How about finding
fodder for your new graphics program? You've probably figured out already
that you have two options: pay for exquisite graphics, or get free
graphics that are nearly as good. One thing you must NOT do is simply
snatch images from random websites and use them on your own. This will
get you into a great deal of trouble, although you will also receive a
liberal education in internet copyright laws.
If you are willing to
shell out the bucks, sites like
iStockPhoto have
beautiful, professional photos and graphics available for purchase.
On the other hand, if you are as frugal (read: cheap) as I am, you can
browse through
Microsoft
Clip Art's vast catalogue of free graphics and photos instead. Be
warned, however, that quite a few website builders use images from the
Microsoft stock, so any pictures that you use for your site will almost
certainly appear on other sites as well, possibly even your competitor's!
Some clever cropping and shading with your graphics program can help give
your free images a fresh new look.
You're really moving
along now. Your site template is ready, you have a font or two picked
out, a few pretty pictures to post on the site… are we missing anything?
Yup, now we talk about adding some actual CONTENT, as in the words your
visitors come to your site to read.
Content is king.
Good content will lure visitors back to your site frequently, and they
may even put links to your site in their own sites. Good content will
show up in Google searches when someone is looking for information
relevant to your website. Bad content will cause your site to languish
unvisited by everyone but the spambots.
Posting a few
articles, particularly "how-to" articles that relate in some way to your
business, will help your site traffic immensely. Once again you have the
option to pay for articles or to get reasonably good ones for free. Articlesbase.com
offers free articles that you can publish to your site immediately, as
long as you copy them over completely, including the author's name and a
link to their site. You can also buy articles cheaply from Constant
Content, Associated Content, Helium, and tons of other article-for-sale
sites. Once you buy an article from these sites, you can even publish it
under your own name.
As with images, do
NOT simply copy and paste an interesting article from another site. This
is called plagiarism, and you will get caught – tools such as Copyscape
sweep the Internet and alert authors when duplicate content is detected.
Not only can this lead to an embarrassing conversation with the owner of
your stolen material, but if he or she reports the theft to your web host
and/or Internet Service Provider they can ban you for life. In some
circumstances you could even be prosecuted in a court of law.
Congratulations,
your website is ready! You can now bask in the feeling of technological
glory as you invite all your friends and family to browse over to your
site. You can't afford to rest on your laurels forever, though. In order
to keep the visitor's a-callin', you should update your site regularly.
Post new content at least once a month to keep people – and search
engines – interested in your site.
