1. Start With Something That Interests You
2. Narrow Your Focus
3. Research Your Topic
4. Find Your Keyword
5. Establish A Theme
6. Write An Introduction
7. Establish A Presence
8. Promote Your Site
9. Deliver Quality Content
10. Create Life-Long Customers
1. Start With Something That Interests You
The first, and always most important step on the path to success is to Start With Something That Interests You. This seems so obvious and yet often times it is completely overlooked when people begin new ventures, whether it's a new business, a vacation, or a career. You will never know success and happiness if you are doing something you don't like.
If you can't figure out how something that interests you can make you money right now, don't worry. By the time you have established a solid, lasting Web presence, you'll know how to make money from it. For now, just find something that you like.
Once you have identified something that interests you, you're ready for the next step...
2. Narrow Your Focus
Once you have found something that interests you, the next critical step is to Narrow Your Focus. This is of such high importance because thousands of companies, organizations or individuals may all be competing against you if your topic is too general.
For example, if you decide that you're really interested in golf, a quick search on Yahoo! brings up more than 78 million golf-related websites. So if you decide to create the "All About Golf" web site, you will be one of 78 million providers of this information.
Now, narrowing your focus to, let's say, "golf equipment," narrows the search (again on Yahoo!) to only 930,000 "golf equipment" websites. This right away narrows your competition from 78 million down to only 930,000. Now that's still a lot of competition, so you may want to narrow your focus even further than that. A quick search finds that "used golf equipment" yields 23,900 results, while "discount golf equipment" brings more than 55,000.
"Golf techniques," on the other hand, brings up about 5,490 matches on Yahoo!.
(If you don't like golf, and can't understand why anyone would be interested in it, you can start a "golf sucks" website, and your competition will only be about 831.)
So you can see the value of narrowing your focus, and finding a "niche" market.
Once you have narrowed your focus (and still have a subject you're intersted in), you're ready to...
3. Research Your Topic
4. Find Your Keyword
5. Establish A Theme
6. Write An Introduction
These first six steps are key to establishing a long-term presence on the Internet. Note that these six steps all take place before you even start building your website. Take the time to do these steps right, and it will make everything else much simpler.
7. Establish A Presence
8. Promote Your Site
9. Deliver Quality Content
10. Create Life-Long Customers
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