Where is Designing a Website 1 you ask? I can't remember now but it's a blog I posted sometime in the earlier months when I was just starting to blog. With my website in mind, I was curious about the implications of this conclusion which I found in an article by a Miles Gillford at sitepronews.com (c) 2007. The italics are mine.
"The future of internet publishing is in the niches. Subscription and advertising revenues will continue to migrate down the long tail to the niche sites. Specialist publishers who are focused on creating the best site in their subject area in the world are set to prosper. The mass market publications will continue to see their audiences and revenues squeezed."
Somehow I am relieved by this statement. The greatest challenge of any webmaster is to make sure that the site is continually creating content. Since people come to the internet for information, and actually type letters on their search keyboards, then it follows that "content is really king." My own experience in creating content is excruciating because I'm discovering that I need writers to write content for me. (EngTg do accept and pay for contributions.) I may have the knowledge but I do not have all the time in the world to write about my so called "specialty." The website I built is primarily an English to Tagalog translation Website. So this calls for content which should fall more or less under this general idea. Now I have more or less 80 articles on my website but this is not going to last with the info-hungry seekers from all over the globe (statistics report on my site.central office lists the visitor's geographical location).
This is truly a different kind of race and I refuse to be eaten by it. So right now, I'm trying to just enjoy creating content at my own pace, since writing is really a difficult task. Whether you're writing a story, a poem, a website article, the challenge is the same. Discipline, discipline, discipline. Which I lack. (An aside. Mrs. Evelyn Miranda Feliciano had a TIA two years ago if I am not mistaken, but right now, aside from her many bestsellers, she's done another two books and they are out of the press and in the bookstores. I'm really impressed.)
Back to my articles on the website - my errors are everywhere and I keep editing even as I have already posted the articles on the web (shame on me). Well, I did edit them before I posted them on my website, and I do edit a lot, but as we often say in my former company OMF LIT, it takes another eye, really, to see all the typos. And woe to me since my errors are more than typos.
I'm into the "monetization" aspect of building this website. In my guide, I'm at day 8 or 9 of the process, so it seems that in another two years, I'll be at day 10 and finish. Monetization means that I have to place Google ads, and make sure that the "tiers," that is, the chain organization of topics will lead the seekers to buy my translation, editing or writing services. Can you believe that I'm actually selling myself? Well, in college, I sold a lot of Avon products, but that was easy since I knew all my classmates who wanted to put on lipstick, use roll on, or spray perfume, and they simply were embarrassed to say no to me.
In a sense this Internet Business is the best job for me at this time, although sometimes I long for a job which will give me a day that is similar to that day when I became an understudy in a stage play. You know, the lead failed to appear on gala presentation, so I substituted for her, acting her parts and delivering her dialogues. I actually acted on the legitimate stage. But that day was the beginning and end of my acting career. (another aside: I smile as I think about a friend who said during her job interview that what she really wanted to do for work was "Kim", which was Lea Salonga's Miss Saigon stint. She actually nearly auditioned for the part.)
Where am I? Back to the website - I've placed some ads on my site and am happy about the effect. My layout artist friend knows it when the page has become so crowded, and Google controls the number of ads anyway, so I somehow exercise another skill, that of the layout artist confined to block templates (confining myself is becoming my specialty.) How I can go beyond the blocks, I don't know. I need Html, to do a "proper" website. But well, I'm consoled that the look, although very important is still secondary since content is primary, that is, good content. If I stay glued on the internet until I have reached 50, who can say that I won't learn Html? But at that time, programmers would have come up with better, simpler, codes and Html would be antique. Right now, I am more happy that my pages do not look so monotonous anymore - with some colored animated ads - than I am happy at the prospect of earning from them.
I'm sure this isn't the way I am going to live for the rest of my life, but if this is the way it should be at this time, I'm going to make the most of it. In the meantime, forgive the greenhorn gobbledygook about websites and stuff and Indulge me.
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