Do's And Don'ts Of Starting A Website Or Blog

DO: Have everything programmed and set up before having the site go live. The design should be finished and all the links and pages should work. If your site isn't finished when people visit, they most likely won't return.

DO NOT: Expect a lot of visitors when you first start out. Your site is new and probably not in the search engines yet, but give it time. If you promote it correctly than the people will come.

DO: Attempt to start a community around your site. Blogs and forums with a large following are highly profitable. I've read of numerous sites being sold for over $50,000 all the way up to over 12 million dollars.

DO NOT: Start spamming your site every where once your site goes live. Generally people like to find new sites but if they see you posting comments with your link it on every site they visit or find you in every forum that frequent, that person won't come visit your site.

DO: Start social networking as soon as possible, hopefully before you start the site. Join social networks like Digg, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites that fit into your niche. Be active in them and this will enable you to have a social presence before your site goes live and possibly give you a small loyal readership in the beginning that can evolve into a large loyal readership.

DO NOT: Spend money on a domain or hosting unless you are going to be in it for the long haul. Domain names are relatively cheap but hosting can milk your bank account. So unless you plan on at least making some money with the site there is no reason to spend money.

DO: Write great original content that people will want to read. I've said it before and I will say it again, your site needs great content.

DO NOT: Steal content from other writers. It will make you look very bad and could prevent you from many future endeavors. Information on the internet spreads quickly and your reputation will be tarnished.

DO: Use other peoples content to enhance your site but ALWAYS give credit. I'm not saying use their words or the entire post, but if you can add a different perspective of a post you saw on another blog, link to it.

Lastly...

DO NOT: Give up. Your site will be small at first, but stick with it. The readers will come if you keep writing great stuff. The links will come if you immerse yourself into the online community.