First, let me say: this was my first original post 7–8 months ago. Yesterday on a forum the topic got bumped, and I remembered the piece I’d written. I’d like to share it again. It really does have some good info — I recommend reading.

Before we begin: if you don’t have patience, turn around and keep walking. You don’t start a website for a 1–2 day fad. I’ve reset this site 5–6 times trying to find the right direction and the right kind of posts to share. Every reset cost me at least 1,000 topics. But I didn’t quit saying “I put in effort and it went nowhere” — I’m still going and I’ll get the rewards too, God willing. Let’s start.

Pick your platform first— WordPress, forum, Joomla, etc. After picking the platform, your first job is original topics. How does “original” look?

1. Share the things that are first.
2. Stay away from outdated, everywhere-already topics.
3. If the topic is important and everyone is jumping on it, don’t say “they’re already doing it.” Be the fastest one out there with the news, video, or images.
4. What you write shouldn’t be copy-paste.
5. Your own writing, your own video or your own illustrated walkthroughs work in your favor.
6. Example: someone wrote a long article on a topic. There’s no point in you sitting down and writing another article. They did the article — you make a video, mix in images, expand on the side topics.

Benefits of original content:

1. Google loves you when you produce original material.
2. If you were first to write about a topic, you’ll show up at the top of search engines — which is fantastic for you.
3. The chance of duplicated-quoted titles ranking on page 1 of Google and Yahoo is 1 in 1,000.
4. But don’t half-finish the topic just to grab the first slot — you’ll drive visitors away.

Visuals:

1. Your theme should look pleasing — pick a clean, classy theme that makes visitors want to return. Avoid childish styles.
2. But don’t bog the site down with huge high-resolution PNGs just to make it pretty.

Categories, accessibility, contact:

1. Install plugins — for your own sake and for the visitors.
2. There should always be a “related posts” plugin under your articles — visitors browse more, and you get internal backlinks for Google.
3. Create an About page with your Twitter, email, Facebook and so on — so people can trust and recognize you.
4. Categories shouldn’t be a mess. Everything in its place; whatever I search, I should find.
5. When visitors want to reach you, they should be able to easily, and get serious answers when they do.

Other useful things for your site:

1. When you first set up your site, a sitemap is critical. Google won’t find you out of nowhere. A sitemap helps Google scan your titles and surface you in search.
2. I think tags are important. Some people say don’t use tags in the first year, but I always did and always saw the benefit.
3. When using tags, pick fresh ones no one else uses, anticipating what people will search.
4. Definitely do toplists and forum site promotions — especially with high-PageRank sites. Example: two sites share the same topic at the same time, one is PR7 and the other PR4. Whose post tops Google? The PR7, because of the backlinks. Higher PR backlinks = higher ranks.
5. Definitely use Google+, Facebook likes and Twitter link sharing.
6. Once you have a Google account, use the extras: Analytics, Webmaster Tools. They let you analyze your traffic and see what searches bring you in.
7. I forgot to mention — when you set up the site, don’t forget to add it via google.com/addurl. That way Google’s bots add you without waiting to find you organically.