Making My First Ever Website

So, here's the challenge I have set myself - to build a website, without spending any money, and maybe make some money out of it! Sounds easy enough, except I had absolutely no idea where to start!

I got my first start by reading a chapter in a book that I was browsing through in a bookshop in my lunchbreak (no I didn't buy the book in case you are wondering). It suggested using Google Page Creator.

First thing I discovered is that you have to create a Google account to use Page Creator. This also means that you gain another e-mail account should you want to use it. I'm up to 5 e-mail accounts now, I think - I'm starting to loose count! Once you have done this you are off. Page Creator gives you a number of templates to use - some look a bit a retro, but most look OK. You can change the template you are using at any time.

And then all you do is type away and add pictures as you like. It is also amazingly easy to add links to your own pages and to other sites. Should you want to you can switch to HTML mode and write away there instead - particularly good for the purists amongst you!!

The next phase was to sign up as an affiliate with various companies so I could put their ads on my website. So I signed up with Amazon, Ebay and a few others, and then it was a matter of copying and pasting the codes they gave me into the HTML view of Page Creator. These flashing colourful ads help to make my website look a little more professional - or they would if I could get the damn things in the right place! I also signed up to Google Ads - again, another copying and pasting codes exercise.

So all you have to do after that is click on the button labelled "Publish" and your work is on the World Wide Web for all to see.

This was the point where I thought, in my naive little world, that my website would instantly rise to the top of Google rankings, people would flock to my site, click on my affiliate links and my Google Ads and I could retire early and live on a beach in Honalulu!! However, currently nobody can find my site as it's not listed on any of the search engines and when I visit my site I can almost hear the tumbleweed blow across it!

I thought all you had to do was to submit your site to the search engines and that was it. Actually, I have discovered that you have to do a whole load of work to get your site noticed by the search engines, putting links to your site (known as back links) on other sites. This can be done by submitting your site to web directories and also by submitting articles to article sites (incorporating a link to your site of course).

Another good thing about Page Creator though is that it automatically creates a site index which you can submit to Google. One thing you can't do though is add "meta tags" - this is getting into territory that I don't really understand, but it is something to do with putting in a header that is not visible to visitors to your site, but may be picked up by search engines. Searching articles on the web though suggests that most search engines don't pay much attention to these any more any way.

Anyway, to summarize, Google Page Creator is really easy to use for novice website creators like me, although I guess it may be a little limiting for those with more experience. The tricky bit is actually getting people to visit your site!

Anyway, if you want to see the result of my efforts you can see it at http://extracashreview.googlepages.com . It's updated regularly so keep checking back. Oh, and tell your friends, colleagues, complete strangers, anyone!!

In the middle of 2008, Google announced that they were taking no further sign ups for Page Creator because instead they are focusing their efforts on Google Sites. All existing sites created on Page Creator were to be migrated to Sites by the end of 2008. I am still waiting. I haven't been updating my site as I suspect to loose some bits when it is migrated, so the project is on "hold" at present. When it is finally migrated, I am intending to give it a radical makeover!