Before you commit to planting a website, make sure that you have enough time to commit to the project. Without proper attention over time, your website, links and content will get stale and rot. A good amount of time would be an hour or two each week to make sure you get a successful and blooming website.
Choose carefully when you start out making your website, some breeds require far more skill and handling than others. I would encourage you to practice by making a social network site link Linkedin.com, myspace or facebook first. These are starter projects with all the tools you need already provided.
Once you’ve had a little bit of practice, take a good long week thinking about what kind of output you want from your site. Just something pretty to look at, an annual website, like for a festival or event, that has it’s season and is done with?Or do you have something in mind that will be perennial and will have interest again and again. Are you looking for something thats just for looks or do you want something that will produce for you?
When you’ve decided the type of website to plant, lay some ground work out first on paper for you to refer back to so you can keep track of your progress. Preparing the soil is very important and be sure to pick a domain name that has enough room in it for your site to grow roots and spread out in, domain names can severely restrict your sites ability to grow if chosen poorly.
A lot of websites whither under the glaring sun of GYM( Google, Yahoo, MSN), so make sure your site is prepared to handle the scrutiny. There is always a temptation to try out “secret tips and tricks” that are supposed to make your plant grow unnaturally fast, but these almost always have side effects and can kill your website.
When you know if you want a perennial or annual site, choosing hosting is much easier. If it’s cheap and easy then so much the better for your annual site. But if you’re going long term, then consider slightly more expensive hosting, because it will give you a better structure for your site to grow into.
Now that you’ve laid your ground work it’s time to dig into that soil and plant your site. There are two basic approaches to this process, either dig in and plant a massive bulb, that already has enough nutrients to burst forth quickly, or start with a smaller site that may need time to germinate. Naturally, your site won’t be basking in the warm glow of GYM for a while, as it germinates, takes root and sends up it’s sprouts. It’s easy to get over anxious in this waiting stage and you will find yourself religiously checking it’s beginning placement in GYM.
You can use many different kinds of links to fertilize your site. These will allow your roots to spread out evenly and their link love will get absorbed into your sites overall quality. Beware, because alot of links aren’t fertilizer, they’re bull sh*t that you’ll have to pay an arm and a leg for and will have no benefit for your site whatsoever. Choose quality inbound links, from social networks, other local website growers, or from directories. The best being a combination of all three kinds of links, these will help your site flourish under GYM.
Once your site is sprouting, it will be up to you if you want to pay for miracle grow, because pay per click can be expensive over time. You can also use way to much of it and waste your investment very quickly.
Tend to your site, check it’s roots and you’ll most likely want to encourage branches on your site. These branches may come off on different topics, and will give you more area for GYM to spread it’s loving glow over. Be mindful to trim and prune over time, because your branches may get too heavy and cause your site to tople over. Sometimes, you can graft on new branches that weren’t there initialy. Be careful when you do this that you aren’t stealing other peoples branches. This practice tends to fail as the branches have little to do with your original site and will wither under GYM’s Glare.
The more time you spend pouring your energy into the site, the more it will be watered and continue to grow. Once you energy mixes with the chlorophyll in your website and the warm glow of GYM, you will see the magic of Websythnesis. This combining of the site, your time and GYM will begin to produce fruit or flowers depending on your original choice. Keep the site fertilized, watered and it will flourish.
So… are you ready to get your hands dirty and start planting?
I was assisting a client in moving their content from one company to another, and they had added an under construction page, and put up an icon like this to make people aware.
