If you haven’t already, and are now looking to get yourself online with your very own website, stop and think about what you want to do before you get a website. What is your purpose? What will you offer that isn’t being offered already, and how will you differ from anyone else who is online before you. In short, you need to know your niche.

Once you have this in mind, you have to decide which TYPE of website you want. This topic kind of ties into my article, One Page Wonders... so keep those four questions in mind when deciding what kind of website would suit your needs.

Preliminaries

Before you get started, you need a name to call yourself. A domain name. This website’s domain is www.make-money-online.co.za. [Here, also make sure you choose a descriptive domain name. Choosing something like ‘furry-thingings.com’ to sell dogs will not score you points on search engines. ‘furry-cute-dogs.com’ will – Richard] When you know what you want your web address to be, go to this page and search to make sure that it is available. Once you know who you will be, it is time to get a web host (maybe even a web developer). [And that could be tricky to say the least – Richard] There are plenty of web hosts and developers available. Watch this space! Web hosting is one of the many things we will be offering, once my super genius man gets time to finish designing that side of MMO COZA.

Types of websites

There are pages and pages of different types of sites out there. I’ve tried to go through as many sites as I can, and look for the common threads between them all (you might remember me mentioning in the article on online surveys that the web is full of contradictions), and put it here as best I could, using as little “geek” as possible.

Brochure Site

This is a very basic type of site, which is as the name says kinda like an online brochure. It is the sort of thing a small business would have to have an online presence. It is usually either a micro site (a one page website) or a mini site, with a few pages. It usually covers who the person / company is, what they offer and how to get in touch with them.

It would not do anything (be what is called static) as said by Marios Alexandrou in his blog.

It is relatively easy, and you could do it yourself with online software like Joomla. Just make sure that your web provider allows you to download this type of software. Richard has used Joomla for this site. Of course the way he has done it is also using coding, and other uber-techie stuff that would require a web developer. [Only a small bit of coding. Joomla does most of the stuff for you and there’s an extensive online addon directory that does the rest – Richard]

Business / Branding Site

A business site is a brochure site on steroids. It can range from small, around 5 pages, to really large. This site covers everything above, and has other dynamic, automated features, which could include something simple such as a mailing list manager to effortlessly send out newsletters to members. [They usually also include blogs, news, product catalogs and sometimes shopping carts – Richard]

Personal Website / Blog

These sites are, as the name suggests sites for allowing families and friends to keep up to date with news, for sharing your personal picture and for sharing your interests. A blog (even I know what that is) is a simple way to make contact with millions, with a free sign-hp, and dairy or journal like entries that are loaded chronologically, that attract a following and can even be a money earner by using things like Google Adsense. Blogger wannabee’s can sign up for free with a wide variety of places.

Selling site / Retail Site

I think most of us know what this type of site... think Amazon... A site with info, with automated features, and a shopping cart plus check out system. With this type of venture, there is not much hope that you will be able to do this without the coding of a techie.

Affiliate / Referral Site

These sites are set up with the idea that you will be making money from referring you’re following to a variety of products thus earning commission from each referral.

This can work with any article you write. For example, if you are writing a site about making money, you could refer your readers to financial advisors, survey companies and other places to help your reader to get ahead, and earn yourself a little extra on the side. But that is a whole article by itself :-)

Made for Adsense

This type of site is defined as a complete website, usually an article directory, which comes complete with articles in it. Usually purchased online through e-Bay or somewhere similar, it is a starting point to getting a presence online.

Please refer to Richard’s article on Purchasing Made For Adsense Websites – Bad for more information, as well as warnings!

Social networking /Community Site

Facebook. Need I say more? I think even the most untechnical people can be found online at Facebook. These are small little personal sites, with in a large community where friends are made, games are played, adverts are made, discussions are discussed, plans made etc etc etc...
While these look like simple sites, there is an enormous, gigantic, incredible amount of coding and intensely intricate stuff happening behind the scenes. There is no chance a non-techie would be able to pull something like this off...

Portals and Search Engines

Left for last, as the bext examples of this type of site are the giants of the ‘ether’. THE giant of search engines has even turned into a verb... you should know what I’m talking about: Google. Yahoo, MSN... these are the most popular search engines. They can only be made the most uber-techie web developers out there.
[Ah, where are the good old days of Lycos? And of ODP (which is still going, but so what?). [Could you imagine turning Lycos into a verb? – Richard]

A portal is almost a one stop everything shop. It’s a collection of windows to everything you need. Yahoo is a great example of a portal and search engine. [And so is Google with its different facets: Gmail, Google docs, Google Apps, 2Checkout, DoubleClick, Image search, instant search, Webmaster tools, Analytics, Adsense, Arithmetic, Translate, etc, etc, and growing daily. – Richard]

Aleem Khan from eZine articles says that while it will be really tough to go up against the “big boys”, it’s not impossible. He does suggest if you really feel you want to become a portal or search engine site, do it for your niche. Become THE source of information for what the service you provide.

[Richard – Services sites

These sites offer services. They’re not like retail sites, but are too. They basically offer different type of services, either free or paid. These services can range from analytics (like Google Analytics), counter scripts, online email like Gmail & Hotmail & Yahoo, to blogging provider sites like BlogSpot, to, geez, any services you may think off! To a degree, your search engines also fall in here. And, then, a favourite for all, the weather sites are also service sites. So are news sites. Online magazines. Google docs. Hosted Exchange. Download sites like downloads.com or freeware.com. Even hosting companies are services. B2B. B2C. C2C. The list goes on. Online dating. Online gambling. Directories. Wiki’s. ITPiMP.Network.]

Mixing it up

Most websites are a mix of these and more types of websites. However, your site will have the most characteristics of one of these more than another. For example, ITPiMP has articles, a blog, a membership area, lyrics, software and stacks more. We’re pretty much an IT portal in the making! With various little bits of the above websites thrown in the mix.

And then...

Now that you have your domain name, know the type of website and your purpose, it is time to jump around to Joomla, or to a web developer, and turn your vision into reality!

[Nice. You’re getting the hang of what’s what. Now to teach you some HTML4, CSS, JavaScript & database programming and I’ll be able to retire! – Richard]

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