Managing a Website - Getting Started, Design Guidelines (I)

Hi everybody! I'll start our journey with the most general of the directions I want to propose to you for gaining some nice and constant profits online: DESIGNING AND MANAGING A WEBSITE. It's the topic we shall keep coming back to over and over, since this is not an overnight or one-step venture and there are lots of things to discuss (especially ONLINE MARKETING TECHNIQUES aimed at maximizing profits from your website). Moreover, many of the instruments we shall analyze together are best presented via a website, so this must be our starting point.





Nowadays it's not difficult to either find free website templates on the web or design a simple/complex website by yourself. If you are picky, have specific needs and know what you want you should probably have it done by a professional web designer. In any case, you can have it ready in a matter of days, it could look really great but that's no guarantee it will make you more than a few pennies.. Here are a few things to keep in mind for starters (I'm referring to web site design only in what follows):

• SIMPLE IS GOOD, efficient and it's been proved to work. Have a look at the Google websites - almost all of them are simple and clear in terms of design.
  
  
• Always keep in mind your website target and purpose when designing it - you won't be able to change this easily once the website is up and running.
  
  
• Choose friendly colors in order to attract the majority of your visitors. Study color combination or/and professional website templates to see what color combinations match best. Warm colors are generally perceived as less aggressive and prove to be statistically most efficient. If you want to convey aggressiveness (depending on your website profile & your marketing technique) then you have to do it right and make sure people get intrigued when visiting your home page for the first time instead of simply freaking out.
  
  
• Adapt the colors and the tone of the design with the content of your website (e.g. a site for a deluxe spa should have a sophisticated, warm and "peaceful" tone, while a karate gym should convey a more dynamic, razor-cut image, etc.).
  
  
• Be coherent across your website and don't change the proposed "tone" too often. Don't use too many colors, this tends to give a cheap, unprofessional look to your work.
  
  
• Inspire yourself from other designers' ideas, but don't steal other people's work (besides being legally and morally wrong, you might face some unnecessary embarrassment if caught).
  

These are all just preliminary steps for designing your website and they are by no means an exhaustive guide to web design. For more resources on how to design a professionally-looking website or where to find an affordable professional web designer you might want to check the links below.

Next on this topic we will discuss how to choose the theme/domain of a profitable website, how to plan the content and the best marketing strategy to monetize it. Stay close!