Do I Need A Website To Make Money Online?

Make Money Online

Do I Need A Website To Make Money Online?

The short answer to this very popular question is no, you do not need a website to make money online. However, making use of a website can open up a whole new world of possibilities and in many cases, cut out the middleman allowing for greater profit.

Building a website for commercial reasons is not really hard either, nor does it have to be expensive. All you need basically is some web hosting, a domain name, and the right choice of building tool.

Why Build Your Own Website

There are many reasons why you should choose to build your own website. First and foremost, building your own site means anything you earn fully belongs to you. You (usually) won’t have to pay high commission rates or listing fees.

Most importantly, all your efforts will benefit you in the long run, instead of serving to attract web traffic for someone else, or a third party platform. The initial outlay is minimal and in the long run, far more beneficial.

Some things you can do with your own site include:

  • Monetization through advertising
  • Affiliate marketing or dropshipping
  • Advertising and selling professional services
  • eCommerce
  • Resell web hosting

And more!

What You Need to Build Your Website

Building a successful website needs more than knowledge, but the right mix of tools as well. There are a few core items you’ll need to start off with. These include:

Web Host

One of the most important elements of course, is a web hosting partner. The web host provides the infrastructure for you to build your site on and make it accessible to the public. Not all web hosting companies are equal.

Cloudways Homepage
JaypeeOnline is hosted on Cloudways Managed Hosting

You will find a wide range of web hosts at different prices. Look out for one that fits your budget, but more importantly, offers the right mix of features to suit your needs. Don’t worry too much about resources in the beginning – you can scale those up later by moving to a new hosting plan or partner, if necessary.

Domain Name

The domain name is your website address on the Internet. Aside from offering users an easy way to get to your site, it is representative of your identity. Can you imagine a website selling food called ‘eatcrap.com’? Choose your domain name wisely!

Building Platform

The building platform is what you’ll use to create your site. There are a million and one ways to build websites today – some more difficult than others. The most basic and old school way is to code it by hand. This of course requires knowledge, skill, and experience.

Better options would be to select a platform that’s tailor-made for the kind of site you want to build For example, if you want to build a blog, use WordPress, a popular and very powerful Content Management System (CMS).

For those seeking versatile options, website builders are also a good choice. eCommerce websites can especially benefit from site builders such as Shopify. This helps integrate many features needed for online businesses, including payments processing and product shipping.

Other Tools

Spytool
Free tools can help you analyze the competition to see what technologies they are using

Learning how to build your website can also be an easy process. There are so many instructional articles online today to leverage on. If in doubt, look towards some sites you want to emulate and use tools to analyze the competition.

Getting Customers (a.k.a. Web Traffic)

Once you’ve built your website, it’s time to focus on building your customer base. Competing for web traffic is one of the most important aspects of running a successful website. Remember, it is exactly like sales. The higher the number of potential customers, the more you are likely to earn.

Some ways of boosting your website traffic include:

Site Optimization

When building a site, many people often forget about speed and favor design instead. Speed affects web traffic more than you might think. Search engines favor websites which are faster. Your visitors also won’t appreciate slow responding web pages.

Google Pagespeed Insights
Make use of Google PageSpeed Insights when optimizing a website.

Where possible, cut down on unnecessary design elements and fine tune your website as much as possible to optimize its performance. You can use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to help you see what to improve on.

Build Better Content

Content is the lifeblood of any website. No matter what you’re doing, consider adding a section that will allow you to add content to your site, such as a small blog section. Search engines rely on content as a way to assess websites.

If your content is good, search engines will naturally divert traffic to you. Build content which fills Google’s E-A-T requirements, This means your content should display Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Leverage on Social Media

Although social media platforms often won’t offer “dofollow” links, they are an external indicator for search engines. The more popular you are on social media, the higher chance you’ll rank well too. The social interaction with your content can reflect this.

Don’t forget that there are so many channels available today that it is important to identify the right social network to work with. Not everything works for everyone.

Conclusion: Avoid Getting Locked In

No matter what you do and what tools you decide to work with, try and avoid getting locked into any situation. For example, some website builders like Wix won’t allow you to export your website. If this happens, you’re essentially stuck with them unless willing to give up and start anew somewhere else.

This is one of the main reasons for building a website in the first place. Using a service like UpWork to advertise your services is fast and easy, but once you leave the platform, you’ll lose everything you’ve built for so long.

As long as your website is truly yours, you can maintain it forever. While building traffic may take time and effort, in the long run it will always pay off and you will eventually make money online. Built slowly and steadily, watching it grow – it’s immensely satisfying as well!

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