Starting a website or blog can be intimidating. At times, it can seem as though the World Wide Web is truly just that – a web to maneuver through and make sense out of. When you are first starting out there is just so much to learn. Break down some of the basics and learn a little at a time. Work on focusing on how much you are learning, NOT how much there is still to learn. Just as in every other aspect of life, you will always be learning new things with your website or blog.

Here are a few things to bear in mind when building your first website or blog:

#1 – Forget the bells and whistles – keep it simple

Design on the internet needs to be easy on the eye, user friendly and make sense to the average user. Never assume your customers will be as web savvy as you - many may just be familiarizing themselves with online surfing while others may simply have come to expect traditional navigation on a website.

Simplicity always rules on the net. Let your website stand out by making it easy for the visitor to find what they’re looking for, and most importantly by providing great value and content within your site. Then simply follow a few basic good design rules and you’re set to go. Here are the most important rules to follow:

* Don’t use color for the body of your site. Keep the background of your website or blog white where you content will be read. In some instance a light color will work but avoid dark colors. Black can be especially difficult on the eyes. When in doubt, go with a white background and black text.

* Don’t use too many graphics or flash images. Flash images can make a website slow to load and be downright annoying in some cases. Use images sparingly and make sure you use Alt tags in your images to make them search engine friendly. A few well-placed graphics can make a good impression and add to the actual content of the website – graphics should always enhance your text, not take away from it.

* Don’t use music or audio without controls. An audio welcome can be a great addition to your website but always give visitors the option to click to hear the audio if they choose to. Otherwise, you may startle or annoy your customers when they suddenly hear a message they weren’t expecting.

Music in most cases is just not necessary and will distract from the message of your site. If you feel that music is a good addition, again, give your customers the option to click to listen to the music rather than taking that choice away from them.

* Don’t use too many text colors. As with the background and design of a site, text color should be kept simple. At most use three colors within your site, preferably two - one for the standard text and one for headlines. This will make reading easy on the eye and look more professional. Using two colors also means that your headlines will stand out to the reader and draw them into the text.

* Break it up. Text can be very difficult to read online. Make it easy on your visitors’ eyes by breaking up the text into small, manageable sentences. It also helps to add bullet points and sub-headlines throughout the text as many readers on the net skim pages rather than absorb them in full.

#2 – Don’t forget the content

Good design is important but great content can make all the difference to your internet success. The best approach is to mesh good design with awesome content and you’ll have a sure winner on your hands.

Always give a little more than other websites and keep your content fresh and up-to-date. Add interesting stories, articles, downloads, videos and information that will help your visitors achieve their goals. Build your content around the niche you have chosen.

#3 – Don’t avoid feedback

Feedback – good or bad – is important to your business. Ask visitors to fill in a poll, reply to your newsletter or give them feedback in general. Use this feedback to improve your site further and to help your visitors achieve their goals. This will pay off nicely for you too in the long run. By using the feedback you can create new content that is specifically what they are looking for.

Keep these basics in mind as you are starting your website or blog. I always suggest using wordpress as your content management program. I have very affordable hosting at Easy WAHM Websites and will happily install wordpress for you and help you get a good start using it. You can go to GoDaddy to purchase a domain name. WordPress is very easy to use and there are 1000′s of free themes out there you can get uploaded right away.

Basic web maintenance isn’t something a lot of online entrepreneurs think about. In fact it can be quite a mundane task for most. However, it is important to keep your website ticking over smoothly.

Here are a few reasons why maintaining your website is important:

# Attracting the search engines – Search engines are important to the livelihood of your online business, but they don’t like “dead” websites. Websites which have been left static without updates or fresh content are a no-no in the online world. Another thing search engines don’t like is broken links.

As you build your web pages it’s easy to miss broken links. A good strategy is to double check every link you add to your website. Inevitably you may miss some or some may become broken with time (as web addresses change and so on). Regular maintenance and “check-ups” for your website will help you spot these broken links and keep your customers and search engines happy in the process.

# Updating information may increase your sales – Regularly looking over your website will also help you make changes and adjustments as necessary. For example, you may have started promoting what was a great product two years ago but now that product may be outdated and not so great anymore. By updating your website you may find products and promotions which are a better match for your visitors. This means more money in your pocket and more satisfied visitors.

Look through your old web pages to see if there are any promotions which can be updated or given a little extra “oomph.” Times change and on the internet time moves at a faster speed – keeping up with the times is important and you can do this by simply looking over your pages and tweaking as you go along.  Updating your information on the pages will also help your page be picked up my the search engines more.

# Keeping track of your stats is important – Another part of your basic web maintenance is keeping on top of all your visitor statistics. It makes sense to regularly go through your website and check how many visitors you have on a monthly basis, where they’re coming from, how they’re finding you, what pages they’re accessing and so on.

A running log of these statistics will help you quickly identify any potential problems such as loss of traffic or reduced income from sources such as Google AdSense and so on.  But make sure you don’t get caught up in checking your stats too often.  Checking them monthly is usually more than enough unless you have run a special promotion.

Regular basic web maintenance for your website is important. It can help you keep up with changing times, help to attract more visitors and ultimately make you more sales. If you find this task difficult to squeeze in, try scheduling it in for a set time each month or every few weeks. It shouldn’t take long and the time investment may make all the difference to your business. And finally, if you don’t have time to do the web maintenance yourself you can always think about hiring an assistant to help you with this task.

Site should reflect you.

Ultimately, if you do everything right, but your site is just like every other well-made site, you still may not be able to make money off it. Your site needs to have something unique that reflects who you are and what you can provide and honestly why they should go to your site instead of others.

Make things easy to find.

Everyone wants things fast, and adding a search box or an easy site map will help them find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. I personally think that a site search box was one of the best things invented. I use it frequently on other sites and blogs.

Keep it current.

Besides the danger of having out-of-date information, pages that are updated more often get visited more often, and give you a better chance of keeping more customers. Updating your pages also helps with your search engine optimization and page ranking.

Add RSS feed.

Many people keep themselves updated by using RSS feeds instead of checking websites constantly. I personally love using my google feedreader. By adding a RSS feed, you can not only catch these users, you can also tailor feeds specifically for their interests.

Be readable.

Not only do you need a font that’s readable and colors that don’t hurt the eyes, but it’s also extremely beneficial to have correct spelling and grammar. Customers aren’t likely to stick around if they think you’re lazy or don’t know what you’re talking about. Verdana and Tahoma are two common fonts that are very easy to read.

Be consistent.

Make each page the same format, font, color, etc to keep visitors from getting confused at where to find what they’re looking for. It’s easier on the eyes for reading as well.

Don’t branch out too much.

It’s best to focus your website on one area or product. If you offer several different products or types of products, you need to have several websites to promote them so visitors aren’t bombarded with things they don’t want. This is called niche marketing.

Ask for feedback.

Always have a way for your users to send you feedback. This will help you make changes your customers want to keep them coming back, and even recommend you to their friends. You can put feedback boxes or questions on different pages, or you can add a message board with a feedback section.