Before you build any website it is important to sit back and think about exactly what you want to achieve. This will help you to stay focused on your objective.

Now I am going to presume that you want your site to make you some money. Wile it is nice to make money if this is your only objective you may face many challenges ahead. The reason is because you may find the level of motivation may dwindle if you do not start making money quickly.

What I want to emphasize is simplicity. Keep it simple. Do not over complicate the process. To create and effective website you need to understand why people use the internet.

Our main goal when we go online is to get information for one reason or another. This may be for research or entertainment purposes. However the premise remains the same. One way or another your site will need to provide content relevant to the individuals search. This content can be provided by audio, video or written means. The fact is that it has to be relevant in order to be effective.

We all know how we feel when we find what we are looking for. This builds credibility and as a result the recommendations you make will be followed which means you will make money.

The bottom line is that we all want results and desire to achieve a certain outcome. You need to know what your visitor's wants and needs are then address it and provide solutions. Communicate with your visitors in a way that makes sense to them and provide logical steps that they can follow.

As for the technical aspects of building a site the good news is that there are many website building software tools out there that can help with this even if you have no technical knowledge. So don't sweat the small stuff.

How's your website, then?

I'm not asking whether it's a good site or not, but what its performance is like. Is it slow to load? Does it have problems with certain web browsers? Occasionally you'll find that code working perfectly on, say Internet Explorer, doesn't work with Firefox. And vice-versa. Any coding problems?

How should I know? Who... who cares? I hear you ask.

Because it's important. You only have seconds -- tenths of seconds, even -- to make an impression on people who come to your site. If the site isn't working, has dead links or some old code that doesn't work and leaves the site with blank areas, you can bet your life those lovely, potential customers will click away at the drop of a pixel. And more than likely they'll be clicking away to the welcoming site of one of your competitors.

Wake up and smell the Mugicha! After reading this post you no longer have any excuses for not knowing. There's a website I often turn to when I want to see how my own site is doing, performance-wise. It makes for uncomfortable reading sometimes, because it doesn't hesitate to tell me stuff I don't particular want to hear -- the site's too heavy, too many images, too many elements, you've failed at life, you're a bad, bad person... et depressing cetera. But it's well worth it.

I have no connection whatsoever with the owners of the site and this isn't an affiliate link, so click in confidence. Here it is:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Put in the full address of your website and have a look at what it says. Pretty eye-opening stuff, eh? You didn't realise it was that bad, did you?!

I'm not particularly interested in contacting the owners of the site to ask for their optimization services, but the results I get when I check my site are very interesting. Useful, too. Oh, and completely free. Check it out.

Anyone can have a website, but is that website going to be seen by anyone?

There is so much more that needs to take place when building a website. Most people have no idea. Websites need to have good content, proper keywords, good hosting etc...

Do you really want to know how to create a website that is steps above most and one that will make you money? If you answered "yes" then you need to follow the rules of CTPM in order. CTPM stands for:

Content

Traffic

Presell

Monetize

Good Content will get you alot of traffic. Preselling is when you build a relationship with visitors, not treating them like another digit to your bank account. People visit this site looking for ideas to improve their lives, so that's what must be focused upon. The last step is monetization. This should be the least of your concerns.

Pick a niche that you know something about or at least a little bit about. This will make building content alot easier. Don't worry about doing anything else except writing good content. I know you are saying "I can't write", but don't let that get you down. Do some research on the topic you chose and pick out some key topics and write about that. It doesn't have to be award winning, just keep writing.

Once you have Content the the rest is very easy.

If you want the rest to be very simple in a step by step format you should check out SBI (Site Build It). Domain name, hosting, analyzers, keyword research etc are all included at one place. They'll even help you find a niche.

SBI over delivers unlike anything I have ever seen.

This site will help if you are an experienced website designer or someone who knows nothing at all. I've never seen anything that even comes close.

When you get that profitable site up and running you can send me part of your profits. My address is 4934 East St... Just Kidding. But really do check out the site. You'll be so impressed.

Become the expert on the block.