One of the most lucrative business models of the day, that takes very little in start up costs, usually about $10 a month for hosting is an online business. The best and most standard options for earning online is to use a website or blog. Webmasters build sites that evolve around niches or topics. With the huge amount of traffic potential and exposure the Internet provides, the possibilities are endless.
The online business is not taught in schools and there is no degree, most of us are self-taught utilizing the many free resources and free webmaster tools that teach and provide support for webmastering, Internet marketing and web design.
Many are put off from building websites because they think they need to know code. This is not true, there are so many great ways to build websites and blogs, that do not require any knowledge of code, programming or design, so most anyone who is willing to work hard and put in the time necessary can succeed online. There are also tons of free places to get website templates so they design element is much easier and there is no coding knowledge required.
Sometimes we all come across some atrocious websites that contain common mistakes made by webmasters. Some of these mistakes are in website design and may cause visitors to leave. Other times they are mistakes in promotion, where webmasters do not perform the required tasks for SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, which, when done correctly, is what enables websites to rank high in Search Engine Page Results (SERPS) and what brings the precious traffic that is necessary for success.
3 Top Webmaster Tasks
1. The Crucial Task of Link Building for SEO
Higher SERP ranks are the main benefits of SEO which are achieved through external links from other sites to yours. The anchor text is the most important part of the link. The anchor text must contain the keywords the site wants to rank for.
Those that do not optimize the link anchor with the correct and relevant site keywords end up with low or nonexistant SERP rankings.
2. The Best Website Design Practices
Another crucial task is to ensure good design with pleasing colors and good navigation.
a) Colors – Colors are crucial for web design, for the look as well as usability of the site. A solid example of this is using black backgrounds with red or neon pink font that is harsh and irritating for the eyes. It is hard to read with those colors and may force visitors to flee.
The best option is white or light background and black text or vice versa.
b) Navigation – Another big mistake is to have confusing or worse non-existent navigation of all the content on the site. The website navigation needs to be clear with either toop nav bars, left sidebar or right sidebar navigation. The colors should also emphasize the navigation area, distinguishing its existence from the rest of the site. Traffic needs to be able to find all the content your site has to offer quickly and easily. The Internet visitor has a very short attention span and needs to find content quickly or they will leave.
3. Content
Lack of fresh, original and keyword relevant content is a typical newbie mistake. Deep webpages, those that have lots of pages are better for visitor retention. The search engines feed on good content and favor it in the SERPS.
The more content you have the more opportunity you will have for exposure to the ads, affiliate links, blog RSS buttons and whatever other actions you want visitors to perform.
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