Get The Tools For The Job

On the 14th of January I signed up for a few things,

• Google Analylitics 
• Google Adsense 
• Google Webmasters Tools 
• Amazon Associates
  

I think they are the standard beginner tools for new webmasters

, any suggestions for better tools from people reading this would be appreciated.

I did this before adding any new articles  because I didn't want to have to go back and add things to each separate article  (...which is what I had to do later anyway)

'Analytics' and 'webmaster tools' allow me to see trends in traffic, how visitors arrive, key words for search etc basically let me know how the site is going.

Adsense and Associates is obviously to try to earn some money.

The Amazon associate links will be embedded in the image links of each article so users can find more info on a product. At the moment if Amazon doesn't sell a particular product the image will link to the products home page.

I am trying to configure the site so it isn't plastered with useless advertising,  I have taken some time to add keywords to the 'customised Google search' so that it hopefully returns useful results when searching for honest reviews, product defects or support.

15th of January I started adding the product articles.

At this point I was unaware of a lot of things , remember I just jumped right in.

I have since found and installed OpenX Ad Server It lets me manage the affiliate links and some other dynamic content. Its free to use / install, has a helpful user community and provides good tools for statistics gathering. I couldn't limit or control the ads served by Adsense in any meaningfull way. Some of the content they served was inappropriate so I looked a bit deeper into other revenue streams available.

I later signed up for Linkshare and Commision Junction. This allows me to pick and choose advertisements relevant to the subject matter, OpenX organises the adds and makes sure the correct adds are shown on the correct page in the correct area of the page. OpenX is running on my server, It caches and combines content so that it cuts down on http requests, hopefully speeding up the page load for visitors.

LinkShare.com

Commission Junction

OpenX Ad Server

One thing I didn't mention on the previous page was acquiring web space or registering a domain name. Most hosts these days will register a domain for you if you sign up with their hosting plans.

Getting the right host is the tricky part, you need to know before hand what your site will require, do you need php support, if so what version? Do you need database access or a shell account? It all depends on what you are going to build, what amount of traffic you may recieve and the bandwidth this requires.  Some not so obvious questions a noob like me might miss are does the host impose unreasonable cpu quotas or  database limitations.

My choices were limited by cost, I anticipated moving the site at some point due to host limitations that I was already aware of .  Below are some webhosts for you to compare, I am myself starting out on cheap shared hosting with the knowledge that if the site does become popular in all likelihood I would have to move to another host.

DreamHost
Webhostingpad
www.GoDaddy.com
JumpLaunch
Lunarpages Web Hosting
Netfirms Web Hosting
Nexx Web Hosting