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Getting Started As a Webmaster

August 30th, 2010

Being a webmaster means running website(s) online, which gets you responsible for marketing, content creation, maintenance etc required to maintain a website. Before you start your journey as a webmaster, you should know there is no such thing as becoming the next millionaire by having a website. It takes a lot of efforts, dedication, right decisions to have a web presence that could possibly help you quit your current job. So if you are tempted by those late night television commercials, first thing to do is take it off your head.

Lets see first what are the roles of a webmaster.

* Design and development of website
You don't need to be a web designer and developer for the design and development of website really. You can always hire somebody to do the work for you, if you have money. If you don't have money, you have to learn. In my opinion basic HTML knowledge is a must thing for being a webmaster; it not only help on website development also help in SEO and many other cases.

* Marketing of website
Every website need marketing. Without marketing nobody would find your website within millions of websites. If you think you just have to create a website and people would flock to check out your website, you are wrong.

To do effective marketing you need to learn Search Engine Optimization, SEO. Although it sounds complicated it really isn't. A good place to start out reading the Google Seo Guide. Google it you will find the link.

One big part of SEO is link building. Its the process of getting links for your website from other websites and thus getting your website higher rank for targeted keywords. You need to learn different processes how you can get links from other websites. Classified ads, forum posting, social bookmarking, blog commenting, directory submissions are few to mention.

* Content creation
On some websites you need to create content. On some websites content are generated by the user e.g. social bookmarking sites, forums etc.

* Maintenance of website
This includes adding new features, responding to user queries etc. Amount of work depends on traffic and type of website. Forums for example need lot of monitoring.

What type of website you can have?
Now that you know are the works involved being a webmaster, next thing would be determine what kind of website you want to have. This is a big decision. What type of website you can have depends on your budget, knowledge on web design & development etc.

If you have money or you know web design and development you can build complicated unique websites. In some cases there are free scripts available online for popular niches. One easiest type of website to have is blog. There are many websites that would allow you have free blogs. Whatever decision you make always make research how other people are doing in the same niche, plan on content and marketing etc. Its always better to plan ahead.

Whats needed to make a website live?
Other then design and development you need a domain name and a web hosting to make a website live. Most generic domains cost less then us $10. You can start out with shared web hosting unless you have a heavy load site. Shared hosting are really cheap these days, costs less then us $10 per month.

Monetization
Lot of webmasters decide to monetize the website after it picks up. My personal view is "every penny counts", I am up for doing it right from the beginning. There are so many ways you can monetize. Here are some common ways to monetize.

* Ad networks
You can use ad networks like Google AdSense etc.

* Selling ads by yourself
You can sell your advertising spots by yourself. Unless you have a high traffic website its not recommended.

* Other options
Depending on the type of your website you can sell membership etc.

As a final note, I think I couldn't cover all aspects of webmastering here. There are sections like e-commerce and etc which need more elaborate explanation. I look forward to do that in future. Wish you all the best as a webmaster.

About the Author:
Sarah Parker is a moderator at Webcosmo Webmaster Forum. Webcosmo Webmaster Forum is one of the leading source of information and help for webmasters. Join the Webcosmo Webmaster Forum community to learn and share with fellow webmasters.

Author: Sarah Parker

 

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Being a webmaster is a much more important job than most companies would dare admit. Webmasters are responsible for the company web presence on every level, from the website copy to the web and email server administration. Additionally, webmasters are often tasked even more duties that should be considered unrelated responsibilities for the position of webmaster. These extra duties often will include online as well as offline promotion and marketing, search optimization, advertising, application programming, graphic design and/or brand management. The role of the webmaster has grown over the years and webmasters need to grow with the company's expectations or the website will not succeed. For instance, it is easy to get banned from the search engines for not knowing the correct methods to use to optimize a website for a better results ranking from the search engines for any particular search phrase.

This is why Webmastery is here, not just to offer direction and assist webmasters, but to do so masterfully, as you expect of yourself, or as your company expects out of you.
 

Since I am an American and know only American English and SEO methods, I specialize in American Webmastery. Hence the domain name, Webmastery.US.
 

However, please note that often both sides of the coin are presented here. Some webmasters swear by Linux and we offer articles by such authors to give insight to their creativity. Others are die-hard Microsoft software fans and use Windows based servers. Despite the bias, each system has its own advantages, and such articles are reprinted here for their positive contribution to those platforms, not to enforce their bias. It is we that have to make the final analysis.
 

This difference is even more apparent when I am showcasing and promoting white hat SEO (search engine optimization) and a black hat SEO article is published here, which method if followed could get a website banned from the search engines. The reason I allow it a small platform is to showcase its apparent and obvious idiocy in contrast to white hat SEO techniques. And as I cannot edit these articles in order to correct them, I let their illogicality and stupidity stand on their own for a time without any edits. But in case their spaminess is not apparent, I often do not let such articles stand long.
 

 


 

 

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