One of the most common mistakes, which people make when attempting to monetize (giving a website the ability to earn revenue) their website is just immediately adding adverts onto the website, before they optimize their site!

When you decide to start advertising on your website, you first need to optimize your website to handle these adverts. There are so many little things, which if neglected will lead to a very bad beginning and possibly no growth.

Domain Name
The domain name you choose is important, don’t neglect this. Try and choose a domain name, which relates to the topic you are planning the website to be about.  Something I have learnt through my experience is that a .com domain name will often lead to the most traffic. COZA domain names are fine, but when you are looking for international readers, you should invest in a .com domain name. I have tested this theory many times, and it’s 100% true! You can register a .co.za domain name here, and a .com domain name here.

Title
It is crucial that you select a decent title for your website. The title is what appears between the <title></title> tags in your websites source code. If your website is about fishing, for example, make sure the title is something along the lines of ‘Fishing for fun’. It does not only allow search engines to understand your website better, it gives your readers a good idea about your website, before they begin reading anything. Secondly, many advertising agencies allow you to display adverts relative to how they read your website, the first thing they’ll read is your title!

Meta tags
Meta tags are embedded key words, which describe your website. They are single words, separated by commas, giving you a chance to summarize your website using single words or short phrases. An example of some meta tags for this website would be: <meta name=“keywords” content=“Webtrepreneur, money, earn, online” /> When a search engine searches for websites based on a users search criteria, the meta tags are viewed, and you have a better chance of being found in a search. Here is a little meta tag generator, which will save you a lot of time.

Content
Content is key! When you are running a website about fishing, make sure you stay on the topic of fishing. Mention common fishing terms as often as possible, as search engines learn your website based on content. Apart from that, people will return to a website with useful content, and content which is well written and correctly phrased.

Valid XHTML & CSS
If you are designing and programming the website yourself, and have chosen not to use wordpress, for example, it is absolutely crucial that you use correct xhtml (A stricter version of html) and css (cascading style sheets). xhtml and css allow for a clean design, which allows search engines to read through your website, picking up correct content a great deal easier than a website which has not been designed or programmed correctly! Here are two wonderful tutorials: xhtml | css.

There are several other topics which need to be covered before we get onto choosing which adverts to place on your website, and how to make them fit in correctly, these topics will be covered in my next post.

Welcome to Webtrepreneur.co.za

Making money online has become extremely popular around the world. By this I am not referring to these scams where you pay for a service, which you can then offer, I am referring to making money via your website or webblog.

There are already a number of websites on the Internet already, which offer advice on making money online, but with all my years of experience as a web programmer and entrepreneur, I still find it hard to follow exactly what all these websites are trying to explain. I have also found that the websites are far into their lives, and the basics have been and gone.

Webtrepreneur will provide simple information regarding making money with your website or blog, from the beginning!

I will be updating this website at least once a day with interesting links, great content, and useful ways to make money online.

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