Creating New Website

[PaaskeUK]

Great reading all this here at Affiliate Guard Dog Really helping me as fairly new affiliate. Only started serious early this year. After I started 2010 with no success and gave up. I decided to give it a new go. And very happy I did. Now finally starting to generate Traffic / Signups / Income

Only problem is. I bought domain for main website. Never got it build yet But I started a gambling forum covering most / all within gambling Casino / Sportsbooks - Bookmakers, Poker, Bingo, Scratch card Sites etc. Also have content for Betting, and lots more. Even got non gambling topics as well.

By the way should I use only the name Sportsbook or Bookmaker? or does both work? I understand Sportsbook is only the US/Canada way right? Bookmaker is the know word throughout Europe?)

To continue my goal is to get my main domain (website) up running asap. But want to do everything right from start. So want to get it designed. Build up content first. I understand it is best getting most build before releasing it for visitors?

But I am so confused in general website design. I bought my domain and I have it connected with website builder called MoonFruit.

Is this stupid? I find their platform a bit old stylish. And can't see how I ever will be able to build as nice website as the many I have seen in here.

I also tried Webstarts, then as well Wix. I find Wix very interesting as they have html5 and their website builder seems much nicer than Moonfruit.

I have been jumping between Wix and Moonfruit. But give up after a while. Because I have so many ideas to design my website.

But just main thing like setting of first page. Buttons underneath my logo/picture gives me hard time. As I am never satisfied he he.

Hope someone would be able to show me in right directions. As I soon give up on trying to design. and instead find someone to build it for me.

But would be nicest doing it myself though.

I read a lot about wordpress as well which can make very nice and easy websites?

I also really the kind of format you have on one of your websites AffiliateGuardDog,, the one with New Casino Bonuses - casinobonusfarm.com
Sorry for my grammar and setup here. I am Danish and still learning Look forward to hear you opinions and hopefully good tips cheers peeps.

 

[Guard Dog]

I did move your post so it wasn't on another user's thread. Didn't make as much sense there

As far as the CasinoBonusFarm.com website, that is custom. Most of my websites are Wordpress, though. I typically design the graphical end in Adobe Fireworks (because it is easy) and then send it off to someone who slices it into a Wordpress theme. HOWEVER - there are a lot of WP themes you can use (free) and can just change the graphics a bit.

WP has a lot of nice features, easy to add content, and 'pings' the search engines to let them know you have new content. It is well worth researching and understanding. You may find it easier than WIX and WebStarts

Oh yeah... your grammar is excellent!

 

[societyofslots]

I know exactly how you feel PaaskeUk.

i went round in circle after circle chasing my tail to try and get a website created how I wanted it. And ill tell you now it is not easy. The problem with wordpress and CMS's is they are easy to throw some content up on. Yet when you want to do anything of significance you run into major problems. I have tried Drupal, Joomla, wordpress the lot of them.. And to be honest I could never get them to do what I wanted.

I ended up going the basic HTML/CSS route and still hand code everything I do.. Now on reflection I really wished I had spent the time to learn a good CMS like Drupal or Wordpress because I know they do have powerful and useful feature.. And I adivse you if you wish to cut your learning curve down to use one of these and learn as you go. Aslong as you back up your stuff you can always sort the site out by re-uploading it.. And there is always elance etc to get coders if you need them..

other than that.. stop what you are doing and go learn PHP & MYsql and you will never look back as you can then build you own custom CMS and program anything you want.
I seriously 100% wish I had stuck at trying to learn PHP & MYsql several years ago.. infact I just purchased a week ago PHP & Mysql for dummies in an attempt to learn them now. Because without any coding knowledge im afraid you like me will always struggle to build what you want to build.. And thats the sad but real truth.

You either gotta learn yourself so you can rely on yourself. Or you have to PAY and rely on others.. There is no simple way round it.

- good luck!

 

[shortow]

i'd thoroughly recommend Wordpress. Very user friendly, so many design options from free templates to commercial themes, and powerful tools that are free and easy to add.

Your design may not be totally unique...but chances are most/all your visitors will never be aware of this anyway

 

[baldidiot]

Here's my advice:

1. Use wordpress - it's easy and there are plenty of people on the forums who are experienced and can help you if you need it.
2. Don't worry about too much about the design in the beginning - no ones going to see it for a while, just pick a nice looking theme (free or paid) and pay to have a logo or header made. Plenty of people can give you recommendations on good, affordable designers ($30 - $100).
3. Focus on a small niche that you know about (and are interested in) and start writing about it - make your articles interesting and informative. Ideally focus on one country - it will convert better and get traffic quicker. If you do target one country, use a ccTLD for that country. So if you target the UK, use a .co.uk.
4. Build a few natural links - slowly and nothing spammy. Absolutely no blog comments, forum spam, article distribution etc... Don't hand over any money to an SEO firm, learn it your self.
5. Do your research - use the adwords keyword tool to asses potential traffic for your keywords in your target country. This will answer your bookmaker/sportsbook question.
6. Keep writing regularly
7. Ask questions on the forums whenever you need - there is no stupid question (but a search before hand is a good idea as a lot of questions have already been answered).
8. Make lots of money

Pretty simple, right. You could also establish a social media presence - but only if you're going to actually use it to engage with your audience, and tone down the self-promotion (I don't see the point in twitter accounts that just post a link to every article etc..).

And don't forget to post your website for us to look at once it's live so we can give you our opinions!

 

[grumble]

Beware of FREE Wordpress Themes! I did use them and found out later that some free themes have strange codes (hacker?) and/or hidden backlinks to other websites (mostly porn). I do not mean the footer copyright backlinks, but inside the coding, inside php files and style.css.

 

[PaaskeUK]

Thank you everyone. Great support here. So happy to be at AGD

Baldidiot (like ur name hehe) great advise detailed there. I am having look at this now
I have asked Moonfruit where my domain is registered. To release my domain ( they said they need to release the handle back to Gandi)
Not sure what that means. But from then soon I would be able to log in there and control my domain.

Which means I can sign in and use for WordPress

 

[Roulette Zeitung]

Thesis WordPress theme is the best. Your investment will be repaid by Google with good positions.

If the content is good...
And you have patience...

Leopold

 

[tryme1]

I'm going to go with what other people are saying and that is: use Wordpress.

But, as soon as you've got it installed add some security plugins just to make sure you don't get hacked. Here's a few good ones:

Firewall 2
Login Lockdown
Better WP Security
BPS Security
Wordfence

As for themes, here's a great free one:

Responsive WordPress Theme | Free Responsive Themes for WordPress | ThemeID