Project Package

This is what was turned in to explain my project.

Project Package CIS 499                                                                                                                  

Abstract

My research project is to determine if I can make a profit on the Internet through my own website.  I will attempt to go about this project in a methodical manner.  I will have to decide what kind of software to use in designing the site, what kind of content to use, how to host the site, how to monetize the site, and how to draw traffic to the site.  I started with research into what software would be preferable.  It looked to me as if my best content ideas would be to make some kind of blog.  With my research the consensus opinion seemed to be that WordPress was the best software for a beginner to use for a blogging site.  At that point I downloaded WAMP server and WordPress so I could start learning how to use them and to start my preliminary design of the site.  As the project progressed I became convinced that I needed to use a web hosting company.  Research into that provided my chosen provider.  The host selected allowed for two web sites in their entry level package.  This enabled me to use both of my final two content ideas that I was still considering.  They are, a site on how to make a profitable web site, and a site on income inequality.  I believe these two be two subjects that will attract a lot of attention and allow me to monetize the sites from ads if enough traffic can be pulled.  The project documents what I did in furtherance of these goals.  As of this point, I have not returned a profit.  It turns out that building traffic to the site is a slower, and longer, process than I had anticipated.  Even though the time constraints of this class do not permit me to return a profit at this time, through what I have learned I am confident I will end up returning a profit on these sites in a few months.

Keywords: profitable web site, income inequality

Project Package CIS 499

     This project is a quest to discover if I can make a profit from a site on the Internet.  It is not important to this journey how much of a profit is made.  Just the fact that a profit can be made is enough for proof of concept in this case.  It is an exercise to see if I will eventually be able to make a living from the Internet.  This is as much a voyage of discovery and enlightenment as it is a scholarly exercise.  This project shall have very real world connotations for me.  There have been many challenges to this project.  Up until now, I had only made a couple of very simple, “Hello World” type of sites.  I had very limited experience with one configuration of a web server.  The software I used was all new to me.  This has made for a very interesting project.

     The first order of business was to research the software I would need to use and to decide on what kind of site and what kind of content I would use.  In researching the software I came early to the conclusion that the content would have an input on what kind of software I would want to use.  I decided that I would probably do best with a blog.  I didn’t really have anything to sale so presenting ideas in the form of a blog on a popular subject seemed logical.  Given that I would probably proceed with a blog the choice of software became more obvious.  There seems to be a consensus that the best blogging software for a beginner was WordPress.  The decision to use WordPress was also influenced when I read that using WordPress would make for an easier sale if I ever decided to sale the site.  I decided to download the WAMP server and WordPress and get started familiarizing myself with them.

     This was not as easy as it should have been.  Apparently, the directions I had for downloading and installing the WAMP server were for a previous version and had not been updated when the newer version I was using came out.  It was asking me to configure some lines that were not in the file.  I configured the ones that were there but then the server would not work.  I found the missing line in the sample config file.  I put in the necessary changes and then replace the config file with the newly renamed sample config file.  That worked just fine even though a couple of other lines I was told to change were in the original config file but not in the sample config file.  Oh well, it worked just fine.  It took uninstalling and reinstalling the program a few times to get this figured out.  I did however find a superior uninstall program during this process.  I highly recommend the Revo Uninstaller program.  It does a much more thorough job than the standard Windows uninstaller does.  It does not leave registry entries that will mess you up later.  The WordPress download and install went a lot easier.  I then began experimenting with the programs and finding out what I could do with them.  I started getting preliminary site designs worked out.

     While I was doing this I was also looking into how I should host this site.  There were three basic options.  I could host it on my own computer.  I already had downloaded and was working with the WAMP server and WordPress.  I could have it hosted at a free site.  Third, I could have it hosted at a paid web hosting company.  Each option had its advantages and disadvantages.  Hosting on my own computer would be very cost effective.  It would cost me nothing.  Also, I would have full control of pretty much everything about the server and the site.  However, if the site was successful, and that is the aim, the resources of my computer could easily be overwhelmed by any sizable amount of traffic.  This would also mean it would have to be on 24/7 to give people access to the site.  The idea of my computer being overwhelmed with traffic was not one I looked forward to even though it would probably mean my site was becoming a success.  The traffic limitations and the fact that I need to use my computer for many other things made me decide not to host the site on my own computer.  This left free or paid web hosting companies.  After looking into both of them I decided on a paid web host.  If the site was successful if would quickly outgrow a free site.  The free sites obviously did not offer as much support or resources for a user as the paid sites do.  Plus it was much more likely that a paid host would offer upgrade options that were unavailable on the free sites.  I did some research into web hosting companies and found a myriad of possibilities.  After looking into the various web hosting companies and their assorted advantages and disadvantages I made my decision as chronicled in the attached Appendix(I am not including the Appendix here-it is just the Web Hosting page that is already up).  I ended up choosing a company called InMotion Hosting.

     The company had very good ratings and offered a complete line of packages and upgrade options.  It cost $83.40 to pay for the site for a year.  This included one domain name.  I discovered that in their entry package they allow for two separate web sites.  I decided this would enable me to use both of my final contenders for the web site content.  I had to pay an extra $11.95 to register a second domain name but that seemed reasonable to me.  I registered the domains, profitablewebsite.org and eat-the-rich.org.  The former was to be about the project itself and the latter would deal with income inequality in our society.  Income inequality is a problem that I believe is a serious threat to our whole way of life and we need to do something to address this or things will just continue to get worse for the regular people in this country.  I had narrowed my content considerations down to these two areas and now I could try both of them.

     Before I had came up with the money to pay the web host I tried to download a second instance of WordPress into my home computer so I could work on both sites until I got the money together to pay InMotion.  This turned into an interesting exercise.  It is necessary to download a second instance of WordPress in order to work on two separate sites.  I would download it, rename it and place it in the appropriate folder.  Then it would not work.  This issue took quite a bit of time to figure out along with many uninstalls and reinstalls.  I finally did get it working but by then I had also came up with the money for my webhost and moved everything to their servers.

     I found InMotion to be much easier to work with than WAMP on my home computer.  Setting up WordPress to work for two separate sites was not a problem with their setup.  They offered way more resources than I am able to make use of.  I got both sites up and running and then started improving them.  Writing the content for them turned out to be something I do enjoy doing.

     I looked into ways to monetize the site and quickly narrowed it down to two possibilities.  I could go for a subscription model or an ad-driven model.  I thought the subscription would take way too much time.  I would have to attract traffic and then eventually convert a proportion of that traffic into a subscriber base.  The time line for that would be way past the limits of this course.  I decided to go with the ad-driven model.  I thought that it might not return much but, once again, the point is made as soon as anything is returned.  After looking into ad software I decided to go with Google AdSense.  This is the most popular ad software and if you can build up the site traffic enough it can actually pay some pretty good returns.  I had also decided to use Google Analytics to monitor my site usage statistics and they would work well together.  It was pretty straightforward to install both of these programs onto both of the web sites and get them running.                       

     At this point everything was looking pretty good.  Both sites were up and running with a couple of pages of content.  My research into attracting traffic was beginning to tell me that I had some problems in that area.  The main idea for attracting traffic is to have a lot of links and to get the traffic content seen by a lot of people who could tell others about it.  It turns out that takes some time.  I have started cross posting on other sites in order to build some links that way.  The problem is I don’t have a lot of time to do that so it is going to take awhile.  I am also looking into Google AdWords but it will take me some time to come up with some affiliates to work with.

     It seems that even though I went with monetizing the site with ads in order to speed up the results that the time element will still come into play.  It will take much longer to build up traffic than what I originally anticipated.  There is really nothing to report on from my Google Analytics as there has been no traffic patterns to analyze.  My last check into my usage statistics showed my first results.  I have had forty some hits on ear-the-rich.org and about a dozen on profitablewebsite.org.  This may be because I have built a couple more links on that site or it may be people in the class checking out the sites.  It is too early to say for sure either way.  There are ways I have found to build traffic with paid advertising which seems like a good way to get noticed to start a site off.  The problem is that I cannot afford to spend money for that.  I will have to slowly build links and keep adding content and let the traffic gradually build up.  I think that, from what I have learned, I will ultimately be successful with this approach.

     The plan will be to keep posting on other sites and use back links to promote my sites.  The more links I can get in this fashion the more attention the search engines will pay to my sites. 

I have discovered that is the key.  If you can move up in the search engine rankings for a particular keyword it will draw the traffic.  The traffic is a consideration that I figured was important from the beginning.  However, it is even more important than I was giving it credit for.  I shall keep working on building my traffic and researching how to attract traffic.  There is a lot of material on the subject to be found on the Internet and it is a very popular field.  If I figure out how to attract a lot of traffic, that may be a viable option for a future blog site.  At any rate, I shall keep working on it.  Just because this class ends does not means that this project shall end.  This project has just started and I will ensure that it comes to a very successful end.

     I chose this project because it is something I am very interested in and it has a direct relation to why I am in school and getting my bachelor’s degree.  I did underestimate the time involved in creating a successful web site.  This was from ignorance.  My ignorance of how web sites work is rapidly diminishing.  WordPress is an interesting program and I have just begun to be able to use it.  It offers many plug-ins and options that I am just finding out about.  I have availed myself of the WordPress SEO plug-in.  This is a plug-in that helps to up your ratings in the different search engines.  I am sure there are many other options in WordPress that I still have to discover and make use of.  Now that I have started using it I will continue until I feel I have mastered the program.  With the size of the WordPress Codex and user base this will take some time.  Also the control panel at InMotion Hosting offers many resources that I will be looking into and learning how I may use them and how useful they may be.

     I have not yet begun to work on designing my own pages.  Eventually, I plan on designing my own pages from scratch and using my knowledge of HTML and PHP.  That knowledge is far from complete but the only way to improve it is to use it.  In the interest of saving time I had not started that process at this point.  That is an area that I will be exploring in the near future after this class ends.  I shall be expanding my knowledge of HTML and PHP.  I also will be learning about CSS.  I think it will be a good idea to go ahead and get certified in all three by the W3 schools.  This should help quite a bit as I proceed with these sites.  I just noticed that their certification price has gone up to $95 a subject.  It used to be $60.  Still, they do offer some very good resources for learning the subjects.  Even though this class shall end this project shall definitely keep going.

     Technically, since the project had not yet resulted in a profit it can be judged a failure.  Realistically, I think the project shall be a success.  From what I know now I am sure I will eventually return a profit on both of these sites.  It will just take more work.  The problem was in not understanding how long the process takes to build the traffic for a successful web site.   In all other aspects I think the project has already been a success.  I have used much of what I have been learning in this project.  I have also learned about several things I had no, or little, knowledge of.  Even though I am concentrating on web design this one project has taught me more than any other single class about what actually goes into designing a successful web site.

     My conclusion is that, yes, you can make a profit with a web site on the Internet.  Theoretically, I already knew that.  That is a lot different than knowing it on an emotional level.  Now I know it on a personal level.  I see that I can create and design a site that will produce a profit.  It will take a lot or work but since I enjoy the work that is really not a problem.  As I said above, that means, I think this project has already been a success.  With future work it shall become more of a success and actually produce that profit I am trying for.  I will then be going on with these sites and many others in the future.  Even a small profit adds up when you multiply by a high enough number.  If one site makes a profit then ten should make more and a hundred of them should make even more.  At a certain point you come to a time when you cannot supply all the content needed but there are ways to hire that out and many successful sites take very little actual participation from their principles.  The hard part seems to be in obtaining the knowledge of how to make the sites, build traffic, and make money.  Once you start learning that, you just keep learning, and apply what you know to keep creating web sites.  From what I have learned during this project, once you get to a certain point it is just a matter of how much time you are willing to spend to ensure success.

Leave a Reply