Whether you are making your own website or making one for someone else, there are a number of things that need to be kept in mind.  You may be amazed when you hear about the numerous internet entrepreneurs who make a good living working full time on the internet, and the good news is that anybody can do this if they put the time and effort in.  Below are a few things to consider if you are looking into making a profitable website.

1. Make it Visually Appealing

A visually appealing website is like eye candy.  It can encourage customers to stay on your site for longer periods of time and it can also build up a sense of trust between you and those who visit your site.  Poorly designed websites look cheap and will not encourage a potential customer to engage with you.  With numerous beautiful themes already on the web for sites like WordPress you don’t even have to design it yourself – and the best part is: most won’t cost you a penny!

2. Functionality is Key

As well as looking good, your website also needs to be functional, and easy to navigate.  To do this, you need to make sure that the navigations are easy to find and easy to use.  Failure to do this can result in your potential customers looking for sites in the same niche that are functional.  There’s no point having the most beautiful design in the world if the average internet user doesn’t know how to browse it.

3. Informative Content Updated Regularly

No matter how functional or visually appealing a website is, it’s still pretty useless unless the content on it is informative and engaging.  The target audience of the website should be able to relate to the content in a positive way and if you can do this to an extent where they share your website with others, you are on to a winner!  Regular posts or updates to your website are also recommended as they encourage your readers to check back on a regular basis.  Poorly written content or copied content will have people running for the door, so keep this in mind.

4. SEO and Keyword Selection

And again, none of the above will create a profitable website if no-one can find your site in the first place.  Keywords that are concise and specific are proven to have a higher profit rate than keywords that are general.  This is because they enable a specific customer to find your site and generally have a lower competition.  A free online keyword tool can help you to choose your keywords.

You also need to undertake a full blown SEO campaign that includes incorporating your keywords into articles, images and anchors, backlinking strategies, social media, an ideal domain name etc.  All of these can help to increase your page ranking on the search engines and, the higher you are the more people that will find your site.

There are of course, more things to do than just these mentioned above, however these are the basics when it comes to creating a profitable website.  Do you have anything to add?  Let us know.