Watch as I Build an Educational Web Site 
(and make “money” with ads ?)

Read along as I, an utter Internet neophyte, hastily chronicle my amateur attempt to build a serious educational website and maybe make a little money with ads! Yes, it is possible to make money with ads on the Internet. A Good Morning America segment told me that one can make as much as three or four hundred dollars a month with Google Adsense! At least, that's what I thought I heard over the din of the dishwasher, bickering children and eggs cooking and that's what stuck in my memory. Wow! Three or four hundred dollars! Who could not use that?

Well, here I add my personal testimony to the veracity of the claim that there is fiscal opportunity on the Internet - today I made my first 24 cents! I am so buoyed by my windfall that I have decided to temporarily use my spare domain for this blog and, that's right, more ads.

Now I'll go back a bit to the beginning of my idea. My intent in developing my science website is to provide a free interactive educational resource for students and their parents to use while they work on their science fair projects and other similar school assignments. The slightly mercenary part of me put this gem of inspiration together with what I had heard on the morning news show about Internet ads. The result is this – a project that is a much bigger iceberg than I had planned to run my ship into, and so far, about as profitable as selling snow cones to penguins. But, I remain undeterred in my mission.

(For more on the mission of my website, click the Forum link on the home page at http://www.mysciencewebsite.com and read my post to Teachers and Parents.)

Here I am going to tell you in excruciating detail everything it takes to get my web site going. So far I would say it is not rocket science, but rather more of a jigsaw puzzle... the old one in the closet that you can no longer be certain has all the pieces. To those who may be considering a similar undertaking, I hope my foibles and successes will reassure and encourage you.  

Let me bring you up to date on my progress:

• I bought my domain names on the Internet last Tuesday, January 16, 2008. I paid a total of 42 dollars for both for a term of one year, but I could have paid as little as $12 for both had I shopped a little before buying. I bought both .com and .net so that, when my web site becomes hugely successful and known world wide, another entrepreneur cannot come along steal my domain name thunder (read my next post for a subsequent tale of tragic irony.)
• That same morning I applied to Google Adsense for an account so that I can display their pay-per-click ads and other features on my web pages. This is very simple to do and costs me nothing.
• Then upon realizing I was not likely to be approved for my Adsense account without an operational web site, I set about quickly building a web page. I decided to use Bravenet.com's free web hosting service because I had seen some other Bravenet sites and I was already familiar with the features Bravenet.com could provide. Out of necessity I learned how to change my Domain Name Server from the company where I had purchased my domain names to Bravenet.com. And I learned that I could, without too much difficulty build a web page or multiple pages using Bravenet's wizards and tutorials and a good deal of trial and error.
• Within two hours of the inception of my idea I had a website running.
• I placed some content on the site right away, including the cliché “Under Construction” and “Coming Soon” notes at the top of each page. I have since removed these notes even though my site is not complete. Apparently such phrases are tip-offs that a web site is not professional(see http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/domain_names.html.) And I have added to my to-do list, “make my site look more professional.”
• By my second day of working on my site I fully realized that I had, in my enthusiasm, not planned as well as I should have. I had not planned at all in fact. People who know what they are doing will tell you to design your web pages completely and have lots of interesting content on them before publishing them to the Internet. What I had done was to put up my site with just an idea and some ads; pretty unprofessional. I felt a little silly for my mistake, but I am not an expert, so I forgave myself quite easily for the blunder, decided to make the best of it and pressed on, spending the next few days building my site.
• Three days after I submitted my Google Adsense application (Friday, January 18 ) Google Adsense approved it, and I, with great eagerness, placed a Google search bar and an Adlink box on the home page of my site (Important: I read VERY carefully the terms of service before pasting these items into my site. Advertisers are particular about how their ads are displayed.) I had difficulty formatting the Adlink so that it would appear properly. So, I posted my problem on Google's Adsense Help Forum. I received a response from another Adsense user just a couple of hours later. With the advice I received there I was able to correct the problem (It turns out every web host implements the HTML code for the Adsense ads a little differently); and I found out that I need to know more (a lot more, since I started out knowing almost nothing) about HTML code. (Once I got my Adsense items to appear as I intended them to look, I enjoyed going to my site periodically throughout the day just to admire them.)
• Sometime around Sunday, January 20, I realized the layout I had selected for my pages from the Bravenet design wizard was not ideally suited to the needs of my site. I decided to use the visual editor to make changes manually to the layout. I learned that it can be done, but I don't know how. Learning how to use the visual editor to edit my pages to my exacting requirements is my next task, along with writing the text for my site.
• Ah, writing the text. I am so blocked in that regard that I am writing this blog instead. But I remain encouraged, at least in an over-all sense. Moment to moment I am excited or despondent, as I find this project is much more complex than I thought at first. For instance, I discovered early on that a myriad of other sites offer features and content similar to what I intend to offer. I felt so stupid. Who was I to think I had a good idea that no one else had or couldn't do better? But, after taking a break to regroup mentally, I scrutinized the other sites more closely and realized that while there were many good science web sites for students, no one was doing precisely what I intend to do. I felt good again about the worthiness of my objective, and so my optimism was revived. Despite the inevitable lulls in my enthusiasm I have decided my goal will be to do work of some sort, any sort, on my web site each day since I find that inspiration and motivation comes eventually as long as I keep moving.
• To that end, last night I learned how to put some amusing YouTube science videos on my site. I am not happy with how they are positioned on the page, with the scroll bars visible, but that speaks back to my issue with the page layout not being all that I need. They are fun to watch though. You'll get a laugh from the Wired Science video; and the other video is an “Oooo! Wow!” sort of viewing experience.
• Second in importance to writing my site text is marketing my site, in order to get people to visit. I found a decent guide to getting more site traffic at http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/marketing/online-marketing/10-steps-to-getting-links-to-your-site.aspx. I'll write tons more about getting site traffic in later posts.

Next post:

• What I have learned about getting other sites to link to mine, and...

• Search engines (or What is WHOIS? Turns out it's important), and...

• Maybe, a new look (and a new name: http:www.mysciencewebsite.com) for my website based on what I learned today creating this blog.

Until then,

I remain your inexpert and yet 24 cent richer web developer,

Margaret Doran