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WebMasteringWebMastering can be as simple as setting up a two- or three-page site and making sure the links work, or it can be as complex as creating a site with dynamic content, many pages, and sales of your own products and products offered by companies to which you've affiliated. I'm assuming, since you're a small business, that your site will be more towards the smaller side. Even then, the business of managing or Mastering a website is more difficult than it was just a few years ago. You have more competition so you have to offer more to your visitors. There are also many more potential visitors. This page is devoted to helping you get an idea of what's involved in webmastering. Over time, you'll either "get the bug" and your site will grow and become more complex, or you'll tire of it and your site will stagnate. I know of no other alternatives. The web, in all it's ever-changing glory is truly a place where you grow or die. But, you don't have to try to compete with the major portals or the biggest merchants who spend millions of dollars and have hundreds of people developing their sites. There's quite a lot you can do using free services that will entice your visitors to come back more often and purchase what you are selling. Once you learn how to use the free services, then you can pay for the full version and really get your site moving. March 2003 UpdateEven though it was a short month, thanks to nice folks like you, there were over 16,000 visitors to JohnDilbeck.com in February, 2003. This is a 60% increase since the November Update, below, and it's still growing. In late February, I checked my Alexa ranking for JohnDilbeck.com and I'd risen over 50,000 in the rankings to my current ranking of 320,245. That puts me within sight of 300,000 which would be about the top 2% of all websites. (See the discussion below, in the November 2002 Update, for more information about Alexa.) This just underscores my idea that if you follow a set of procedures and stick with it, you can build a website with lots of visitors without spending a lot of money. Persistence is the key. Once you learn how to build a website and make it attractive to the search engines, you just have to continue to work your plan and your site will grow. November 2002 UpdateWe reached a new milestone in November. This is the first month when over 10,000 of you have visited JohnDilbeck.com. That's more than a 500% increase in traffic when compared to this time last year, and it's still growing. At the current rate, there will be well over 100,000 visitors in 2003, and each one of you is welcome here. My ranking at Alexa.com is 372,210 this month. (See the Alexa toolbar link in the left column to learn how you can get this tool for your browser toolbox. It gives you the ability to check any site's popularity and relative traffic.) With approximately 16.6 million active websites on the Internet, a site with a ranking of one million is in the top 6 percentile. With a ranking of 300,000, a site would be in the top 2% of all Internet sites. I'm aiming to be in the top 1%, which would be an Alexa ranking of less than 150,000 or so. I'm making progress. The first time I checked my Alexa ranking I was well over 1,000,000. I hope you fell welcomed and find what you're searching for. This is a good time to thank Ken Evoy and the other SiteSell folks, the folks at Wordtracker.com, and at SelfPromotion.com for their help. Each of these sites offer free services and training, and later, when you're ready, you can purchase the full services or products and put them to work for you.I learned from Ken how to create a website that sells. I followed some of his advice and ignored other parts. The best thing I did this year was to purchase and download Make Your Site Sell! (the 2002 update) and really study it. I learned a great deal from this book and several others that I purchased from him this year. When I joined his affiliate program, I found over 1,000 pages of expert advice on building traffic to my site and how to make money selling products and advertising other companies here. Even a year later, Ken still has the best affiliate program that I've been able to find, and I've been looking for nearly two years. I've joined hundreds to evaluate them, and Ken's 5-Pillar club beats them all. For less than the price of two months of hosting JohnDilbeck.com, Make Your Site Sell! gave me the tools and inspiration to completely rebuild my site and make it something I could be proud of. (You can learn more about Ken and his products on my Does Your Site Sell? page. I highly recommend all of his products, although some of the information in his Make Your Net Auctions Sell ebook is a bit out of date due to changes that eBay made. I highly recommend his free courses and I've arranged for you to download some sample ebooks for free. More details are on the Does Your Site Sell page.) Even though Make Your Net Auctions Sell is a bit out of date, I learned enough from it to open my Dilbeck Metalsmithing store on eBay where I've sold my Steel Roses That Never Wilt (tm) and many products made by my good friend Arch Avary. I learned from Ken about WordTracker.com. There, I've spent many hours researching key words and how they're actually used on the Internet. I've been able to locate niches where folks like you can find me on the web. It's a simple matter of finding what people are searching for and finding niches where there aren't too many competitors. Then target those key words in the meta tags of your pages and in the content. Major search engines like Google and MSN will be happy to lead visitors to your site. You can subscribe, for free, to a list of 500 top keywords that were searched for during the previous week. They have a great service and you can learn to use it for free by working with the trial version until you understand how it works. Then, when you're ready to do some serious research, you can subscribe to the full service at very reasonable prices. I've subscribed for a day at a time and then concentrated on working for several hours. I've been paid back much more than what I invested. In fact, I'll earn more from my affiliate sales just through Amazon.com this quarter to pay for all the money I've invested promoting my site this year. WordTracker.com is quite a bargain and is very effective. Finally, I used all the tools available at SelfPromotion.com to get JohnDilbeck.com listed in the major search engines. You can try the service for free, and if you like it, all he asks is for you to pay what you think it was worth to you. I've paid him twice this year and I'll pay him again. It's been well worth it! If you found JohnDilbeck.com through one of the search engines, these are the three tools that I credit most for putting me out where you could find me. Of course, it took lots and lots of work, but it's been fun. During a very difficult year, when I've been caring for my mother for the last six months and have only recently been able to leave the house, I've taken the time to work on my website. At first, I spent quite a bit of money, but sometime this fall it started breaking even, and now, I'm starting to show a bit of profit. Next year, when I'll be able to get back to my smithy and make The Rose That Never Wilts, again, this website will still be working for me 24 hours every day. I think it's been a good investment of time and energy. And, as a real bonus, it gave me the opportunity and freedom to spend a year taking care of my mother after her cancer surgery and struggle to recuperate. I can't put any kind of price tag on that. I'm glad you dropped in. You're always welcome back here. If you have any comments, criticisms, or suggestions about JohnDilbeck.com, feel free to write me. Please put JohnDilbeck.com in the subject of your email. My email address is at the bottom of every page on the site. Come back anytime!
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