THE BOYS' BRIGADE

web site is a computer connected to the internet that maintains a series of web pages on the World Wide Web; "the Israeli web site was damaged by hostile hackers" A website (also spelled Web site) is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed relative to a common Uniform Resource Locator (URL), often consisting of only the domain name, or the IP address, and the root path ('/') in an Internet Protocol
web site - A collection of HTML and subordinate documents on the World Wide Web that are typically accessible from the same URL and residing on the same server, and form a coherent, usually interlinked whole.
A Web site is a related collection of World Wide Web (WWW) files that includes a beginning file called a home page. A company or an individual tells you how to get to their Web site by giving you the address of their home page. From the home page, you can get to all the other pages on their site. For example, the Web site for IBM has the home page address of http://www.ibm.com. (The home page address actually includes a specific file name like index.html but, as in IBM's case, when a standard default name is set up, users don't have to enter the file name.) IBM's home page address leads to thousands of pages. (But a Web site can also be just a few pages.)

Since site implies a geographic place, a Web site can be confused with a Web server. A server is a computer that holds the files for one or more sites. A very large Web site may be spread over a number of servers in different geographic locations. IBM is a good example; its Web site consists of thousands of files spread out over many servers in world-wide locations. But a more typical example is probably the site you are looking at, whatis.com. We reside on a commercial space provider's server with a number of other sites that have nothing to do with Internet glossaries.

A synonym and less frequently used term for Web site is "Web presence." That term seems to better express the idea that a site is not tied to specific geographic location, but is "somewhere in cyberspace." However, "Web site" seems to be used much more frequently.

You can have multiple Web sites that cross-link to files on each others' sites or even share the same files.
A collection of web content organized under a single homepage.
A website (also spelled Web site. is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed relative to a common Uniform Resource Locator (URL), often consisting of only the domain name, or the IP address, and the root path ('/') in an Internet Protocol-based network. A web site is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network.
A webpage or set of WebPages designed, presented, and linked together to form a logical information resource and/or transaction initiation function. In DocBook, the extension of DocBook that can generate a set of HTML pages that make up a website. See Chapter 31, Website for more information.
An internet site that displays or links to this Terms of Use Policy and in which AWS legally owns, operates, and/or solely manages and maintains
A unified collection of pages that are designed and are related for a business, products, and service.
A collection of "pages" or documents on the WWW that form (or are intended to form) a single system. Usually equates to a single company or individual's web presence. The term webpage is often used, although strictly this should refer to a single "page" or document.
The WWW site of interest, either local or accessed over the WWW. A collection of related WebPages
A website is a related group of web pages published on the World Wide Web.
A website is like a book on the global electronic media ie internet, which provides information about a subject or a particular topic for the perusal of irrespective visitors of the world.
A website is a group of interlinked webpages stored on a server and accessible on a browser. Most websites represent the online presence of an organization, institution, or company. A homepage is the main page of a website.
A web page is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). A web page may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors.
Web pages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user of the web page content. The user's application, often a web browser, renders the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal.
All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web.
The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the homepage. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyperlinking between them conveys the reader's perceived site structure and guides the reader's navigation of the site.
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, parts of news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, message boards, web-based e-mail, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, and websites providing various other services (e.g. websites offering storing and/or sharing of images, files and so forth).
The World Wide Web (WWW) was created in 1989 by CERN physicist Tim Berners-Lee On 30 April 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to use for anyone.Before the introduction of HTML and HTTP, other protocols such as file transfer protocol and the gopher protocol were used to retrieve individual files from a server. These protocols offer a simple directory structure which the user navigates and chooses files to download. Documents were most often presented as plain text files without formatting or were encoded in word processor formats.Organized by function, a website may be

* a personal website
* a commercial website
* a government website
* a non-profit organization website

It could be the work of an individual, a business or other organization, and is typically dedicated to some particular topic or purpose. Any website can contain a hyperlink to any other website, so the distinction between individual sites, as perceived by the user, may sometimes be blurred.

Websites are written in, or dynamically converted to, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and are accessed using a software interface classified as a user agent. Web pages can be viewed or otherwise accessed from a range of computer-based and Internet-enabled devices of various sizes, including desktop computers, laptops, PDAs and cell phones.

A website is hosted on a computer system known as a web server, also called an HTTP server, and these terms can also refer to the software that runs on these systems and that retrieves and delivers the web pages in response to requests from the website users. Apache is the most commonly used web server software (according to Netcraft statistics) and Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) is also commonly used.A static website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the format that is sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).

Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as classic website, a five-page website or a brochure website are often static websites, because they present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information about a company and its products and services via text, photos, animations, audio/video and interactive menus and navigation.

This type of website usually displays the same information to all visitors. Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a static website will generally provide consistent, standard information for an extended period of time. Although the website owner may make updates periodically, it is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other content and may require basic website design skills and software.

In summary, visitors are not able to control what information they receive via a static website, and must instead settle for whatever content the website owner has decided to offer at that time.

They are edited using four broad categories of software:

* Text editors, such as Notepad or TextEdit, where content and HTML markup are manipulated directly within the editor program
* WYSIWYG offline editors, such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver (previously Macromedia Dreamweaver), with which the site is edited using a GUI interface and the final HTML markup is generated automatically by the editor software
* WYSIWYG online editors which create media rich online presentation like web pages, widgets, intro, blogs, and other documents.
* Template-based editors, such as Rapidweaver and iWeb, which allow users to quickly create and upload web pages to a web server without detailed HTML knowledge, as they pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a desktop publishing fashion without direct manipulation of HTML code.
Dynamic websiteA dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently and automatically, based on certain criteria.

Dynamic websites can have two types of dynamic activity: Code and Content. Dynamic code is invisible or behind the scenes and dynamic content is visible or fully displayed.Dynamic code

The first type is a web page with dynamic code. The code is constructed dynamically on the fly using active programming language instead of plain, static HTML.

A website with dynamic code refers to its construction or how it is built, and more specifically refers to the code used to create a single web page. A dynamic web page is generated on the fly by piecing together certain blocks of code, procedures or routines. A dynamically-generated web page would call various bits of information from a database and put them together in a pre-defined format to present the reader with a coherent page. It interacts with users in a variety of ways including by reading cookies recognizing users' previous history, session variables, server side variables etc., or by using direct interaction (form elements, mouse overs, etc.). A site can display the current state of a dialogue between users, monitor a changing situation, or provide information in some way personalized to the requirements of the individual user.Dynamic content

The second type is a website with dynamic content displayed in plain view. Variable content is displayed dynamically on the fly based on certain criteria, usually by retrieving content stored in a database.

A website with dynamic content refers to how its messages, text, images and other information are displayed on the web page, and more specifically how its content changes at any given moment. The web page content varies based on certain criteria, either pre-defined rules or variable user input. For example, a website with a database of news articles can use a pre-defined rule which tells it to display all news articles for today's date. This type of dynamic website will automatically show the most current news articles on any given date. Another example of dynamic content is when a retail website with a database of media products allows a user to input a search request for the keyword Beatles. In response, the content of the web page will spontaneously change the way it looked before, and will then display a list of Beatles products like CD's, DVD's and books.Purpose of dynamic websites

The main purpose of a dynamic website is automation. A dynamic website can operate more effectively, be built more efficiently and is easier to maintain, update and expand. It is much simpler to build a template and a database than to build hundreds or thousands of individual, static HTML web pages.Software systemsThere is a wide range of software systems, such as ANSI C servlets), Java Server Pages (JSP), the PHP and Perl programming languages, ASP.NET, Active Server Pages (ASP), YUMA and ColdFusion (CFML) that are available to generate dynamic web systems and dynamic sites. Sites may also include content that is retrieved from one or more databases or by using XML-based technologies such as RSS.

Static content may also be dynamically generated either periodically, or if certain conditions for regeneration occur (cached) in order to avoid the performance loss of initiating the dynamic engine on a per-user or per-connection basis.

Plug ins are available to expand the features and abilities of web browsers, which use them to show active content, such as Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave or applets written in Java. Dynamic HTML also provides for user interactivity and realtime element updating within web pages (i.e., pages don't have to be loaded or reloaded to effect any changes), mainly using the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript, support which is built-in to most modern web browsers.

Turning a website into an income source is a common practice for web developers and website owners. There are several methods for creating a website business which fall into two broad categories, as defined below.Content-based sites

Some websites derive revenue by selling advertising space on the site (see Contextual advertising).
Product- or service-based sites

Some websites derive revenue by offering products or services for sale. In the case of e-commerce websites, the products or services may be purchased at the website itself, by entering credit card or other payment information into a payment form on the site. While most business websites serve as a shop window for existing brick and mortar businesses, it is increasingly the case that some websites are businesses in their own right; that is, the products they offer are only available for purchase on the web.

Websites occasionally derive income from a combination of these two practices. For example, a website such as an online auctions website may charge the users of its auction service to list an auction, but also display third-party advertisements on the site, from which it derives further income.There are many varieties of websites, each specializing in a particular type of content or use, and they may be arbitrarily classified in any number of ways. A few such classifications might include:[original research?]

* Affiliate: enabled portal that renders not only its custom CMS but also syndicated content from other content providers for an agreed fee. There are usually three relationship tiers. Affiliate Agencies (e.g., Commission Junction), Advertisers (e.g., eBay) and consumer (e.g., Yahoo!).
* Archive site: used to preserve valuable electronic content threatened with extinction. Two examples are: Internet Archive, which since 1996 has preserved billions of old (and new) web pages; and Google Groups, which in early 2005 was archiving over 845,000,000 messages posted to Usenet news/discussion groups.
* Answer Site: Answer site is a site where people can ask questions & answer questions like Yahoo! Answers
* Blog (web log): sites generally used to post online diaries which may include discussion forums (e.g., blogger, Xanga). Many bloggers use blogs like an editorial section of a newspaper to express their ideas on anything ranging from politics to religion to video games to parenting, along with anything in between. Some bloggers are professional bloggers and they are paid to blog about a certain subject, and they are usually found on news sites.
* Brand building site: a site with the purpose of creating an experience of a brand online. These sites usually do not sell anything, but focus on building the brand. Brand building sites are most common for low-value, high-volume fast moving consumer goods (FMCG).
* City Site: A site that shows information about a certain city or town and events that takes place in that town. Usually created by the city council or other "movers and shakers".
o the same as those of geographic entities, such as cities and countries. For example, Richmond.com is the geodomain for Richmond, Virginia.
* Community site: a site where persons with similar interests communicate with each other, usually by chat or message boards, such as MySpace or Facebook.
* Content site: sites whose business is the creation and distribution of original content (e.g., Slate, About.com).
* Corporate website: used to provide background information about a business, organization, or service.
* Dating websites: a site where users can find other single people looking for long range relationships, dating, or just friends. Many of them are pay per services such as Eharmony and Match.com, but there are many free or partially free dating sites. Most dating sites today have the functionality of social networking websites.
* Electronic commerce (e-commerce) site: a site offering goods and services for online sale and enabling online transactions for such sales.
* Forum: a site where people discuss various topics.
* Gripe site: a site devoted to the critique of a person, place, corporation, government, or institution.
* Gaming website: A site that let users play online games. Some enable people to gamble online.
* Humor site: satirizes, parodies or otherwise exists solely to amuse.
* Information site: contains content that is intended to inform visitors, but not necessarily for commercial purposes, such as: RateMyProfessors.com, Free Internet Lexicon and Encyclopedia. Most government, educational and non-profit institutions have an informational site.
* Java applet site: contains software to run over the Web as a Web application. The site usually requires a Java plug-in or some other web plug-in to function properly.
* Media sharing site: A site that enables users to upload and view media such as pictures, music, and videos; examples include Flickr, YouTube, Purevolume and Google Video.
* Mirror site: A complete reproduction of a website.
* Microblog : a short and simple form of blogging. Microblogs are limited to certain amounts of characters and works similar to a status update on Facebook. Twitter is an excellent example of an microblogging site.
* News site: similar to an information site, but dedicated to dispensing news, politics, and commentary.
* Personal homepage: run by an individual or a small group (such as a family) that contains information or any content that the individual wishes to include. These are usually uploaded using a web hosting service such as Geocities. Many personal homepages are rare, thanks to the modern era of social networking sites such as MySpace, but some are still used for at home businesses.
* Phish site: a website created to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business (such as Social Security Administration, PayPal) in an electronic communication (see Phishing).
* P2P websites/Torrent websites - a websites or program that enables people to share or bootleg files and other media off the media. Many of them are considered stealing, and are illegal.
* Political site: A site on which people may voice political views, show political humor, campaigning for elections, or show information about a certain political party or ideology.
* Porn site: A site that shows sexually explicit content for enjoyment and relaxation, most likely in the form of an Internet gallery, dating site, blog, social networking, or video sharing.
* Rating site: A site on which people can praise or disparage what is featured.
* Religious site: A site in which people may advertise a place of worship, or to give out inspiration or faith of a follower to such religion.
* Review site: A site on which people can post reviews for products or services.
* School site: a site on which teachers, students, or administrators can post information about current events at or involving their school. U.S. elementary-high school websites generally use k12 in the URL, such as kearney.k12.mo.us.
* Scraper site: a site which largely duplicates without permission the content of another site, without actually pretending to be that site, in order to capture some of that site's traffic (especially from search engines) and profit from advertising revenue or in other ways.
* Search engine site: a site that provides general information and is intended as a gateway or lookup for other sites. A pure example is Google, and well-known sites include Yahoo! Search and Bing (search engine).
* Shock site: includes images or other material that is intended to be offensive to most viewers (e.g. rotten.com).
* Social bookmarking site: a site where users share other content from the Internet and rate and comment on the content. StumbleUpon and Digg are examples.
* Social networking site: a site where users could communicate with one another and share media, such as pictures, videos, music, blogs, etc. with other users. These may include games and web applications.
* Warez: a site designed to host or link to materials such as music, movies and software for the user to download.
* Web portal: a site that provides a starting point or a gateway to other resources on the Internet or an intranet.
* Wiki site: a site which users collaboratively edit (such as Wikipedia and Wikihow).

Some websites may be included in one or more of these categories. For example, a business website may promote the business's products, but may also host informative documents, such as white papers. There are also numerous sub-categories to the ones listed above. For example, a porn site is a specific type of e-commerce site or business site (that is, it is trying to sell memberships for access to its site) or have social networking capabilities. A fan site may be a dedication from the owner to a particular celebrity.

Websites are constrained by architectural limits (e.g., the computing power dedicated to the website). Very large websites, such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google employ many servers and load balancing equipment such as Cisco Content Services Switches to distribute visitor loads over multiple computers at multiple locations.

In February 2009, Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, reported that there were 215,675,903 websites with domain names and content on them in 2009, compared to just 18,000 websites in August 1995.
How do you make money from your website?
I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.




Income Streams for Bloggers – How to Make Money Blogging
Advertising Programs – Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google
1. PPC Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.
List of popular CPC advertising networks:
• Google Adsense
• Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
• BidVertiser
• Chitika
Clicksor

Lastly there’s BlogAds – one of the first blog specific ad networks.
2. CPM Advertising Networks
CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.
A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.
CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.
You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).
List of popular CPM advertising networks:
• Casale Media
• Burst Media
• Value Click
• Advertising.com
• Tribal Fusion
• Right Media
3. Direct Banner Advertising
Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button.
The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.
Related links:
• How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
• Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
• Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
• Openads Ad Server
• OIO Publisher Ad Platform
4. Text Link Ads
After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.
Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.
The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.
Text link marketplaces and networks:
• DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
• Text-Link-Ads
• Text-Link-Brokers
• TNX
• LinkWorth
5. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.
Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.
In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.
List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:
• Commission Junction
• ClickBank
• Azoogle Ads
• Link Share
6. Monetization Widgets
The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.
Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.
List of companies that provide monetization widgets:
• WidgetBucks
• ScratchBack
• SmartLinks
7. Sponsored Reviews
PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.
Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.
If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.
List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:
• PayPerPost
• Sponsored Reviews
• ReviewMe
• BlogVertise
• Smorty
8. RSS Feed Ads
With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.
Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.
Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.
Related links:
• Feedburner
• BidVertiser
• Pheedo
9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events
If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.
This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.
Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll” and the “Web 2.0 Invites.”
Problogger also runs group writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.
10.Premium Content
Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.
SEOMoz is a good example. They have a very popular blog that gives advice and information on wide range of SEO related topics. On top of that visitors can decide to become premium members. It costs $48 monthly and it grants them access to guides, tools and other exclusive material.
11. Private Forums
While the Internet is populated with free forums, there is also the possibility to create a private one where members need to pay a single or recurring fee to join.

SEO Blackhat charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them. Obviously in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you need to provide real value for the members (e.g., secret techniques, tools, and so on).
Performancing also launched a private forum recently, focused on the networking aspect. It is called The Hive, and the monthly cost is $10.
These are just two examples. There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.
List of popular forum software:
• vBulletin
• Simple Machines Forum
• phpBB
• Vanilla
12. Job Boards
All the popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. Guy Kawasaki, ReadWriteWeb, Problogger… you name it.
Needless to say that in order to create an active and profitable job board you need first to have a blog focused on a specific niche, and a decent amount traffic.
The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have the structure in place, the job listings will come naturally, and you can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.
List of popular job board software:
• JobThread
• Web Scribe Job Board
• SimplyHired Job-o-matic
• Jobbex
13. Marketplaces
Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.
Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.
The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.
You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.
14. Paid Surveys and Polls
There are services that will pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. The most popular one is called Vizu Answers.
Basically you need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. Most of these services operate15. Selling or Renting Internal Pages
Million Dollar Wiki made this concept popular, but it was being used on the web for a long time around (check Pagerank10.co.uk for instance).
These websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.
Implementing this method on a small blog would be difficult, but the concept is interesting and could be explored further.
16. Highlighted Posts from Sponsors
Techmeme probably pioneered this idea, but somehow it has not spread to other websites. The tech news aggregator displays editorial posts on the left column, and on the sidebar they have a section titled “Techmeme Sponsor Posts.”
On that section posts from the blog of the advertisers get highlighted, sending qualified traffic their way. Considering that the monthly cost for one spot is $5000 and that they have around 6 sponsors at any given time, it must be working well.
17. Donations
Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.
Personal development and productivity blogs, for instance, tend to perform well with donation based systems (one good example being Steve Pavlina).
A small variation of this method appeared sometime ago with the Buy Me a Beer plugin. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.
18. In-text Adverting
In-text adverting networks like Kontera and Vibrant Media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.
Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.
19. Pop-ups and Pop-unders
Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.
If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.
Ad networks that use pop-ups:
• Tribal Fusion
• PayPopup
• PopupAd
• Adversal
20. Audio Ads
Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by Net Audio Ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.
The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.

RSS Advertising – The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point – but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.
Sponsorship – In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month – one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases – as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies – either in one off or a regular fashion – and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.
Affiliate Programs – There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.
Digital Assets – Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future – in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.
Blog Network Opportunities – with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks – bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging – by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks – there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself – blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.
Business Blog Writing Opportunities – as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties – but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.
Non Blogging Writing Opportunities – Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors – this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!
Donations – Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.
Flipping Blogs – Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ – or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).
Merchandising – My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising – quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales – especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details – but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.
Consulting and Speaking – While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work – his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago – but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.
As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.

Types of Websites
Basic website design types their purpose, scope and structure

Deciding on the type of website that you want to design and build?
There are several types of websites on the Internet each specializing in a particular service or use. Here we will be looking at the design of various types websites although the basic principles would apply to any type of site.
Ask yourself these questions
If you have a website on the internet, or are planning to build one, I am sure that you are creating it for a reason. Are you selling something? Do you want to tell something of yourself or your organization? How about teaching something or entertaining someone? Whatever your goal may be there is a category into which you fit. Checking the website descriptions below will help in your quest to find the type of site that you want to build.
Basic types of websites on the internet
Commercial Website
Creating a website that makes money for you
Starting up an online business
For a small businesses, creating a commercial website can be a daunting task. Not only must you have a product that people want, you will need to design and build a professional looking website that lends itself to internet marketing. Also, a commercial website must be search engine friendly, it should load quickly and provide a clear picture of what you are selling.

Making money on the Web
Monetary success on the internet depends upon several factors all of which require that you expend the necessary time and effort to make it happen. Creating a commercial website requires commitment and passion and is not beyond the grasp of people like you and me.You can do it!
The following outline covers the main points that must be observed when designing and producing a commercial website and are covered in greater detail below.

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Appearance
The first impression that a visitor gets when coming to your website should be a good one.

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Navigation
Poor navigation will make it difficult for people to find what they are looking for and they will leave.

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Content
Quality content not only sells products but it also insures good placement on the search engines.

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Optimization
Search engine optimization is crucial to your traffic flow. How you rank in the search engines is key.

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Clarity and Style
The message that you are trying to convey to your audience must be clear and as simple as possible.

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About Us
Your visitors want to know who they're doing business with, and this is your chance to tell them.

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Contacts
You should include as many different ways for visitors/customers to contact you as you possibly can.

Appearance
Your website should have the look of success. Gaudy colors and poor organization will damage the perception of your website and your product. Poorly designed websites reflect, not always fairly, an image or impression that you are insincere and not to be trusted. You've seen the type of sites I am talking about. They look more like a handbill or flyer than a reputable web company.They are usually fly by night operators who would gladly deceive you into parting with your hard earned money and give you little or nothing in return.

You must avoid this appearance and mindset at all costs. The time and effort you spend on designing your website will be obvious to your visitors and will result in sales. If you feel this is too difficult a task then find someone to design your website for you but, don't take shortcuts when it comes to the appearance of your website. The first impression that a visitor gets when coming to your website should be a good one.
Navigation
The next important point in the design of a commercial website is how easily your visitors can move about your site. Poor navigation will make it difficult for people to find what they are looking for and they will leave. They have questions and if they can't find answers to those questions you will lose a sale.

A good navigation scheme doesn't have to be fancy. It can be as simple as a column of links running down the side of your webpages or a line of links running across the top and/or bottom of the pages. Try to tie all of your webpages together in this fashion and your navigation scheme will not fail.
Content
Quality content not only sells products but it also insures good placement on the search engines. Make your content keyword rich and interesting. Talk about your product with passion and show your visitors that you believe in what you are selling. Mention your product often and in as many different ways that you can. This makes it easy for your visitors to decide if they want to buy what you are selling and gives the search engines something to work with when they index your website.

Ask yourself the following questions. Does your copy convey the message you wish to get across to your visitors? Is it compelling? Does it lead your visitor through the sales process? Does it clearly project the ideas that you wish to promote? In order for your website to be successful it must capture your visitors interest and the interest of the search engines.
Optimization
Search engine optimization is crucial to your traffic flow. Having your website listed on the first page of a search engines results will give you maximum exposure. And, the closer you are to the top of the page the greater the number of visitors you will receive and potential buyers that you will reach. Thus, you should optimize your website to rank somewhere in the top ten results. This is not easy. To do this will require long hours of hard work but, it can be done.

First focus on your keywords and keyword density but don't sacrifice your message. Write your content like you were writing to a friend. Let your creativity take over and write from your heart. Focus on what you want to say and don't worry about optimizing your web page content until you are completely satisfied with your message.

Once you have nailed down your content then utilize the meta tags keywords, description and title. Use your keywords when naming your pages and also for paragraph headings. Sprinkle your keywords throughout your text but avoid sounding clumsy. Work them in logically and don't over do it. Not all search engines operate exactly the same. But, if you follow these simple suggestions you will do just fine on most of them.
Clarity and Style
The message that you are trying to convey to your audience must be clear and as simple as possible. Avoid using complicated paragraphs and long sentences. This will enable you to reach the most people and enhance the possibility of a sale. Reading on the internet is not as easy as reading a book or newsprint. Keep this in mind when laying out your webpages.
The primary purpose of any commercial website is communicating ideas and emotions that lead the visitor toward a specific goal or action. Your website will be appraised, by your visitor, on its ability to present your ideas concisely, clearly and effectively.
About us
You will find an "about us" page on every successful commercial website, both large and small. Your visitors want to know who they're doing business with, and this is your chance to tell them. Information you might include:

Who you are

* The history of your company

* A company profile

* A mission statement

Contact
Many commercial sites don't provide adequate contact information, or they forget it completely! You should include as many different ways for visitors/customers to contact you as you possibly can.

This includes:

# telephone and fax numbers

# email addresses

# email forms

# street address

Summary
It is not as easy to get rich on the internet as it once was but it is still possible. Like anything worth having it will demand much of your time, effort and a lot of determination in order to succeed. But, don't let this deter you from your goal of making a successful commercial website.


Personal Website Design
How to create a website about you or your group
A personal website is all about you
A personal website is just what the name implies. It is a website maintained by an individual for personal use. Similar to a Blog a personal website is usually much larger and contains the personal interests, hobbies, etc. of the person controlling the website.

The purpose of this type of website is to provide information about an individual or group. This type of website is run by an individual or a small group (such as a family) that contains information or any content that the individual wishes to include.
Designing a personal website
The sky is the limit when designing a personal website. Some of you may just want a simple one page website to tell the world something about yourself; others may want a larger, multi-page website structure that spans several areas of interest. Still others may simply be looking for a place to experiment with the web.

In short, a personal website is the place for webpages not directly related to a product or organization or any other entity other than yourself. It is a website that only YOU control. You are the webmaster!
Personal websites are not private
A personal website is not really private. The public will be the visitors to your website and they will be from all over the world. Keep in mind that your website will be browseable by the world, and will eventually get indexed by the search engines. Once this happens your audience will expand even more. Never offer more information about yourself than you need to.

Developing a theme for your website
Although it is not a necessity it is a good idea to use some theme to tie your website together. If you are an artist then by all means use your skill to display your work in the light of your personality. Use your art work to combine your webpages into a coherent whole. I am sure that you can think of ways to do this.

If you are an avid boater then you could use a nautical scheme to emphasize your personality and your content. Maybe you enjoy photography or the great outdoors in which case nature and natural images would serve your purpose. Whatever motivates you can be a source for developing a website theme. That's the fun of having a personal website.
Communication should be a two way street
Always provide a means for your visitors to send you feedback. When your visitors want to tell you something or ask you a question they must have a means of doing so. A simple email address is the least that you should provide them. Better still, post a contact page and create a web form to process correspondence.

The exchange of information and the melding of ideas is the crowning glory of the internet. Through the interchange of thoughts and personal experiences we become a global community. People to people contact is becoming more and more important in the modern world to help us maintain our perspective.
Summary
Making and managing a personal website can be one of the most rewarding experiences to be had on the internet. Through it you can make friends from countries that you will never see and have only read about.

Personal websites are the way of the future. It is the beginning of a global society at the grassroots level. Where each of us will have our own internet identity and address.

We should all be creating our own websites and staking our claim on the internet. Just like movie stars and other famous folk you should have your own personal website. Welcome to the global village!
Organizational Website Design
How to create a website for your group or organization
Purpose of an organizational website
The purpose of this type of website is to advocate a collective opinion or a groups point of view. It is a website where persons with similar interests, such as a club , hobby group, etc., communicate with each other usually by chat or message boards. If the website is a non-profit site the Internet address often ends with .org.

An organizational website should not be confused with a company or commercial website. It is intended to encompass the interests and opinions of a niche group and is created solely for that purpose. Usually, but not always, this type of website is for non-profit organizations that employ the site as a means of keeping its members up-to-date on activities and events.
Designing an organizational website
The design of an organizational website should be straightforward and aimed at the dissemination of specific or subject related information. Don't allow yourself to deviate from your main mission. Following certain rules of website design will provide you and your visitor both success and a pleasant experience. The basic rules are as follows;
1) Begin by examining some sites created by existing organizations.
The Internet is a great place to find ideas for the appearance and layout of your website. Do some research to determine the look and feel you think will suit your audience. Once you have decided upon the best way to present your website you can begin construction.
2) Consider your audience and their needs.
Think about the audience of your website and what purpose that audience will want the organizational website to serve. Will your primary readers be club members, political allies, fellow office workers, sport team members or school groups? What will those readers be looking for on your site? The answers to these questions, of course, will depend mostly on the kind of organization for which you're constructing a site.
3) Content
All organizational websites should contain contact information. The address of your organization, an email address and/or contact form are all necessary for visitor feedback and providing answers to queries.

Provide some pictures and descriptions of events to add interest. Also, a schedule of upcoming activities or meetings is a must as well as up-to-date news and information. The point is to present content geared to your organization and its aims.
4) Organization
On organizational websites it's crucial to think carefully about how materials are organized so that your visitors don't feel lost. Provide visual and verbal cues as guideposts for your visitors, a user friendly navigation system is crucial in this regard.

Begin by arranging your information into categories. Most organizational sites use categories like:

* About the organization
* Events
* What's new

Develop an navigation scheme that will help your visitors find the information they want. Examine other sites for ideas of what works and what doesn't.
Summary
An effective organizational website will meet the needs of your organization and its readers by containing the following elements:

* A homepage, with a logo and links to other pages in the site

* Contact information

* Mission statement

* Carefully designed and easy-to-use navigational system

* Content that is consistent with your organization and the purposes you're attempting to achieve with your audience and that describes your organization and its purpose effectively

* Effective organization, allowing for easy retrieval of information and having a consistent format for titles, subtitles, and headings

* Attractive presentation and a thoughtful layout
Educational Website Design
Create a website that teaches and inspires
Focus on teaching
An educational website should be constructed in such a way that it's main focus is teaching. It should focus on high quality content to enrich the learning experience of visitors. Your website should be centered on educational quality, not the quantity of pages (or text) and the look of your site.

If you keep your website interesting, clear and focussed your can presume that your visitors will appreciate your efforts and that they will respond positively.
The following outline will present the general guidelines for the construction of an educational website.
Avoid using animations
Having said that, there are occasions when an animation will aid in the presentation of certain ideas. But, in most cases animations are a distraction to your visitors and the information that you are trying to convey.
Use a white background.
Various background colors have been tested for visitor appeal and when it comes to serious reading, website visitors prefer black text on a white background.
Consistent use of fonts, colors and page layout
All of your webpages should have a common layout and theme. Mixing up text fonts, using too much color variation, and being inconsistent with your page layouts will not do.
Keep individual pages clean and simple
Anything added should have a purpose (yes esthetics and humour also have purpose, but not of highest importance for this task).
Streamline the site to the busy visitor
People are in a hurry these days so it is important that your visitors can find what they are looking for quickly. Navigation through your website should be simple and user friendly.

Note: In general, subjective comments, humorous remarks, other entertaining items (e.g. animations) may be provided but should be separate from the core subject being taught.
Organization and Structure
Learning is more likely to occur if there is a logical and sequential organization of information. Learning is maximized when there is a definite structure to learning activities such as a step-by-step tutorial. Tutorials are one of the hallmarks of the internet and find their best use when teaching a subject, idea and/or method of doing something.

Organize your website around your core subject. The website should be structured in such a way that the emphasis is always upon what you are trying to teach. Don't digress, stay on your topic and be as clear and simple as possible.

Structure your subject matter into short concise statements and paragraphs. Don't be frivolous or try to impress your visitors with your knowledge. The object of any educational website is to impart some lasting knowledge to people who are seeking a better understanding of what you are teaching.
Wants, Needs, and Aspirations
Learning occurs more easily when the content matches the wants, needs, or aspirations of your visitors. Relate the information taught to how it affects them or how it will help them accomplish their goals. Visitors must see the relevance of the information to themselves and their lives.
Summary
Everyone is busy. Some people are under-informed and may need more info on particular items. Other people know most of the content you offer and want to find out particular points quickly without having to search through unneeded info.

Try to cater to all of your visitors. Give them a reason to pursue knowledge.

Keep in mind the educational website is for your visitors convenience not principally a self expression area for your own ideas.
Entertainment Website Design
Designing a website that entertains your visitors
The show must go on
All the world is a stage and the internet is no exception. People are looking for diversions from their busy lives and a good entertainment website can be your key to fame and fortune. But, in order to create a successful website that entertains your audience you should follow some guidelines discovered by other webmasters.
Normal rules don't count
If you are designing a website that is entertainment related, your audience is likely to expect and tolerate some slow loading times and novelty navigation. After all an entertainment website is expected to be novel. This makes it imperative that the content you are providing is worth it to your visitors.
Types of entertainment websites
Celebrity websites
This type of website usually pays homage to a particular person of fame. Maybe it is maintained by an avid fan or just someone who finds enjoyment in providing information about the personage in question.

Focus on the celebrity and avoid digressing unless there is a reason for doing so. Your visitors will want to know everything that you know about this person and also your views and opinions about them. You will have to do your homework in order to grow your site. Keep abreast of any and all aspects of the performers life and work, so that your visitors will learn something they never knew before about this person.

Fashion your website to match the personality of your subject. Serious actors would be presented with dignity and aplomb, comedians with bright colors and whimsical graphics, etc. In general an entertainment website should entertain with in every aspect from graphics to content to text styles. The sky is the limit!
Game sites
Navigation is probably the most important aspect of this type of website. Finding the content that they are after is important to your visitors and the easier you make this task the better.

If you require visitors to sign-up to use your site you must make it easy for them to do so. You can lose a lot of traffic to clumsy subscription forms and poorly defined subscription processes.

Hone your programming skills. Good games require good programs and unless you are up to the job forget starting a game site. But, maybe you will be the lucky one who devises some innovative amusement that takes the Web by storm.
The possibilities are endless
These are only two ways to entertain on the Web. There are many more entertainment possibilities for your websites. Here are a few:

Sports Heros - Pick your favorite sports personality

Military Leaders - Who's who in the military.

Government Heads - Presidents, governors, senators and politicians are fair game.

Music Downloads - Share your music with others.

Historical Figures - People who helped to change the world.

Religious Personages - What they teach and what they believe.

Famous Pets - Pets that belong to famous people.
Summary
Designing an entertainment website is one of the best ways to reach people who have common interests.

Using multiple subjects and various categories you can touch the hearts and minds of a cross section of the population. Your audience can be as varied as you wish it to be.

Each category will have a following of interested individuals who want to know more about whatever subject is nearest and dearest to their hearts. Tap into these groups and you will attain a new audience and following.
News Website Design
Designing a website that tracks current events
Purpose and scope
The purpose of this type of website is to provide information about current events and opinions. This form of website is most often dedicated to dispensing news and commentary but should also elicit feedback from your visitors. You don't have to be an international correspondent or work in a national news room to webmaster a news website. In fact many blogs are just that, a news site that covers current events and the webmasters and visitors views on the news.

To be a successful webmaster of a news website you must stay current on the news of the day. This can be quite a challenge. But, if you love to keep up on the latest news and are an avid reader of current events you are ready to start a news website.
Citizen journalism
Producing a news story doesn't end there it should lead to an ongoing conversation between you and your visitors. The internet provides the vehicle for citizens of the global village to let their voices be heard. Even the giant news organizations realize this and strive to get their readers involved in the news through feedback forms and personal comments appliances.

Provide a way for your visitors to get their thoughts and opinions published on your website. See them as reporters covering a story and utilize their input just as a large news organization would. Non journalists, the public sector, are eager to share their slant on news items that interest them. Give them a platform on which to express themselves and other citizens will follow.
News as a conversation
Get your audience to speak up, to contribute more of their thoughts and knowledge to the public conversation, and to realize that the news they read is not just about absorbing what's published, but also the venue for news, information and opinion that they can produce themselves.

Today's online news consumers are used to talking back and asking questions, so let them. You should allow people to comment freely on what you publish. Ask for user comments in the story. Get in the habit of posing questions at the end of a story, or asking readers to share their experiences or knowledge about the topic. Provide a link to your comments page for their feedback.

Most media experts say that you must provide a nudge to your visitors by posting a question that directly solicits some sort of reply. This can be done best at the end of an article or news story. But, remember that just asking a question helps to provoke comments.

Citizen content is proving to be as valuable at times as that produced by professional journalists. For instance, news on the events in the world are often enhanced with input from the people living in these places through feedback to news organizations and personal blogs. You should be encouraging this more and more.
Blog Design
Creating the perfect blog
What is a Blog?
Blogs come in many shapes and sizes. The present trend is a proliferation of websites that are intended as online journals by which individuals and/or organizations express their thoughts and opinions. That in a nut shell is a Blog. Or to put it another way;

A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical Blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although many focus on photograph (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting).
Creating a Blog
There are many ways to present your Blog. Basically you can use your own imagination to create the type of Blog that suits your fancy. However, the following guidelines will enhance your Blog and provide your visitors with a pleasant experience that increases the probability that they will return.
1.) Stick to your theme.
A Blog should have a central theme. It is the information contained in your content that your visitors will be interested in. If you ramble and deviate from the main topic of your Blog they will leave. Decide on a topic and stay with it. This will help you to create a following of interested readers.
2.) Be informative.
Your visitors are looking for information not some egocentric ramblings on your pet peeve. If you want to express an opinion do so in an informed manner. Use current events to underscore your views or provide references to bolster your opinions.
3.) Stay current.
No matter what you are trying to say on your Blog keep your content fresh and up to date. Don't rehash old stories or previous entries unless your visitors request it or it ties into some current event. Old news is not very interesting.
4.) Be dependable.
Update your Blog on a regular basis. Don't allow long lapses to occur between new entries. Have some sort of schedule for your Blog. It isn't necessary to do a daily update but you should never exceed a week between posts. You visitors expect as much. If your Blog content is updated on a regular basis, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.
5.) Be clear and simple.
Always strive to keep your content clear and simply stated. Your visitors are from all walks of life and are composed of many nationalities. Keeping your message simple and straightforward will help to reach the most people.
6.) Use keywords.
Whatever the subject of your Blog may be use the keywords that best represent your theme. Your title should contain keywords that tie into your content and your content should contain your keywords as well. The search engines will be better able to index your Blog if they find your keywords easily.
7.) Blog quality.
Just any old content will not do. Strive to keep your content well written. Study the rules of essay writing and apply them always. Search engines have become more sophisticated and can tell the poorly written Blogs from the well written ones. Practice and apply good writing skills to be successful. Also, include an archive of past posts for the search engines to index and for your visitors to refer to.
8.) Proof read and check spelling.
Keep your content polished and accurate. To gain respect you must write with respect. Poor spelling and awkward sentences will turn most people off. Have pride in what you present and it will show in the number of followers that you will gain.
Summary
Most Blogs start out small with only a few regular visitors. But, if you follow the above guidelines your audience will grow over time.

Don't expect an overnight success but stay the course and keep growing your Blog. In the end I think you will be glad you did.