Creating and Making an Income From Your Website

Having an online presence is becoming an important part of building and maintaining a professional reputation. For your customers, clients or patients, visiting your website is one of the most important ways they use to 'screen' you to decide if they want your professional services. Constructing a website can be intimidating, but even if you are not experienced with computers, you can tackle it in a few manageable steps. 

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1. Decide why you want a website. Determine whether the priority of your website is to attract customers to your offline business or whether you want a website for the purpose of interacting with your patients.
A simple informational website may have plenty of material, articles, links and pictures without interactive features beyond a simple email/contact feature for your web visitors to ask you questions. An interactive website allows visitors to create their own profiles or to order items. If you want an interactive website, the process of building the website is much more involved than if you want a website that provides information.

2. Search for a web host. A web host is a service that is already designed to help you build and publish your website. A web host is to a website as PowerPoint or Prezi or keynote is to a presentation. Popular and easy to use web hosts include weebly.com, wix.com, wordpress.com, go daddy.com, bluehost.com, and squarespace.com among others.
All of these web hosts have easy to understand tutorials for do-it-yourself web builders. The web hosts typically offer a free web building package as well as additional add-ons that you can pay for, such as a domain name or a dedicated email. As you navigate the do-it-yourself instructions, you will get an idea of which web host is more in line with your goals for your website and whether you want to move forward with building your website yourself of hiring someone to do it for you. 
 
3. Decide if you are going to move forward by building and managing your own website or by hiring someone to do it for you. There are an abundance of web designers who you can hire. You might choose someone who is local, or you might even find a web designer by searching online. Often, your web host can provide this service for you at a cost determined by how complex and interactive you want your website to be. 
 
4. If you are going to proceed with the do-it-yourself path of building and managing your website, you need to choose a web host. Typically you can 'buy' different packages from the web host, and most web hosts have a free basic package that includes easy to follow instructions. You can usually upgrade if you want additional features at a future time.

5. The next step is choosing a domain name. This would be ‘yourwebsitename.com.’ Your domain name is going to be on your business cards and on your social media links, so think about this carefully. It should be easy to remember, but also specific enough that it describes the feel and purpose of your website accurately. Thinking through this step may take you longer than any other step. If you change your domain name at some time—whether it is 3 months or 3 years from when you publish your website, old links using your previous domain name will not work anymore, and that could have a significant impact on your website traffic and on your credibly if people try to search an old link and reach a page that says, 'this page no longer exists.' As an alternative, you can redirect your old page to a new one, and this requires learning some coding.
Registering a domain name requires a fee that must be renewed every year, and you should be able to find simple instructions for registering a domain name through your web host
 
6. Build your home page using the web host’s template for a home page.  A home page features your website title and a description of the website. Your home page is the page that people reach using your web address, so this will be your most visited page. Your website visitors will use your home page to decide whether they want to learn more and whether your business is right for them.
While templates are available, you do not have to use them—you can be more creative and build pages from scratch or even code your own pages if you want to.
 
7. Additional pages can follow a web host template. And each page has its own title that is part of the web address for that particular page. For example, an additional page web address would be 'yourwebsitename/ournewfeatures.com.' Additional pages may follow a simple page format with information and pictures or may follow a blog format, which features articles and pictures. As with the home page, you can opt out of pre-designed templates and create your own set-up or program codes for special features if you are skilled at coding.
 
8. Graphics should follow a similar theme and color scheme throughout the whole site. Graphics are extremely important to website visitors, as they relay a powerful message about you and your business. You can usually use graphics provided by the web host or you can upload your own photos.

9. Marketing your website may be important if you want your website to be a highly ranked destination. If your site is primarily playing the role of serving existing customers, then you probably do not need to focus on marketing your site. But if your website is one of your marketing tools for bringing in new patients or customers, then you need to have a marketing strategy. Sharing your site or sharing articles from your site in special interest groups or on your social media channels are some of the ways to build traffic. Collaborating with other websites that are similar or complementary to yours by guest posting can also help build cross-traffic. For example, if your site is relevant to the content on nonclinicaldoctors.com 'medical career strategies' or 'tips from your doctor,' submitting an article can help drive traffic to your own site. 
 
10. Revenue tools include automated ads or collaborations. If you want to earn revenue from your website, you can negotiate with individual businesses to advertise on your site or sign up for automated advertisements with programs such as such as Google AdSense or Amazon.com, among others.
Automated Advertisements
If you want to use advertising with a company like Google or Amazon.com, you need to apply to become an affiliate before they accept your site for their targeted advertisements.
If your website is accepted as an affiliate, you will receive your own code that you can place on your website so that you can feature targeted advertisements on your website. Your own web host will have a special tool that looks like something this < > for you to put into your web pages in order to place your designated codes for your ads. Then, depending on your traffic, you will earn revenue that can range from pennies per day to thousands of dollars per day if many visitors come to your site and stay on the site.

Commission and Partner Advertisements
If you want to place individual affiliate advertisements or links, you can negotiate an upfront fee or a commission with individual clients. These fees can be based on sales that the client obtains from your site referrals. With individual affiliate arrangements, your website and your posts serve as sales tools for your clients.

11. When it comes to earning income from your website, good content is the key.  This means that if your site is not useful, or if you have a title that promises more than it delivers, visitors will only stay on your site for seconds and will not return or recommend it to others. So of you want to earn revenue from your website, the number one method of doing that is by having good content that is relevant for your readers.