Within the past few lessons, I showed you how to build a basic website with HTML and how to use an HTML editor.
Today I’m going to show you a way that is even easier (but not always better)…
(Watch this video…)
Main points:
Here are my personal definitions…
Web authoring software – You tell it what to do… you only get out what you put in. (ex. FrontPage, Dreamweaver, KompoZer, etc.)
Site builder – It does most of the work for you (usually template driven). You put in some required variables, and it produces an entire website.
Some “hybrid” programs blur the line. A software that gives the best of both worlds is: XSitePro
What I like about site builders…
-they’re easy
-they’re fast
-some of them build attractive sites
What I don’t like…
-the HTML coding is often sub-par
-Could create footprints that the search engines may not like
-Often tied to hosting/subscription
(watch video above for demo of Hostgator site builder)
UPDATE: Here is another site builder that I reviewed: Site Profit Bot Demo and Review
Action steps:
1) Decide if you would like to use a template or a site builder to build your site.
2) If yes, choose one and start using it.
In the next lesson I’ll be covering membership sites!
As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below 🙂
Have a great day!
Thank you so much for YOUR honest opinion.
Hi! Thanks for the new lesson.
I am using templates because is easy, free a lot of time for me, but I get with xSitePro to such skill, I can customize 95% if I want. Usually the customization is around 40-60% and this is other reason I like xSitePro. It is doing a lot for me, but a can work in source code as much as I want. It really is a handy package for newbie and advanced users alike.
Thanks
Eric
Eric i have been following you for over a year now and have learned a lot.
I need help fast, I have busted my butt building a website on Hydrogen on Demand and have made it to first page of google but don’t know how to make money with it Can You Help ??
Thank You Larry
Hi! Do a refresh, the system can take it from Cashe.
Michaela
The fastest way to monetize a totally unmonetized site is probably AdSense or other contextual ads. you can sign up for Adsense and put the ads on your site the same day.
The next fastest way would be to find some related products from an affiliate program provider (like clickbank) or CPA network (like Commission Junction) and make your own ads to put on your site.
The slightly longer route (and is many cases the most rewarding) is to create your own product.
In ANY case, you could start building a list from the traffic. I use aweber. If you’re collecting the names and email addresses of your visitors onto your opt-in list, you’ll be building an asset that you can monetize repetitively.
Eric,
With this lesson, you justified my approach to building a Landing Page. I have FrontPage and XSitepro but neither seemed to do what I wanted. As a consequence, I found a Landing Page that I liked that would be easily modified and saved the source, loaded it into FrontPage and modified to suit my needs. Works great. Thanks for your great Tips.
Ray
Eric,
Looking forward to next Tip
Ray
Eric,
Great information and I have been following from the beginning. Sometimes I have a problem seeing a video because it stops, not from buffering. Empty temporary internet files, etc. etc. Do you have a way to download these videos.
Thanks,
Stacy
Eric,
thanks for another great lesson.
I know you are following Arbitrage Conspiracy. They recommend LPGen to build landing pages.
I heard people like Jeremy Palmer recommending to build authority sites than thin landing pages.
I get a feeling that: use LPGen to make landing pages and then if the campaign is profitable, build bigger site with XsitePro.
Did I get this right, your suggestions.
Thanks.
That is basically correct. You don’t have to use XsitePro, you can use any tools you want to use, but yes Xsite would be a good one to use.
I think the theory there is twofold…
-Putting a full-fledged site behind your landing pages and making it an authority site will further improve your quality score and help with PPC.
-You can then also get more traffic to the site via SEO, which will further boost your profits on a campaign that is proven to be profitable.
Of course it may not be realistic for you to build an authority site for every profitable campaign (I don’t think Aymen does), but it’s something to consider.
sorry Eric, extension of the question,
can we build authority sites with LPGen?
Thanks.
I do not think LPgen is designed for that (it’s designed solely for landing pages).
Thanks Eric. Waiting for your wordpress video.
thanxs Eric. waiting for you wordpress video Nazret
Hi Eric:
Just want to thank you for the site builder video. It helped me launch my website. It certainly isn’t done, but I am glad I came to your site. I follow you on Twitter.
Hi Eric,
I have question about downloading the
7 Zip .org program There are 2 download links shown there , one says exe and one says msi how do we know which one to download? I have Windows Vista.
Thanks,
Tom
Go with the exe
Eric I use homestead from intuit.Have you ever played with their program?
Paul
I haven’t tried it.
Hi Eric,
How would you rate Joomla as a site builder?
I have not used it, so I can’t rate it. I know a lot of people use it, so it must be decent. From what I’ve heard, it’s a little more complex than WP.
Eric,
This is really cool site. I started my affiliate career few weeks back and I hardly see any productive work. But looking at the information here, I am confident to make it faster instead stuck with some non productive stuff.
Thanks Eric.
Hi Eric, great site… im a newbie I just got XsitePro for that reason, im also on the AC course which is fantastic.. im trying to work out how i build a LP with XP, i no its simple but i cant work it out..This is what i wat to do.. Get an offer from CPA, Click bank, and have a landing page before i send them to the offer, i can use aweber through XP to grab names, etc.. My problem is how do i put it all together, i just need the very basic of the procedure and i will be fine…
THanks , im so glad i found your site, its full of great tips..!!!
First you would design the LP in Xsite. It’s pretty user friendly, and they have plenty of tutorials. If you want to squeeze all traffic before sending them to the offer, you would make it a squeeze page, with your Aweber opt-in form. Look at examples from AC. The LP should be short. You take your opt-in form code from Aweber, and paste it into your source code in Xsite.
In the opt-in form option in Aweber, you can send them to any URL after they enter their name and email. You could either…
-send them directly to the affiliate link (the downside is that fewer of your opt-ins will complete the double opt-in process)
-send them to a thank-you page with instructions to verify their opt in. After the instructions you could put the affiliate link. You can also send them the affiliate link in their first autoresponse that they will receive once they complete the opt in.
AC also has example of a hybrid LP, which has an aff link directly on the LP AND an opt in form. The downside of this is that you’re splitting the focus of the page, but it has proven to be effective for some offers.
Thank you Eric will give that ago…
Mal
XsitePro is great,and I strongly recommend it. But, understanding content and customers comes first. Further, you’re not “running a website”, you’re “running a business”, so other tools need to be “integrated” into the business model.
One tool often overlooked is the human brain. All the tools used need to be “mashed up”, and, currently, that requires a lot of brain power. So, guiding the brain will provide a lot more results than adding another tool to the collection
Hi Eric,
Fantastic lessons. They really give us newbies all the ‘meat’ we really need to get things up and running.
However, Worpress or XSitePro or both? They both seem to have their advantages and disadvantages but is one better than the other?
I always intended building a membership site (or three) but, from what you’re saying about WP and blogs, WP is probably the better way to go.
What can XsitePro give me that WP doesn’t or vice-versa?
Regards,
Michael V
For a membership site, I would prefer to use WP.
The advantage of using XSite is that it’s a “site builder” so you can really customize your own website and build it from scratch… even if you have no web skills.
With WP, you either need to use a prebuilt theme, or you will have to customize the PHP/CSS yourself. I do cover this in lesson #36.
How to apply for an Adsense? Can we as newbies afford to pay for Adsense in the beginning? Is it necessary?
You can sign up for an AdSense account at the following link:
http://adsense.google.com
You may set your spending budget at any amount that is affordable to you.
Dear Eric,
I have followed all you reports and I am still not anywhere…could you give me the WORD version of your reports…I just can’t follow fast enough…or I’m really Dumb..I started late in life with the NET and now I need it urgently..and when I did… for about 25 hours non-stop and it did look pretty sexy and precise …about 5 pages ( 5 Hrs per page ) i did something strange and lost everything…I had made saves all …every 10 minutes because it was “I thought” it was so right on!!!
Thanks
Pierre
I heard of Justhost.com ranked as one of the so-called top 10 best webhosting companies. May I hear from you what are the differences between Hostgator.com and Justhost.com in terms of cost-effectiveness and efficiency or whatever? Should I get the free domain name of Justhost.com or shouldn’t I? Your honest reply is my valuable advice. I’d follow you, Eric!
What kind of web design should we build if we newbies don’t know what online business to start with?
You should start with a niche in mind, which is why I covered niche selection before this point (lesson #19-20). But if you want to launch a site anyway, I would recommend with a personal type of blog, focused on something that you are knowledgable about, and begin to build a following.
If you already have chosen a niche, and you’re referring more to the business model…
Again, I’d say it’s safe to start with a blog, because you can transfer that blog to virtually any business model, whether it be selling info-products, affiliate marketing, e-commerce, etc.
I am not familiar with them, but I just checked out their website and they look decent.
There are a lot of good web hosts out there. I just prefer to stick with the one I know and trust.
As far as getting a free domain… of course it’s only free if you buy hosting from them.
And as I mentioned in lesson #23, I prefer to keep my domain registered seperately from my web host. The reason is because that makes it easier to move to another host if need be. And from what I’ve heard, the hosts who offer “free” domains are often the most difficult to deal with if you want to retrieve your domain and move it elsewhere. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case with the host you’re looking at, but I’d be wary for that reason.
Also Hostgator has won several awards too.
At this time I am not making the transcripts available, because I’m planning on selling them as a part of a home study course when I’m done creating the lessons. Sorry about that 🙁 Remember you can pause the video and rewind as much as you need to.
GREAT INFO. I PANICKED WHEN I WAY OTHER LESSONS AHEAD OF THIS ONE. THEN AL OF A SUDDEN IT APPEARED ON MY EMAIL SITE. THANKS. I WANT TO GET THROUGH THESE. I HAVE A HARD TIME IDENTIFYING 3,4 WORDS ABOUT A FILE – AND AM STILL STUCK ON HARD COPY. HAVE FILLED A 3 INCH NOTEBOOK OF THESE STUDIES. EDITED THE COMMENTS. AND KNOW WHERE THEY ALL ARE FOR REFERENCE. ALSOMINTERESTING STUDENT’S SITES CAN BE CHECKED OUT – ON MY MASTER FILE LIST. SINCE I’M JUST LEARNING, FIVURING A STRATEGY AND WRITING COPY, PLUS RESEARCH, ACTIVATING THE DOMAINS MUST CONFORM TO MY COMPLETED RESEARCH/COPY – OR I’M WORKING ON ‘A-R-T-I-F-I-C-I-A-L DEADLINES. TO ME THAT’S A NO-NO! i’VE DONE THAT MANY TIMES, AND FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE WITH A SEMI-ORGANIZED PLAN OF ACTION. THIS IS NO REFLECTION ON YOUR MOTIVATION TO GET US OFF YOU KNOW WHAT.!
FOR ME THIS IS A MISSION – NOT JUST A MPONEY MAKING PROJECT. I’M ACTUALLY WRITING MY OWN BOOKS, PLUS EDITING 600 BIBLE PAPERS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND, BUDD BENTLEY BEFORE HE DIED IN ’97. PERHAPS I’LL SHARE WITH YOU THE CONCEPT OF ‘GIVE TO GAIN! THAT’S ONE OF MY DOMAINS.
THANKS AGAIN – HOPE 32 WILL BE HERE SOON. AL WHALEY
Hi Eric, Great lesson on websites. I have a friend who wants to get your lessons. Is there anyway that you can email them to her? Should she start with lesson one? or should I send the earlier ones to her or what? Please Advise. Thanks, EH
The best thing would be for her to sign up at:
She should start at lesson #1, as they are intended to be viewed sequentially. Thanks for the referral 🙂
Hi Eric,
I received your Lesson 31, but as yet no lesson 32 for today. I checked out my sub and found it deletted I have change it back so that I can still get your lessons I can pick up lesson 32 ok just as long I can continue to still get the rest of the lessons.
Best regards,
Anne.
Eric you just made my day! Thanks!
Hi Eric,
I do not understand what site builder means and how i can use it to design a website, but for template i know it works.
Hello Emenike,
Site Builders do most of the work for you when building websites. Typically all you need to do, is fill in a few required variables, and it produces an entire website. You don’t often use site builders for designing websites per se, but rather to use them to build websites from a template.
i went to kompozer to try out html found out i knew more about it then i originally thought.i took their test and quizzes and passed pretty quick.i now know enough to get get myself behind the eightball,haha,also went to gutenberg.org thanks for that one i’m proof reading a page for them.i feel if i use their site i might as well make a contribution to their effort which i think is a good one.i,m still looking for my niche.still trying to figure out clickbanks associate program.i started a blog with word press this will be a first for me i’ve never done anything like this before its a little mind boogling
Hi Eric,
What happened! The video cut off helf way through. Got to attractive sites and stopped.
Please try these steps:
Hi Eric!
I would like to thank you for these videos. Your extensive knowledge coupled with your talent for explaining things clearly is just a godsend for newbies such as myself.
Could you clarify; you mention the possible pitfalls of using website builders in terms of bad code and footprints. I am wondering if you think these problems apply to the Hostgator template/sitebuilder method you demonstrated?
Thanks in advance.
Deborah
Good question. I think the HG sitebuilder is OK, but I would prefer to use WordPress on Hostgator in most cases. WordPress is also free with Hostgator and you will see it in lesson #33. If you’re not going to have a blog and you prefer to use a site builder, then I would prefer to use XSitePro, which I am confident creates good code.
Good job eric. So far the lesson has being very educative and interesting but the video/sound is not good. it is cracking and seizing making corrolation difficult.
Eric, you know this can be very discouraging.
Your various lessons on how to build a website would have being very useful to me but because the recording is very bad that i can bearly hear a word it makes the topic uninteresting.
Eric please do something about the recording to enable me follow and enjoy the lessons.
God bless you and your family for your effort
Hmm… this is actually the first complaint I’ve had about the audio. It should not be crackling. Maybe it is your internet connection or your speakers?