In my 5-7 years of experience of creating, running and maintaining websites, I have had huge success and, at the same time, huge flops. I’ll be the first to admit that I have made mistakes and learnt from them over the years which has brought me around to being the person I am now online. As it currently stands, I have three websites I maintain and run on a weekly basis that are are worth in excess of $50,000, while only requiring me only a few hours of work a week. How long did it take for me to make them? Well, one website is 4 years old, one is 2 years old and the main website of that valuation above is just over a year old. So how does one go about making a successful website? There is no truly right or wrong answer to this. However, I thought it would be a good idea to give you some of the main tips I have learnt to making a website that succeeds.
 

#1 Pounce on a ‘Light Bulb’ Idea

I guess this does depend on the type of person you are (since you may feel you never have had a light bulb idea). However, the truth of the matter, from my perspective, is that everyone has light bulb moments every year: at least 2-3 of them. However, most people ignore them because:

1. They have unnecessary doubts with it
2. They don’t want to fund money into the idea
3. They haven’t got the time to pursue it

If you have experience online with making websites and you have a light bulb moment, pounce on it straight away! Make a table of the main pros and cons to the idea and, if it truly is a great idea, you will see complete sense into investing time and money into it to make it into a website – this is exactly how I made my most valuable website. I was reading an email from someone and clocked on that there was a market out there for such a website, and that the competition was extremely low. So I invested money into getting good SEO knowing the results will start to roll in in around a year (for which they have).
 
 

#2 Set Monthly Targets

New websites require a lot of effort at the start with little results to show for your hard work. However, the best thing to do in these situations is be strict with yourself and keep working away at the website, making sure you have addressed everything that needs to be addressed in order for the website to become successful. The best way, I found, to do this is to set yourself monthly targets to achieve. Monthly targets are not too long and are neither too short. They provide you enough of an idea for the short term with what you need to do and want to achieve with your website.
 
But, ultimately, the key to a successful website is motivation! As long as you are motivated to carry on with your website, it will succeed!