Dealer Dan, pictured here with WWE Superstar Mick Foley, has been in internet marketing since 1996. He likes hugs, long walks on the beach, and making money while wearing his jammy jams. For more information, you can read all 
I wasn’t really planning a follow-up to my Build a Website in One Day article – you know, the one where I said DON’T build a website in one day – but then I totally contradicted myself by building a website in one day, and figured I should write about it.
Thankfully it’s not a complete contradiction. In the first article, I talked about how you should let your inspiration guide you more than anything. That’s what led to me building a website in one day. This is one of the most important parts of being an affiliate and webmaster – letting your inspiration guide you.
Like many of you, I own many domains. Many, many domains. The majority of them remain dormant, just sitting there doing absolutely nothing. However I never push myself to create a website. I don’t wake up Monday and say “I’m going to start on this website today”.
I let my inspiration guide me.
I know I’ve said that phrase a lot so far in this article but there is a very good reason for it – because it is so important. Because only when you are feeling inspired, will you be able to produce the best possible site, both for search engines and for visitors.
I have a list of all my domains written out, and I add it to it whenever I buy new domains. I keep it pinned up in my wall beside my whiteboard where I see it every day, and I know all my domains off by heart. They can sit there doing nothing for years for all I care – until I get the inspiration and motivation to create one of those sites, I won’t bother even attempting to sit down and work on them.
One of those domains will no longer be dormant as of a few days ago.
On September 17th of this year, I had just returned from the Budapest Affiliate Conference. The work had piled up when I was gone, and was very off-putting. I had went to bed the night prior planning a day of some hard work and nose to the grindstone stuff, but when it came down to it I just couldn’t get to work. I spent most of the day chatting online, catching up on the world and doing absolutely nothing.
After wasting my morning, I went for lunch. I came back hoping to start working, but again got distracted – this time looking at pictures and videos from the conference. I came across this video which features the mascot from a website called Casino Lemonade at the conference:
I started thinking how cool it would be to do something like that for Dealer Dan. It also piqued my curiosity so I went to look at the Casino Lemonade website. It’s an amazing website BTW and they have did a fantastic job – so if you’re looking to play free online casino games then be sure to visit Casino Lemonade.
Okay so I visited Casino Lemonade, and checked the site out. It’s a site that hosts absolutely tons of casino flash games which you can play in your browser. It really is an amazing site. I gave it a look and closed it, then went out for a smoke. Smoking is something that I do when I am brainstorming – it always seems to help. This wasn’t a brainstorming session or anything though – I just needed my nicotine fix.
So I went out back for a smoke, and as soon as I had that first haul it was like a lightbulb appeared over my head. I came up with the inspiration for one of my sites, a domain about playing online Keno that I bought a long time ago. I immediately grabbed a notepad and came up with this:
(Ryan is a graphic designer I sometimes use)
Then I came inside, opened up Photoshop and did a rough design of the site to send over to my designer:
I then called him up, gave him some more information, and we narrowed everything down within 20 minutes. I then told him to make it priority, and called up my content writer. We went over a list of articles to start the site off with, then I spoke to my assistant and got him to write up a few news posts for the site, as well as get the backend and admin areas of the site all set up.
And that was that. Later that day I received the design from my designer. We did a few tweaks but nothing major. Once that was complete, I focused on adding all the content to the site, and had the site ready to go by Friday morning. You can view it here: Play Keno Online. Here is a screenshot of it below:
The point of this article is that you have to let your inspiration guide you whenever you want to create a website. You’re never going to create a good site if you aren’t motivated by it. Is the site “finished”? Of course not. There’s still work to do, research to be done, tweaks to be made, links to build, and so on and so on. However the biggest step is done – actually getting the site online. When that idea hits you – nothing should stand in your way. You should be able to drop everything and just focus 100% on getting that latest website up.
Now you really SHOULDN’T be building websites in one day – but the point of this article is that time is of no essence. In reality, it doesn’t matter of a site takes a few hours to create or a few months – as long as the finished result is a website that you are proud of, and one that you are happy is a resource for your target market.
This isn’t something you can do with all sites of course. Lot’s of sites require a lot more research. However these type of mini sites are the ones that are just perfect for being built within just a few hours.
So don’t beat yourself up over those domain names you are basically squatting on. Let those domains sit there gathering dust. Then when that inspiration hits you, drop everything and seize the day. And build a website you can be proud of.
This article was written on September 23, 2009 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.
If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.
