Cool Stuff

Other Top Sites

Jonk's

The Beginners Guide To Building Websites - Cheap

From go to whoa. Design a website for as little money as possible without losing the quality. Scroll down to get reading!

• How to make a website - getting started
  
• How to design a website - making it look good!
  
• How to get visitors to a website - including how to get a site listed on Google.
  
• How to make money from a website - monetise your site.
• Website Resources - take your site to the next level

How To Get Visitors To A Website

There's four basic ways to bring visitors in to a website - advertising, links from other websites, social media and search engines. Avoid the "Pay $100 and get 10,000 visitors" type programs. They're rubbish.

Advertising

Pay Per Click and Search Engine Marketing

Google is the world's most popular way to advertise (well, probably!). When you run a search on Google you'll notice links over at the right. That's Google Adwords. The advertising at the left of this page is also Google Adwords. .
Similar services are available at Yahoo and Microsoft.
For tips on how to run an effective campaign start with this article 5 tips on pay per click strategy. A list of ten premier search engines accepting these kind of campaigns can be found here here
Kontera Contentlink runs contextual advertising. It will go through a blog or website and link some key-words to advertising. Here

Buying links or banners

The primary benefit of buying back-links can often be increased ranking in the Search Engines from Google. You don't always need traffic from the link to make it worthwhile!
Text Link Ads - follow the link and receive $100 free credit!. Text Link Ads matches you up with websites, who will display links to you. Here
BackLinks is a large, established marketplace for link-buying. Many PR7 and PR8 links available. Here
Link Adage is a small but growing marketplace to buy text links on other websites. Bypasses the high commissions of Text Link Ads. Here
BackLinks is a large, established marketplace for link-buying. Here
One Way Link Exchange currently charges $20/mo for 250 back-links. The reason I have linked to this program is you get to control the sites you are listed on. Here
The best way to buy links or banners is to visit a particular website that you want to advertise on. Somewhere on that page is a link to 'contact' or 'advertise'.
A good list of advertising networks to purchase through can be found here
ImpressionZ Free advertising program : for every 10 banners you serve from their network, they'll show 6 from you on other sites. Not sure how much this would receive in the way of quality traffic... but if you try it let me know! Here

Affiliate programs

This is best if you are selling some kind of product. Information on becoming an affiliate.
Clickbank is exclusively for those wishing to sell electronic products. Create the product, create a sales page, and set the affiliates loose to adverise on your behalf. You choose an amount to pay the affiliates for each succesful sale. It could take a small while to build momentum though - especially if you don't have a reputation yet. Here
Clix Galore hooks you up with thousands of potential affiliates. You create a program. When people make a payment to you, that affiliate receives a portion of the sale which you define. The affiliate sends you visitors through their blog, website or newsletter.
Commission Monster is similar to ClixGalore, just with less affiliates. Here
DGM Australia also runs affiliate programs like those mentioned above. Not that many campaigns, but some massive cusstomers lend it credibility. Here

Search Engines

How to get added to Google - I could tell you all the random techniques but I'll just give you one that I know will work : just visit the Blue Hat Quit Quick Indexing Tool. Most people report indexing within 24-48 hours of using it.
How to get listed on Google.com.au Now you've added your site to Google you'll want it on Google.com.au as well. There's two ways: 1 - buying a .com.au domain and 2 - getting your website hosted on Australian servers. Either method will have Google automatically list you under their Australian section. How to get ranked high on Google search results
Aaron Wall's SEO Book is brilliant and is regarded around the internet as THE Bible for this topic. here.
Getting ranked highly on Google has spawned a whole industry on the topic - it's called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.
The SEO industry revolves around strategies to go number one in Google for particular search terms.
If you're planning on using a paid service to help you with this, there's one very easy way to tell if they're good or not. Search for "Search engine optimisation" on Google.com.au and look at the results. The ones that are top (in SEARCH results, NOT paid results) are those that know what they are doing, as that is one of the most competitive search terms across the entire internet.
Sitepoint has some greatresources on SEO - SEO FAQ, Google PageRank FAQ, and Search Engine Resources.

Back Links

This deals with getting links initially. If you have good content on your website, it's likely that you'll begin to attract links from other blogs and webmasters naturally.
Contact websites Email bloggers or owners of related websites (just find their contact form) and ask if they'll give you a mention. People generally say yes, although the busier they are the less likely this well work. Make sure you show that you have read their site, and point out some information on your site - with links - that would be valuable to their reader base.
Reciprocal Linking Make a deal with webmasters to give a link to them conditional on them returning the favour. Massive link exchange pages are not advisable as rumour has it that Google punishes websites that do this. more information on link exchanges.
Buy A Review On A Blog This is becoming increasingly popular. You choose a blogger to review your site. This will generally be an unbiased review. You may receive benefits of traffic but you can having a few links from blogs helps your rankings on Google as well. ReviewMe
PayPerPost
Blogsvertise
Definitive list
Comment on a blog Possibly the easiest way to get a back-link. Just leave some comments on these blogs. Most blogs block Google from following links in comments and indexing pages. The blogs linked to do not! Make sure your comments are not spam-like in nature.
Courtney Tuttle also has an informative article on how he gained 20,000 back-links in 6 months.

Directory Submission

Don't waste too much time getting back-links from directories as it can be a waste of time if you're looking for traffic. Its most valuable use is getting some ranking from Google. If this is your intention find a website that will list you straight away. Here's a huge list of directories you can add your site to.
The most highly recommended directory is DMOZ although acceptance can take over a year in some cases.

Social Media

Ever heard the saying when it rains, it pours? That's the way it is with social media. If you manage to get onto their homepage, expect to have some serious trouble with your servers.
Social Media demonstrates the importance of having good quality. (And also, having friends who are willing to vote for you helps a lot as well.) If you write good stuff, it will get voted upwards and you could see yourself being deluged by visitors.
Digg is probably the best example of this. It even has its own term to describe it : "The Digg Effect." Most people's servers go down within a short time of making Digg's homepage. Here
Reddit is not as famous but still crashes servers with alarming regularity. Here
StumbleUpon users have a toolbar where they click "Stumble" and get shown a random website. Why not make yours one of those sites? Add your site to Stumble! Here
Del.Icio.Us is probably the best example of this. It even has its own term to describe it : "The Digg Effect." Most people's servers go down within a short time of making Digg's homepage. Here

Next: How to make money from your website.
Previous: How to make your website look good