Saturday, August 25, 2012

Sarah Is Back Building Websites

Hi everyone, It is Sarah here once again.

It has been a while since I have posted on this website and it is good to be back.  

I had to take some time off while my eye recovered from an operation.  What I did not expect to happen was for both eyes to be effected when only one was operated on, I was down to a metre and a half of clear vision and the rest of the world was a blur.  During that time all my websites went down and there was nothing I could do about it.  Well, after 18 months, I have the good eye back to a fair quality of sight, but the other one is going backwards so a new operation is coming up.  It will be fine!

The workshop is a bit dusty I have been away so long.  

Well not really, I made a big move from Tasmania to Mainland Australia.  They have trains over here and you can hear and feel them from miles away.  It took a little getting used to at first. The Trains lead direct into Melbourne and the trams make getting around fairly easy when I get there.  Just hope I find my way back to the train after going to the Eye Hospital in another two weeks.  

Everything here takes so long to get to, compared with Tasmania.  There, you are on top of the mountain with a fantastic view of the land and sea one minute and down at the waters edge in under half an hour.  Here there is nothing but land for as far as you can see.  What we used to call creeks, here they call rivers.  What we used to call shrub they call forest.  Where Tasmanians would welcome a newcomer into the community and were a friendly mob, here people keep to them selves, except for the few Tasmanians I have bumped into in the town.

I guess that is a blessing, because I have been planning websites.

Months of keyword research, finding good Domain names and sourcing plugins and themes for the new websites.  There is still a lot of work to be done before I even start writing.  I know I could put up a simple sight, sell a cheap ebook and build a list just like the other marketers, but I want my websites to be more.  I want them to give value to my customers.  By the time I have built and tested even these first four websites I am going to feel like an expert.

A website also requires products, either the type you give away, that link back to your website, just so customers don't forget who you are, or the big products you research and write or video that you sell.  This always takes time.  So in the mean time I have been sourcing lists of relevant affiliate products that I can sell on my sites.  

After all I have birds to feed and one day a house to build, or was that houses.

It is important to have a dream, something that keeps you motivated to stick to your goals. I dream of building a community for like minded people.  A group of houses with a huge a community gathering hall, with a workshop, barbecues and gardens with a fire pit where everyone can sit around at night and tell yarns or sing.  No one would know I built it, because I am just one of the group, just like everyone else.  Of course this will take a lot of money and my goal is to get it, even if I have to build lots of websites to do so.

You also need a belief in what you are doing, a clear picture even if it is written down on a large sheet of paper.  I have a large sketch pad for drawing up my plans, hard cover note books for recording research or taking notes and folders on the computer for all the products and files that I need to keep.  I use visual tick off lists to make sure things get done on each site I build.  This way things get done.

I had no idea how to build websites a short time ago, I would just write, try to use keywords that I was given by the so called teachers, who repeatedly resold the same websites to everyone and expected them to draw traffic to those websites, but copy cat websites do not work.  You have to almost rewrite your old content or get paid traffic to make any sales.  

That is not the way to get a website.

You must write unique content.  So it is handy to write about something you are passionate about.  When you read or see news articles or find information on your topic, you understand what is being said and you can give your impression about the topic  when you write website articles for your site.  

My first four websites all relate to each step in how to build websites yet they are different topics.  Here you are just getting a taste of what is to come.

It is important to keep the main theme of a website on one topic, with your categories related to the main theme.  Let me give you an example.  Your topic is apples, you can have a category for types of apples, on growing apples, even on cooking apples as long as you mention apples and relate each post to apples in some form or another.  (Of course I would use apples for an example, I know all about apples, I come from the "apple state" and we had orchards back then).  The point I want to get across is have one theme or niche for your website and stay on topic.

You can expand on this theory a bit if you plan on building a website on Fruit.  As you write about all the different types of fruit, how to grow all the different fruit or how to cook the fruit, you can tag every article that mentioned apples, or fruit trees rather than ground cover fruits or fruit jams and then all those articles would show up on the tag page, giving you more use of your website.  This is when planning your website takes on a whole new meaning and this is the type of website I am planning.  Not necessarily fruit though.  Then again!

As you can see there can be a lot to building an authority website.

So lets wrap this up.  Plan your website, research your topic and find keywords that get searched on your topic, but are not written about as much.  Find or build information products, in your niche that people are interested in that solve a problem and most of all keep your website relevant to the topic or theme of the website. Then there are graphics and videos you can make for your website.

Sarah's Workshop is designed to take you through these steps, so look out for various articles coming up and updates on the new websites I am building.

Sarah