Initially, I will make a reservation that in the article you will not find ways to earn "golden mountains" and you will not recognize the super secret SEO chips. The article was written based on my personal experience and will be useful to those who are just starting the path of a webmaster or just planning to create a website.
Background (a little about yourself)
He was fond of programming since childhood, but decided not to connect life with this industry. Before creating the site, I had knowledge of the basics of HTML, CSS, an understanding of javascript (although this is more an understanding of programming itself), two books on PHP (understanding PHP) that I read, a little knowledge of SEO. As a result, I had a pretty good idea of ​​what I want from the site and what stages I have to go through.
Choice of subject and name
Since I can not pay much attention to the site, I chose the lowest competitive topic - entertainment. At that time, I decided that I would write about games in some of which I was well versed.
The name was chosen to be simple and easy to remember. As a result, the choice fell on xc-life.ru in addition, the domain xclife.ru was registered. When choosing a name, I made two main mistakes: I left a “-” in the name and, as I later learned, used an existing brand.
My personal recommendation to those who will register the domain , do not use "-" under any circumstances, as this is not convenient for smartphone users who have to switch to numbers when typing in a domain. Also, be sure to check the uniqueness of domains so that there are no problems with the domain in the future.
Site engine selection
The lack of knowledge in PHP clearly determined that the site will be created on the CMS. On recorder systems, a cross was put right away, since there was no knowledge for editing them, and not every freelancer would understand the structure of such CMS.
Therefore, it was decided to choose one of the popular site engines. Initially, I planned to create a site on Joomla, but after several tests and attempts to fasten the site template I realized that this CMS is not suitable for me. He began to test others and settled on WordPress . The first impression was not very, but after I felt the engine, I realized that this is what I need.
Hosting Choice
I had only two hosting services [hosting name 1] * and [hosting name 2] *. Of the two of them, I chose [hosting name 2] * for several reasons:
- Easy installation of CMS in one click;
- Really working tech support;
- Cheaper services.
It was enough for me, as a beginner, that the hosting tried to facilitate my “webmaster's path”.
* The names of the hosting that I used and which I recommend you do not recognize, as some Habrachians decided that this is an advertisement.
Plugin selection
Glory to the WordPress community! The huge selection of plugins in this CMS can be shocking and confusing. Therefore, I began to search for plugins that are most suitable for gaming topics. In the search process, it turned out that WordPress has a lot of holes that need to be closed using plugins. Therefore, one of the first installed plugins was plugins to protect the site :
- iThemes Security plugin - general site protection (over 30 protection methods);
- Google Captcha (reCAPTCHA) by BestWebSoft - protection against spam bots using recaptcha;
- WPS Hide Login - change the standard registration page to custom;
- Akismet Anti-Spam is standard spam protection.
One of the main plugins on the site is the WP-Recall plugin - the plugin creates a convenient personal account on your site and has many settings and additions. Using the plugin, you can organize a forum, a store, a freelance exchange or a social network, and with the help of add-ons you can customize and improve all this. I learned about the plugin thanks to a review from blogger Artyom Abramovich (WPruse) for which I thank him separately.
A good find was the young AnyComment comment plugin , which trampled various Disqus, Cackle, and similar comment plugins into the mud. My choice fell on this plugin because of its functionality and ease of setup. The plugin is developing very quickly and is already installed on some popular blogs (for example, the blog gogetlinks.net ).
To speed up the site I use popular caching plugins:
Autoptimize - greatly accelerates page loading due to CSS, JS compression and delayed image loading;
WP Super Cache is a caching plugin.
Promotion and SEO
Since I create a site as a hobby, I do not spare resources for content - only unique and most useful . I write most of the articles myself, but I order some on the text.ru exchange, as it is convenient, and in addition the exchange has a nice design and convenient structure. I tried to order on etxt, but the quality of the articles was lower than on text.ru.
I noticed a feature that much more traffic comes to articles written by myself. So my recommendation - write yourself - contact the contractors last.
Links were purchased in small quantities, but they are unlikely to work, since sites selling links do not monitor the quality of "selling" articles. It is possible that someone will have articles from large sites that cost from 5,000 rubles and will work, because for that amount they simply have to write an interesting and high-quality article.
Crowdfunding is long, dreary, but it works . Noticed the growth of positions in Google and Yandex of some articles on which there were crowd links. I usually wrote guest posts on blogs or forums (useful and related), but many webmasters and moderators are so “intimidated” by search engines that they remove really useful comments. And the trickiest ones edit by deleting the link, but this is the reality of crowd marketing.
Many people write about SMM and social media promotion . It works, but your article, which you will link to, should be of high quality, since a cold audience on a social network can simply kill your behavioral factors with a large number of failures. And again, it is very expensive for small projects as an expended effort.
Attendance and Metrics
For the first six months, traffic grew, but then at some point stopped at around 180-200 unique visitors per day. There are 1.69 views per visitor. In some sections that he wrote, it reaches 7-15 views per visitor.
I am glad that Yandex loves the site, and ICS is gradually growing - it has risen from 20 to 170 for half a year. By the way, here, by the way, I did not feel the dependence of ICS on traffic announced by Yandex, because the traffic is still in place.
Monetization
I was in no hurry to monetize the site and tried it only a year after its opening. I chose the easiest way - google adsense ads . Attendance is small because incomes are ridiculous - at best, enough to pay for hosting. You could increase the number of ads and make them more intrusive, but then users will suffer.
The topic does not allow selling links, since no one needs links from an entertainment site about space. And there’s no desire to dilute the site with non-thematic articles and turn it into a link wash.
My conclusions and recommendations for those who want to create a site
Decide what you need the site for . To make money? Then get ready to invest in it or your time or money. Even in the entertainment theme, competition is felt, what can we say about the topics of construction or business.
For beginners , I recommend WordPrress as an engine , as it has a large community, many extensions (plugins) and is easy to learn. Recommended plugins I have already cited above.
The main and really working way of promotion is content . Pay more attention to creating useful articles. I do not recommend buying links, as they do not give traffic - for this money you can create more content that will attract visitors.
Thank you for your attention
Thank you for reading the article to the end. I really hope that they were interesting and useful to you. If you have any questions, be sure to ask them in the comments. I would like to hear the opinion of experienced Webmasters about my mistakes and get good advice. Thanks again for your attention. I hope we will meet again on the pages of Habr!