# General Business Category > Marketing Forum >  Build your own web site, it is easy

## pietpetoors

Doing online marketing without your own web site is a waste of time. If you do it without your own web site you are just building somebody else's brand for him.

Building your own web site is not as difficult as you think

I created a step by step video tutorial which show you exactly how to do this.

I take you from where you register your own domain to the point where you can receive payments, add a newsletter and be able to place banner ads on your web site.

It is so easy even a 50 year old can do it.

You can get it at http://www.createyourownwebsite.co.za

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## rosanne

So you did your website by yourself? Who does the hosting and how much monthly? All the tweaking and other garble? who does that?

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## pietpetoors

The hosting is done by gridhost, they charge R8.95 per month for hosting and R100 per year for domain registration and renewal. They then give you 50mb of space which is enough for entry level web site and 10 mail boxes.

The setup and tweaking are all done by yourself. The video shows exactly how to set it up, how to add plugins for good SEO, etc.

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## mikefaraone

Basically building a site is not that difficult for me, there are some finest tools availoable on net for that, what i am interested in a service that would not only let me design a suite but will also make it search engine friendly, as far as the backend coding is concerned. is there any tool or site available for this type of info?

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## Chatmaster

The best options you have in my opinion is to use CMS like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal with mod rewrite switched on together with hosting on a Linux box off course. I also recommend that you join Rand Fishkin's SEOMoz and perhaps even purchase SEOBook by Aaron Wall to get your SEO up to scratch. Just being search friendly is pointless if you do not apply SEO techniques as the author are in control of most of the on-page SEO as well as the Off-page factors.

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## Chatmaster

Just as a side note, building a website will not even remotely make you money online, nor would ranking well. You need to know how to squeeze and convert to make money online. Getting traffic is simply a start of any internet business.

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Dave A (08-Nov-09), IanF (07-Nov-09)

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## Emilganos

what happen when you create your web page?

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## tonyflanigan

> what happen when you create your web page?


The same as New Years resolutions. Nothing, unless you really put some effort into it. :Smile: 

If you don't mind, can we link to your site from our brand new blog, http://claybricktrust.co.za ?

Sorry about punting my site boss Dave..., if its a prob, I'll use a pm.

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## pietpetoors

As Tony said, once the site is finished the hard work start. Not only do you have to promote it but you also have to get quality content on your site.
Content do not always have to be business orientated, it is better to write about a topic you have a passion for. Look at Butch's site http://www.storiesandissues.co.za/ . His making his money from writing short stories and poems. He is retired and this is what he love doing.

@Tony - Those google link units which you have on your site nether work for me. Their conversion rate is very poor. In the body of the site I suggest you rather use a normal ad unit and them link units is good to put at the end of a page so that it looks like more links on your site.

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## SilverNodashi

If I may ask, what is your target market with this?

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## Emilganos

Before logging in my forum I have ready known that there are new things waiting for me. I really love this forum. It's teachful and free thought- share-field. I have many web masters books they are full of inpirations.
The Forum SA is another powerful tool. 
My question is "what is the difference between hosting your web here in South Africa and outside of South Africa.
Thank you Dave.

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## SilverNodashi

Hosting in South Africa is much faster, since the servers are located in South Africa. But, bandwidth is normally more expensive. For some this could be a problem though, especially if your website moves 5GB, or even 10GB bandwidth per month. But, on the other hand if this traffic is all business related and brings in money, then the cost of the bandwidth is marginal. 

It's like renting an office. Many people won't pay R10K pm for an office, but if that same office generates R50K / R100k per month (let's say you sell products in a mall, or you run a print company, etc) then the R10k or even R20k office rental is marginal. Same with local bandwidth. We host many websites on USA based server, and many website on ZA based servers - there's a demand for both.

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## pietpetoors

Over the years I developed various sites which targets various markets. Anything from property, photography, forex trading,  shares and 4x4

My advice to people is not to target a certain niche just to make money. Especially on your first site start off with something you have a passion for and develop a site around that. All the sites I created I did because I had an interest in that subject at the time I created the site.

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tonyflanigan (17-Dec-09)

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## tonyflanigan

@Piet

Thanks for your comments re our google ads.

Our site(s) is/are in a constant state of change. Terry looks after the ads, and monitors their performance, altering the units and layout as she sees what does and what does not work in specific places.

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## Peter Parker

Do you write your web contents yourself? If yes how.

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## tonyflanigan

um.... two fingers and a keyboard?

Lol, yes Peter we do, and for several international clients as well. I think most South African web designers do their own content, or at least have it edited, before placing.

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## pietpetoors

Peter, as for the DVD where this post originally started - I personally write my own content but I also show people on the DVD where to get PLR articles and how to copy and paste them onto the web site.

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## Pap_sak

I would have to disagree with you slightly on at least one point Piet. It's just a hobby of mine (my wife is the graphic designer I put the finished work up in DW), but putting up a website in a day or even two? You right in that it could be done, but would it look any good? I think not. I've put up around 25-30 static, HTML/CSS websites, learning a little more every time (it's not my fulltime job), and I could not put up a half decent website without my wifes graphics. If you have a business that you are proud about, spend the R2500 - R3000 and get it done properly, just my opinion.

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## tonyflanigan

Good point there pap-sak. The quickest site turnaround we've had for a site was 8 days. That is from first interview to going live. The client had everything ready for us, content, graphics, layout proposal, alles. Over the 8 day period, we spent a combined 90 hrs on the project. 

I must add that our coding is done from scratch. We were using editors, but found too many coding problems and cross browser compatability issues.

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## pietpetoors

I agree with you pap-sak if you do it the "real" way. What I do in my DVD is to show people how to use WordPress to build a site. It has more than a thousand free templates to choose from.

This is no substitute for a real professional web site. This is aimed at the guy who wants to make money online or the small business who just needs a one or two pager. Some of them open free Yola or weebly site which is not professional. What I am trying to get the people to do is to rather get your own domain and build your own site on that. Sonething like a guest house mostly do not need more than 2 pages for a web site. 

I also started various businesses in my life and I know that most of the times when you start off you do not have the money to pay a designer R4,000 or more for a web site. With my DVD the small business can start off by doing his own thing, get a web presence, start making money and one day when he is in the money he might concider hiring somebody to build him a custom designed web site.

Personally I am still doing my own sites with DreamWeaver but there is no way that you can teach the normal man on street to do that. Because so many people kept on asking me how they can build their own site I decided to help them out by showing them how to do it with wordpress.

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## pietpetoors

pap sak, another eason why I use WordPress. I also used to design sites for clients but got fed-up with the support side. Because I normaly have a good relation with clients they think they can phone you at 22h00 in the evening to say that they cannot download their email or that they lost their microsoft word file. 

So I stopped doing work for others completely. But most people who ask me to do a web site for them (which I reject) want to edit and change their sites themselves. So either I can build them a database driven site with DW which wil cost them a fortune and which is not worth doing for a 2 or 3 page guest house site, or I can show them how to do their own wordpress site and maintain it themselves.

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## tonyflanigan

Ah yes. Different strokes for different folks. There is no single solution that will suit everyone. We use Wordpress for our blog, and it is, quite simply the best blogging option available. As regards design. I haven't used a WYSIWYG editor in ages, preferring to work with Notepad++, Topstyle, and a few browsers. For development work (php), I have xampp installed.

Since making the decision to code correctly, and switching to the tools I now use I enjoy what I do so much more. WYSIWYG makes you lazy, but yeah, no perfect solution for all. It boils down to personal choice and preference.

And by the way, thanks for not bothering with the little sites, cos now they come to us!

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## Marq

> So either I can build them a database driven site with DW which wil cost them a fortune and which is not worth doing for a 2 or 3 page guest house site


As a matter of interest, Piet; What would you charge for say a 3 pager with its own database?

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## Pap_sak

Hi Piet. Agree with you, Wordpress is excellent for those wanting to make their own site. We've also just turn away a client that we know will want changes done at the drop of a hat, for thier budget, it just was not possible. My wife also wanted to update her site regulary - so she is using wordpress, works very well. It still takes a fair amount of knowledge/ time to make the site stand out though, but I guess would work for some on a  small budget, and a bit of time on thier hands.

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## tonyflanigan

> ... turn away a client that we know will want changes done at the drop of a hat...


Changes at the drop of a hat? Uithaal en wys pal. I think I've lost a client cos I didn't want to play his game of making changes and then waiting for weeks for payment. I couldn't give a toss.  :Big Grin:

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## pietpetoors

Pap sak, instead of showing them away you can offer a package where you can install and setup their wordpress site for them so that they can then just start adding their own content, or even setup the basic thing with the content and from there they can maintain it themselves.

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tonyflanigan (20-Jan-10)

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## Pap_sak

> Pap sak, instead of showing them away you can offer a package where you can install and setup their wordpress site for them so that they can then just start adding their own content, or even setup the basic thing with the content and from there they can maintain it themselves.


Spot on Piet. Planning to learn SQL and PHP this year, of course have been saying that for a couple of years...Have quite a few projects of my own to do so will have to wait and see. No harm becoming a wordpress guru though, seems pretty powerfull.

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## pietpetoors

Pap Sak, I taught myself php, mysql and using Dreamweaver years ago. Spent many nights till 02h00 or 03h00 in the mornings to get it all to work.

But if I would have to start all over today I would rather use WordPress as back end and spend my time on mastering the skills of customizing WordPress themes or creating your own themes.

This is NOT one of my sites, but I like to refer to it; Look at http://riverclub.co.za/ . At the looks of it you would never say that it is a WorPress site? This shows what you can do if you know how to create your own themes. Another example is http://www.sailduesouth.com/ . Shows that WordPress can be used as a normal web site and it does not have to look like a blog.

The way I see it most people nowadays wants a web site which they can update themselves, that is where the demand is. 

The way I see it, if you build, maintain and host the sites you can be limited unless you employ people. If you build and host and let the client maintain it themselves you can take on more hosting clients which is a better passive income which is in the end which buys you *time freedom*.

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## AndyD

> Pap Sak, I taught myself php, mysql and using Dreamweaver years ago. Spent many nights till 02h00 or 03h00 in the mornings to get it all to work.
> 
> But if I would have to start all over today I would rather use WordPress as back end and spend my time on mastering the skills of customizing WordPress themes or creating your own themes.


Hi Pietpetoors. Would you recommend Wordpress over Joomla, if so why?

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## Pap_sak

> Pap Sak, I taught myself php, mysql and using Dreamweaver years ago. Spent many nights till 02h00 or 03h00 in the mornings to get it all to work.
> 
> But if I would have to start all over today I would rather use WordPress as back end and spend my time on mastering the skills of customizing WordPress themes or creating your own themes.
> 
> This is NOT one of my sites, but I like to refer to it; Look at http://riverclub.co.za/ . At the looks of it you would never say that it is a WorPress site? This shows what you can do if you know how to create your own themes. Another example is http://www.sailduesouth.com/ . Shows that WordPress can be used as a normal web site and it does not have to look like a blog.
> 
> The way I see it most people nowadays wants a web site which they can update themselves, that is where the demand is. 
> 
> The way I see it, if you build, maintain and host the sites you can be limited unless you employ people. If you build and host and let the client maintain it themselves you can take on more hosting clients which is a better passive income which is in the end which buys you *time freedom*.


Hi Piet. Actually, you might be able to help the client that I had to let go. They are based in Piketberg - so not too far from you. They have a small but ok budget and we have done most of the ground work. Can I get them to contact you? I think a decent wordpress site that they can update might be perfect.

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## pietpetoors

@Andy - I tried to install Joomlah twice and each time it ended up with lots of errors en setup problems. So I just got fed-up with it. That was more than a year ago, I do not know if they improved it by now. I see there are guys who are building very good web site with fancy features with Joomlah.
My aim with my DVD was to give the people something that is very easy to install without hassles and which is easy to update and maintain. Because of my personal experience with Joomlah I decided that it will create more problems for the novice than anything else. I think Joomlah can be great for the advanced user.

@Pap-Sak Sorry, I do not help clients anymore. I spend all my time on my own sites. I have one site I have to finish for a friend, and it is killing me. I can kick myself for not refusing to help him. So I do not want to help your client because that is not where my heart is and it will not be good for client relations.

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## SilverNodashi

@pietpetoors, it's actually called Joomla not joomlah  :Smile: 

And, it's very easy to use, although it's in a totally different league from WordPress. To make life even easier, we make use of automated script installers which allow our clients to quickly install Joomla, Wordpress, SMF, OSCommerce, etc without having to know any technical stuff  :Smile:

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tonyflanigan (25-Jan-10)

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## SilverNodashi

> Hi Piet. Actually, you might be able to help the client that I had to let go. They are based in Piketberg - so not too far from you. They have a small but ok budget and we have done most of the ground work. Can I get them to contact you? I think a decent wordpress site that they can update might be perfect.


Pap_sak, what does your friend need done? And, does he need to see someone face-to-face? We're in JHB, so I don't know if that could be a problem for them?

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## Pap_sak

@Piet, no problem...hopefully will be like that for me in the not too distant future!

@SoftDux, They are computer novices, so I think they will need some help or a very good, but basic, backend that could optimize and resize pics. Not sure if their budget stretches that far. What could your offer for around R5000? Its basically a directory and about  5-7 staticish pages. There might have to be a bit of telephone support...

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## wmarais

Thanks for the great post. I would however recommend using Bluevoda website builder. A huge amount of South African webmasters use this as it is one of the easiest site builders around. You will however need a hosting account at Vodahost to use the builder. Vodahost

I do however have a special offer for those of you who want to start your own online business. I would recommend the Give for Life program, it is a great program supported by a lot of our best celebs. Basically you will earn a monthly commision on each person you refer to give for life. Find out more at my site, Giveforlife.net

You can join even if you don't have a website or don't know how to market it. That's where I come in, if you join the program as one of my members, I will provide you with your own website (will look just like mine, with your details on it, thus you can send people there and build your downline). 

I will also provide you with your own domain name (it will not be a subdomain if you were wondering), it will be a .com or .net domain. 

As one of my members, I will advertise your site on 7 of my other websites incluing www.rocketsa.com and www.samoneysystem.com

You will have admin right to the giveforlife forum (www.giveforlife.ws), thus you can post as many articles about our program as you wish. 

All of this for free. Why? this is a business and one can't succeed alone (made his mistake a couple of times). I support my members to the best of my ability because if they succeed I will succeed. 

Contact me if you are interrested. 

Regards
William

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## tonyflanigan

:Confused: 
higley?
spam?
affilliate site?
uh uh.

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## wmarais

tonyflanigan, I don't understand your comments. I would appreciate it if you could abbreviate a bit. 

I actually provide a 4-5 page website free to anybody that joins as one of my give for life members ( some designers actually charge R800 for a 4 page design  :Big Grin:  ). 

I am not spamming at all, I am the author of the SA Money System and not an affiliate , I do however promote Vodaohost because I have been using them for a long time and recommend them to anybody that want to build sites but doesn't have experience.

Cheers

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## tonyflanigan

k. If I abbreviate, its gonna be short n sweet.

If I expand, I will be here all night. so lets go for a touch of brevity instead.

1) You're promoting a free affiliate site. Free affiliate sites don't work. I have a post here somewhere about that. Aside from the opinions I express on that posting, the Search Engines will, and I will use plain Sarf Effrikin here, moer everyone in your downline for duplicate content. Result, you penalize your business partners!
2) What is the product? How is the, as far as I can see non-existent, product funded? Seems a touch Ponzi to me. I sincerely hope I'm missing something, cos you seem to be a likeable chap.

Slightly off-topic, but still in response, we have put our prices up, it's now FROM R200 per page. But yeah, I dont dig advertising on the forum. 

If I have missed anything, I do apologise, and will do so again, but, I seriously think you're treading a fine line here, with the rocketsa site at least.

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## tonyflanigan

@wmarais.  Oh, btw, I was in Bloem for 17 years, and really like the dorp.

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## wmarais

Hi tonyflanigan,

The idea behind the duplicate sites aren't to rank high with search engines etc, remember that most members that join the program does not have an idea about building a website and would most probably never have one. Most of them will promote the program by word of mouth. At least now they can refer people to a link to find out more about the program (or even print a flyer or two with their url on it). I could always have given them a subdomain but people tend to head over to the main site when they see a funny extension to a url. Thus I buy them a toplevel domain name to host their site on, I also do modifications to the site on their request (as it only takes 5 min of my time). 

Regarding rocketsa, it's not important if it will work or not, I build a lot of websites as a hobby (testing programs etc). 

Bloem is 'n cool plek, ek bly nou al die afgelope jaar in die uiteland (2 jaar in die middel ooste en 2 jaar in Kanada). Ek werk vir Schlumberger so ek travel nogals baie.

Cheers

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tonyflanigan (07-Mar-10)

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## Chatmaster

_"By using your unique members link, you need to invite friends to join our site. For each new member you refer to us we will give you R1. "_

@wmarais I seriously recommend that you rethink this line. If someone was malicious they would make you bankrupt within just a week, if that long.

Also explain the stats to the left. 7985 members but you paid out R 296 208? How does this work mathematically.

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## wmarais

Yip,

I agree, somebody could go crazy but the system requires legit sign ups. This is taken care of the fraud system in the affiliate program. 

That ~R290000 is just to get the wheels rolling.

But I agree, I will revise the site.

Regards

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## tonyflanigan

@wmarais.

The thanks is for the reply, not the 'quality' of the reply. You still haven't set my mind at rest that your 'scheme' is legal. I doubt that it is. 

Also, I want to repeat what Softdux said in another thread: 
"P.S. Generally self promoting (to the extend of saying "I offer product ABC @ R100, sign up here") is generally seen as spam on forums  :Wink: "

Finally. My opinion is as follows: 
1)  Your give-away sites are aimed at the ignorant. Rather than perpetuate ignorance, educate. 
2)  Your give-away sites are nothing other than a very thinly disguised pyramid scheme.
3)  When you're in East london, give me a shout and we can take this further over a beer.
4) Out of respect to the Forum, I won't continue this discussion here as I am of the opinion that your original post to this thread was spammy, and also because I feel your business is a scam.

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## wmarais

Hi Tony,

You have the right to your opinion, it still does not mean it's a scam. In fact, if it is a scam, it's a real bad scam as I have been paid much more than the R189 I contribute per month. Here's a link that shows that other people are also making money with this progam.

I am also not targeting the ignorant, I actually love helping others at no cost at all. Let's asume somebody joins the program directly at the Give for Life main site, they will receive no website etc, they will have to get started on their own. The chance of these people to succeed with any online business on their own is very small, at least I help them where I can.

I provide them with a website (which they can request a modification for), I add an autoresponder to follow up on the people they send there. Their own contact form, thus people can contact them directly.

You see, at least I help them getting started. It does not mean their work is done, they still need to advertise their site. It just gives them some comfort that they do have some support.

I actually own a beach home in Cintsa East, don't get there very often.

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## pietpetoors

Tony and Roelof, what William is promoting here is a MLM business. He obviously built his own version at www. giveforlive. net but the real official business' site is at http://www.giveforlife.co.za/ 

It is a MLM where people contribute towards charity and you get paid for successful referrals.

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## wmarais

Hi Pietpetoors,

That's correct, 

Regards
William

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## Chatmaster

> I am not spamming at all


Yes you are.  :Boxing:

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tonyflanigan (08-Mar-10)

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## wmarais

Chatmaster,

Explain why you say that? I see everyone has a signature attached to thier username. A lot of people join forums just for that reason, posting useless comments just to have their signatures appear on the post. Are they contributing to the forum?

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## tonyflanigan

:Hmmm: 

I sits...
I looks...
I waits...

 :Crazy:

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## Dave A

> I see everyone has a signature attached to thier username. A lot of people join forums just for that reason, posting useless comments just to have their signatures appear on the post. Are they contributing to the forum?


Please let's not drag signatures into a spamming debate. Signatures are managed on this site to deal with exactly the issue you raise. It's the content of posts, and particularly gratuitous link dropping in public areas where close attention is paid.

In this regard your first couple of posts were... pushing it some - to the point where it was discussed in the moderator's forum. I was satisfied it had settled down since. 

However, the real concern is that visitors see that sort of thing and get the wrong idea as to what will be allowed, sign up and push it a little further.

For the record, it wasn't so much the give for life link - on its own it wasn't much of an issue. It was all the others "that went with the deal" that caused the stir. Ordinarily I would have done some cleaning up, but Tony started engaging you on a couple of them and I've been quietly curious as to where that angle is going to end up.

Now you can take this badly or see it as constructive criticism - either way the ball is in your court and the return will be dealt with accordingly.

Choose wisely  :Big Grin:

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Chatmaster (09-Mar-10)

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## wmarais

Hi Dave A,

My intention will never be to spam a forum ( I owned 3 forums at one stage and I know what spamming can do to it),  I like to give as much info about a topic as possible and unfortunately some perceived it as spamming. 

Let's leave it at that. 

Cheers

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tonyflanigan (09-Mar-10)

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## tonyflanigan

content deleted.

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## Dave A

And so it starts - goodbye onlinesa  :No:

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tonyflanigan (09-Mar-10)

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## Chatmaster

I hate it when spammers refuse to admit they spam, good for you Dave I missed the moderated posts.

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## tonyflanigan

Onlinesa. Not the first, won't be the last...

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## Dave A

On review of an appeal by onlinesa, the suspension has been lifted.

However, this thread has probably caused enough trouble for now and is closed.

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