Planning Website Content

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."

People often start building a website without having a clear plan of what they want to achieve. If you're going to build a website, take the time to think it through thoroughly. Start with brainstorming the best website concepts for you and planning its content. Remember, most people fail in any business because they don't plan adequately.

Three steps of planning your site content...

1) Optimal Niche

The only successful strategy on this overcrowded Internet is to select specific niche and to fill it with high-value content. Your goal is to find a subject that you really know and like and that would have some appeal for others. The optimal niche must be not too broad and not too narrow. Try to look at the concept from the visitors end. Who are they? What do they want? You should have clear answers to these questions.

2) Choosing Keywords

Your goal is to build a table of keywords that can bring targeted traffic to your website and are often searched for, but still not very competitive. Write down all the words and phrases that are related to your niche and can be used by people when they search for your website. Don't limit yourself to single words. Most people search using multiple-word keywords composed of two, three, or even more words to get more targeted results.

There's a simple free online tool that will assist you in choosing keywords and estimating their popularity and competition. It's Google Keyword Tool. Type in your keywords, and click on the "Search" button. The tool will display a list of keywords related to yours. Now you can pick the keywords with the best profitability. These will be ones with high "Monthly Searches" and low "Competition".

To find out the exact number of competitors, go to Google and search for the phrases surrounded in quotation marks. Have a quick look at the top 10 or 20 sites listed. You may get some great ideas for content and add new relevant words and phrases to your original list of keywords.

3) Planning Pages

Build the optimal structure of your website that corresponds with your table of profitable keywords. A well-organized website makes it easy and intuitive for visitors to find what they want. Every page should be easily accessible from home page (i.e. it should not take more than two clicks to go from the home page to every page of your site). Otherwise, the search engines may not index all the pages.

You likely won't pick the most profitable keywords for all the pages. Some keywords are too close in meaning, others may be not so profitable. Just try to fill your specific niche and pick the most profitable keywords for most of pages. Each page should be optimized for one keyword or several closely related keywords.

Finding Domain Name

You need to get a domain name if you're serious about your website. Having your own domain instead of an extension of someone else's, gives your site better credibility, recognition, and visibility with the search engines. It's best to find a domain name that includes one of your most profitable keywords for higher relevancy. The engines will rank your site higher for your keyword if it's included in your domain name.

Choosing a domain name is very important step in the process of building a website, and it can also be one of the most difficult. It may seem that nearly all "good" names have been registered. This doesn't mean, however, that there's nothing left, you just have to be a bit more creative.

Here are some tips for choosing a domain name...
  • Keep the length between 5-20 characters if possible (it can be up to 63 characters).
  • Try to base it on one of your main keywords. You may use dashes if it helps readability. Generally, don't use dashes if your name has only two words in it.
  • The generic .com domain is by far the most marketable, and thus the most valuable domain.

The domain registration service is provided by domain registrars. One of the very popular (and cheap - $7.99/year) of them is 1&1 Instant Domain. You can use it to find out whether or not "your" name has been registered...

Prepare to be disappointed. You'll be surprised at how many people share your idea. Type in the name in the search box and click on the "Check Domain" button. This service not only checks the name, but also generates a lot of available names based on yours. You can also register the available name(s) right there.