Job Description: Webmaster
Job description: webmaster A brain surgeon was conversing with a famous writer at a party."When I retire, I'd like to become a writer," he told her."That's interesting," she responded. "When I retire, I'd like tobecome a brain surgeon." Running a website isn't exactly brainsurgery, but like writing professionally, neither is it as easyas many people think it is. But as with writing, it looks easy."It must be nice to work at home and make money online," theysay. "Can you show ...
...me how?" How do we as webmasters answer thatquestion? Getting started as a webmasterTo begin, we can try to quell any misconceptions that people mayhave. No, we do not lie around watching TV all day while themoney pours in. The skills needed to derive income online takemore than a few hours to develop. And while we enjoy what we do,it's work. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time. Running arevenue-generating website is part (or in some cases, all) ofrunning a business. Talking about business specifics can helppeople understand what's involved. When friends and relativesask us to show them how to make money online, we can ask themwhat products or services they plan to offer. Have theyresearched the market to see if there is enough demand for theiridea? Do they even have an idea? Have they found a niche? Havethey written up a business plan and looked into the costs of theproducts or services they want to provide, a business license,insurance, and other business expenses? They need to know allthat in addition to being able to run a website. Not that wewant to discourage people, but we don't want them to waste theirtime getting into something that they aren't prepared for. Orperhaps they already have a bricks-and-mortar business and wantto start offering their services online as well. On to thewebsite itself. No night school course or diploma fully preparespeople for running an online business. Most or all of us areself-taught to a great degree, learning from our mistakes andpicking up valuable knowledge from website articles and forums.We all started at the beginning, and we had some success beforewe knew everything that we needed to know. We still don't knoweverything. But learning does take time and effort. What does anaspiring webmaster need to know to get started? How to choose,register, and protect a domain nameWhat do look for when choosing a web host for specific needsWeb design standards and principles, HTML, CSS, perhaps someprogramming languages (but a website builder or template may beadequate for a starter website)How to choose and set up a shopping cartWhat to look for in a merchant account and payment gateway(PayPal or PayQuake are probably fine for starting out)Search engine optimization: finding the right keywords andknowing how and where to use them, getting inbound links,avoiding techniques that could get sites banned from searchenginesHow to write online copy that works for both an online audienceand for search engine botsWeb-specific advertising and marketing techniquesAs the webmaster world turns"Ah, once I do all that, the money will flow to me," people maysay. It might start coming in with all of the above in place.But will it keep coming? Not if the competition continues addingcontent and inbound links and we do nothing. That's why we'reputting time into acquiring more inbound links and promoting oursite instead of lying around watching TV as people mightimagine. We're analyzing our website statistics to see what wecan learn about our visitors and how we can make our site workbetter for them. We're keeping up on what's new in SEO, webdevelopment, and our field of business. We're looking for waysto try to stay ahead of the competition. And, of course, we'reresponding to inquiries and selling the products or providingthe services that we offer at our website. Customer service isjust as important online as it is with face-to-face contact.We're still serving real people. Online, people sometimes expectimmediate responses, which makes taking a day off less of anoption. We may be communicating with people whose nativelanguage isn't the same as ours, which can create communicationdifficulties. While most people are polite, some use theanonymity of online contact to be rude in ways they wouldn'tthink of behaving in front of us. And if they feel that ourservice isn't good enough, they may share their unhappiness inonline forums. Working from home and being our own boss has itsbenefits. We can work at our own pace and take time to do whatwe need to do in our personal lives, If we want, we can turn onthe TV in the middle of the day to watch our favorite soap ¡ªbut we probably make up for the time later, when 9-to-5ers arerelaxing after their day of work. 9-to-5 jobs have theirbenefits too. Employees have job descriptions, they know what'sexpected of them, and most can leave work when the clock saysthat it's time to go home. It's easier to persevere when youknow that the boss is evaluating your work. Working on our own,we have to find that perseverance within ourselves and keepworking on bringing visitors to our website if we want to havean income. Not everyone has that drive to continue pushingthemselves to work when they're on their own. The cycle ofstartingShould we help our friends and relatives who want to earn moneyonline? Perhaps the biggest help we can offer them is to paint arealistic picture of webmaster work and to get them thinkingabout their business ideas and preparation. We can all rememberwhat it was like to start out, and we somehow made it withoutknowing everything that we know now. If people have done theirresearch and are ready to jump in without expecting us to do thework for them, and if we give them some help, we're continuingthe cycle of support that many of us also received as beginningwebmasters.
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