Full websites are parked at a hosting provider. Websites usually include content and design in addition to the domain name. They are often more profitable but harder to produce.

Developing a website can be a challenge in its own but it’s the most rewarding financial venture you can partake in the domain investing field. It requires technical knowledge and understanding of how the internet works but it’s not impossible to learn.

It also carries its own benefits and downsides.

Benefits Vs Downsides

Benefit: More potential to earn money

Downside: Start up costs are higher and it takes longer to see revenue results

Benefit: Better way to brand

Downside: The wrong branding can hurt your website

Benefit: Value is higher than with a domain alone

Downside: Dying trends can lower the value of a website

Benefit: Long term earning potential

Downside: However, the revenue can trickle in versus if you sell it instead

Benefit: Better control of traffic

Downside: But it’s a never ending fight to stay ahead

What You Need to Know

There are four basic types of profitable websites: business, informative, interactive and community. Of course, there are other types and sub-types but we will just cover the ones you’ll most likely come in contact with while domain investing.

Business

When a website’s purpose is to connect a customer with a product or service; it is classified as a business website. They cover (but not limited to) anything from reseller plans, eCommerce and Turnkey Ventures.

Informative

Information based websites connect readers with education, informative or entertaining content to keep the visitor engaged and busy. Advertising services are often weaved into the site’s content such as Google Adsense, that serve relevant ads to encourage readers to click open them and earn the website owner revenue.

Interactive

Games, animation and videos that keep users entertained and absorbed into the website are great examples of interactive websites. This type usually does quite well with return visitors and revenue.

Community

These websites bring people together; whether a forum, a blog or a service such as MySpace.com.

Additionally, there are four types of technical requirements to understand before constructing a website: HTML, graphic design, PHP and MYSQL. You can design a website without having to know PHP and MYSQL, however, those two are best to make functional and unique websites.

HTML

If you open your browser and click on “View” and then “View Source”, you will see a window pop up with a bunch of garbley gunk called HTML. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is the basic power behind the internet. HTML tells the browser how to display everything in your browser: words, pictures and animation.

HTML is easy to learn. However, there is a lot of information. Tags tell the browser how to process certain things in certain styles and in certain ways. For example, if we wanted to make text look bold:

This is bold text.

We would use the opening tag <b> and the closing tag </b>. The following would be our scripting to make the bold text:

<b>This is bold text.</b>

Since this is not about how to write HTML, we will point you to a website called LissaExplains.com. It’s for kids but it’s a great resource for everyone. It’s where I first learned HTML. (No Laughing!)

Graphic Design

Graphics are the visual properties you see on the internet. You can create and edit computer graphics in a graphics software program. Graphic software programs are categorized into three categories: one dimensional, 3D and animation.

One Dimensional

- Adobe Photoshop - CorelDraw - Microsoft Paint (free) - PaintShop Pro - Gimp (free)

3D

- Google SketchUp (free) - 3D Studio Max - Poser - Bryce

Animation

- Macromedia Flash - Adobe LiveMotion - Swish

Which graphic program you choose is determined by the price and features you are most comfortable with. I recommend downloading the trial versions of the programs in your price range and go from there.

After settling with a program, Google its name plus the word “tutorial”, (example: photoshop tutorials) to find educational resources that help you learn the program.

PHP

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) is a web based scripting language. It’s use aids the functionality of forms, interactivity and even full featured online programs. PHP is open source, free to use and free to learn. However, you will need a web host that is PHP compatible.

PHP looks like this:

<?php echo “Hello World”; ?>

And outputs in the browser as:

Hello World

Please see PHP.net for more information.

MYSQL

My Structure Query Language (MYSQL) is a database management script. It works with several scripting languages, however, MYSQL is best used with PHP. MYSQL is also open source.

See MYSQL.com for more information.

Planning

Before you begin constructing your website, it is important that you know what you want your site to accomplish. You should know the mapping of any scripting that may be involved. You should know what pages and content will be displayed on your site and how you want advertising to be laid out.

Answering the following questions will help you put focus into constructing your site:

Who is your site audience? What will they be interested in reading about or doing while on your website? What are some possible ways your site and can serve something to your target audience that other sites don’t? What are some things you can add that will keep them there the longest? Who are your competitors and what are they already doing? What are some things you can do better than your competitors? How will you obtain content? How will you keep content fresh and how often? What areas will need to be scripted and what is the visual map of that scripting?

Planning your website also helps you discover how you want to advertise and promote. You’ll want to know your site audience so well that you know where they hang out and why.

Website Aging

Website aging allows time for the increase of traffic and/or revenue. The theory is like a bottle of fine wine; the longer its around, the better it becomes. The same is true with websites. The older a site is, the more it will be indexed by search engines, the better its traffic will be and the higher its value it will become.

In theory, you want to sell your websites and domains as soon as possible to get a return as soon as possible. However, some websites are worth waiting for. If you have an idea that’s unique you’ll want to allow enough time for the website to age and show its potential muscles to other investors for resell. This dramatically increases its value.

When to Sell

As a general rule of thumb, you should be monitoring your domain names and websites once a month to check stats. If you notice a decline in stats after three months, it may be time to sell the website. Only do this if you’ve exhausted all free attempts to promote the site and don’t have the extra revenue to promote it.

Some websites may be based off trends or events. In this case, you should sell the website a few weeks before the major event takes place. For trends, sell the website just before the trend dies. There may be some circumstances where you’ll make money off advertising over a long term period versus selling your website. This should be played by ear and this decision should be based off traffic and revenue stats.

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