By Mitch “Self Helper” Keeler

The question is, “How do I make my web site better?” and the answer could be given to you many different ways by many different people. There are often seven rules I tend to live by when it comes to webmastering, so I thought I would share them with you so that you too can learn from my own trial and error.

1. Look towards your friends - Many people overlook their friends as people who can help with their web site. You can use your friends to write up content for you, hire them for work (design, writing or other) or even just ask them to spread the word around about your online resource.

2. Update on a schedule - You need to find a schedule for updating your web site and stick with it. If your web site it static (not updated often) then you might be able to get away with checking up on things every two weeks or so. If you have a lot of content being posted though, you need to set aside a certain time to work on the web site.

3. Do it right the first time - Don’t half way do things right and then think, “well, if it becomes a problem I can always fix it later” because chances are later will never happen because you’ll find something else to fill your time with. Even if it takes a little more time, doing it right the first go around might save you on time and aggravation later on down the road.

4. Branch out your ideas - Don’t be afraid to branch out to related topics. For an example, if you are running a web site about shoes and you want to add some more content to your web site, then why not talk about shoe laces or those gel thingies you stick in your shoes to make them feel better? Find areas you can branch out in so your idea well never runs dry.

5. Find others like yourself - You can’t run a successful site these days without socializing yourself. Get out there virtually or in the real world and meet others who do the same thing that you do. Talk about how they cover things, how you cover things and you might even build a business relationship that will benefit you later on down the road.

6. Don’t waste time on design - Having a aesthetically pleasing to the eye is a grand idea to be apart of, but if you have all cosmetics and no guts to your web site, then you are left with 9/10 of the Baywatch life guards.

7. Features are nice, but content is king - I feel like I have given this last tip the most, mainly because I would consider it the most important and if you can hit this proverbial nail on the head with your webmastering hammer you don’t need me helping you. Make sure the content you have is not just there to take up space. Make sure it is both quality filled and that somebody is getting something out of it. Check out each of your pages, and if you can’t say that somebody is better off by reading your page then you need to ditch it or re-work it till it is serving a purpose for the average user.

One more suggestion, not on this list, that I can share with you is have a passion for what you are doing. If you are working on a web site of any kind, and you don’t care about it - it will show in your final product. You have to think of your web site as a child of your own, and treat it as such. Take care of it right, and it will grow to become a success, no matter what your final target might be.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 5:35 am and is filed under Jabber, Mitch Keeler, Sales & Marketing, Social Networking, Web Host Support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.