping your code neat - by putting all the stuff you use often in one css file
George: so is a css file a bit like a custom made template
Rick: sort of - look for the <link href="css/ricklomas.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> type of tag in the source of web pages
Rick: you can just steal someone else's stylesheet and modify it
George: so is that the your css file for that page
Rick: it's here http://www.ricklomas.com/css/ricklomas.css
Rick: best prog to open it with is topstyle
George: well that links opened itself in Dreamweaver
Rick: yep
Rick: you can get topstyle from here fosi.cdkbreeze.com/
George: so how can i apply that css file to a web page
Rick: save it and then you link to it using the css palette in DW - it's the first little icon at the bottom of that palette
George: ok
Rick: window>css styles if you can't see it already
Rick: and then on the page highlight something and play about with format and styles in the properties box
Rick: it is WELL worth doing the tutorials in DW
George: sorry just applied that css file to a web site i made with my mate for a laugh about a game and its really changed it
George: how long does it take to all the tutorials
Rick: a day or so, i haven't done the more recent ones, I thing the last one I did was in DW 3!
George: wow that's a while ago
Rick: 2000 i think
Rick: I've been using dreamweaver since V2
George: how much has it changed
Rick: loads
Rick: in the old days, no css, no database stuff, no support for asp, PHP or anything dynamic
George: wow, what was the old Frontpage like
Rick: can't remember - probably not too different to how it is now i.e. writing loads of microsoft specific code and making heavy bloated horrible pages - dreamweaver has always written neat HTML code
Rick: it's much much better IMHO
George: what were the other leading web site creators before Dreamweaver
Rick: hotdog pro was the first one I used
George: is that still around
Rick: yep! sausage.com/hotdog-professional.html
George: have u used that realised
George: recently*
Rick: no not since 1998!
George: (laughing), Dreamweaver must be a hell of a lot better
Rick: you had to edit the HTML and then see the result - very hard work, but good for learning HTML
George: do u no html
Rick: Sort of....it's not like a computer language it's a markup language, just a set of tags really ...I still use DW in the split mode so I can keep an eye on the code
George: oh ok
Rick: you don't need to know much about it really...just know what looks OK and what looks horrible
George: i don't understand html at all
Rick: just keep dreamweaver in that split mode. ...basically a web page is just a text file that could be written in notepad and called page.htm - when you look at it in a browser it renders to look like a web page....it's not rocket science
George: cool
George: i'll be back in a sec, need to do a reboot installed some ms updates
Rick: OK
George: sorry that took so long, windows installed one of their own drivers for my graphics card and it really mucked it up, had to remove it in safe mode took ages
continued...more discussion on how to make money with a web site