Most NEW webmasters don't have a clue...
What is the purpose of having your Web page? Do you even know what to make it about?
Let's review the facts:
So you were given free HOSTING (something beetween 5 megs to 100 megs) by your broadband company along with a free domain name registration... or you were surfing the net and you found that there are free hosts that you can use (of course by having them put ads and banners in any good or bad site that you create) and now you don't know what to use this Web space for.
That happens too often.
Now you are faced with the fact that you have to do something with that and your eyes go like $$.
You start thinking "I am going to make money on the Internet with the next best idea" (usually just by repeating old schemes) and the first thing you "come up with" is something like joining a PAID TO DO SOMETHING site and promoting your AFFILIATE LINK on your page.
You go by telling others how wonderful the program is and blah, blah, blah. You know what? it doesn't work... (most of the time) Then you spend months, don't see any traffic and you start thinking: "let's use AUTOROTATORS, AUTOVISITING SITES, MANUAL ROTATORS and so on, and you put a visit COUNTER on your page (you set it up for UNIQUE VISITORS) and start seeing how it counts growing numbers of visits only to realize that, as much as you don't pay any attention to the pages that your program shows you, most people don't pay attention to your content as well.
So you think: "how am i gonna get people to visit my site?"
Then someone tells you that the first thing you have to do is SUBMIT your site to the top SEARCH ENGINES. And you do.
And you wait......wait........wait.......wait.....and wait for the unique visitors to come and they don't come. Hey, you don't even know if you are listed or if you are, you are far from the first 100 pages of search results for the KEYWORDS people used. And despair strikes again.
Then you think: "I have to BUY ADVERTISEMENT"
You start spending money for ads that aren't usually too good at the CLICK THROUGH RATIO (well, you can use Adwords from Google, at least they don't charge you unless your ads are clicked) Anyway, you spend money and don't get any in return.
That is the sad story of more than 95% of webmaster wannabes on the net.
The following title will deal with CONTENT, the MIGHTY KING of the Internet; you have to think of a voice much like Sean Connery's to read the next phrase: "this is the stuff web pages are made of"
"Been there, done that..."
I know that most of you got discouraged by the last things I said. You think that publishing could be a waste of time and money, that everything has already been said.
Let me tell you, there are a lot of people who have not heard what's been said, so you can bring old and new INFORMATION and CONTENT to your web page presenting it in a brand new and imaginative way.
You have to have content, the community is starving for content, fresh new or a fresh view.
So, what is content?
Content can be almost anything: Articles, poems, pictures, opinions, jokes, e-books, etc.
Most people don't know this fact, but Google (tm) and most search engines reward pages with new content with a better ranking and punish duplicates (clones, copies, etc.), and better ranking is LIFE on the net (or so they say).
An example of content can be this article that you are reading right now. It's new, maybe not too fresh, but since English is my second language there probably isn't any content in the net that resembles mine (at least not in the way it is phrased).
Google (tm) and other search engines CAN'T see words inside pictures when they are evaluating content, so they see text only, which means that the more text, the more content and KEYWORDS they see. No wonder pages that only have pictures don't rank well.
On the other hand, articles, blogs and other text pages rank better. If you are not into making new content, you can have FREE CONTENT on your web pages. There are sites that offer free articles that you can put on your pages (provided that you don't modify them or take credit for them). Many people (authors) send their articles to these pages to get exposure, to publish the link to their pages (as I do at the end of this very page (don't blame me for using my own advice) or simply to get some attention. So content can not only be a way to rank better, but also a way to expose your views, opinions and your links.
You Have to Have a GOOD domain name.
Having a good web page is good, but nothing beats having a GOOD DOMAIN NAME for your small business. You cannot sell frozen fish using "www.thebestcarloan.com" you have to have something like "frozenfish4u.com." When people see the domain name of a company, they associate it with the product, it is impossible for them to think that your product is serious unless they see something related in the domain name. A domain name is a PLACE, a SPOT, your station, people think: "Hey, I don