Webmastering

Building a web site takes a lot of effort. Contrary to the belief that the duties of a webmaster and a web designer are one and the same, their jobs are different. They may be similar in some aspects, especially at the start of a project. The design and coding of the website is usually done by the web designer. More often than not, he is also equipped with web development skills so he can do the coding and debugging himself.

The difference between the two fields of work is actually in the duration of the website once it has gone “live.” Going “live” simply means that the website has already been uploaded in the worldwide web so everyone can visit it. The web designer codes and designs the site, and his job ends there. The webmaster, on the other hand, has more responsibilities. He must ensure that content is up-to-date, by providing fresh information for its visitors and readers.

The webmaster should also be able to troubleshoot the website and protect the files of the site owner. Since he is the only one who has access to all the sections in the site, he is the only person who has authority to moderate comments as well. More often than not, the webmasters transfer duties to content editors, especially if they have to maintain multiple domains.

The rates for webmasters are usually per page, or per service that they offer- depending on the site. Dynamic sites are harder to maintain because they have a lot more user accounts.

Make money from your website

If your goals are a bit modest, it is not unreasonable to expect your Web site to bring you some extra cash. A simple way for you to get some extra cash coming from your Web site are Affiliate programs. This is program is where you are a partner with another company, usually an ecommerce company, to sell their product on your Web site. For every product you sell, you get a portion of the income. The best known affiliate program sells books for Amazon.com.

Another way to add a stream of revenue from your Web site is to have advertising on it. The money from advertising happens in two ways: from the number of people who view the ad and also from the number of “click-throughs” on the ad. Advertising can take various forms, as banner ads, which usually cost a lot, or just regular sponsored links. You can see examples of each of those on About.com as well. The banner ads on the top, bottom and sides cost more than the sponsored links on the bottom, and they each bring in different amounts of revenue.