Creating a website in 8 hours

Well I started building my NBA Betting Tips site today at 2pm, and as I write this it’s 10:30pm and I’m “done”, so I thought I’d write about exactly what this consisted of for anyone interested:

1. Site Map: This is where I sit down, and figure out exactly what the site is going to have it on it by launch.  Thankfully this is relatively easy as it is a dynamic content driven site, so the amount of content I need on it as at a minimum.  This was mostly coming up with static pages like “About NBATips.net” and interactive feeds like “Live Scores”.
2. Admin Stuff: Setting up the domain, creating a database, deciding how to actually “run” the site.  I decided to go with WordPress, as I’m just so much more comfortable with it, and with a simple site like this it can handle the content etc. well.  So I set that up too.
3. Site Design: The only decision here is do I go with a premium(paid for) template, or a free template.  The former you’re always going to get better designs, but for all I know the site won’t work out, and my betting tips will go 15-100 or something and I’ll be forced to close the site.  So based on that, I decided to go with a free template.  I spent some time looking around, before picking a design that was nice enough, and would suit my needs.
4. Content Writing: This was pretty much writing up all the static content that was required for launch, as well as a “Welcome” update, and the first betting tip which I posted on NPP a few nights ago.
5. Design Tweaks: This is where I customized the design to match my needs.  This involved a few things, including rewriting the sidebars from scratch, putting in a temporary logo(I’ll be getting my graphic designer to do a new one within the next few days), and implementing banners.
6. Feedburner & Plugins: I upgraded all RSS Feeds to use Feedburner, added e-mail subscription option, and installed WordPress plugins that I need like WordPress stats.  I also signed up with Google Analytics.

That’s pretty much everything I did so far.  There is still a lot to do – the design needs tweaked, I need a logo, I need to do some SEO work, I need to get the live odds and live scores feeds set up(I’ve e-mailed the sportsbooks I wish to provide this service and am just waiting for a response).  Then there’s research into competitor sites etc, however for now I am just going to focus on content, content, content as well as the design tweaks, and work out the rest later.  I’m not too concerned with getting visitors right away, as I want to play it by ear and see how the site does in regard to results.  I’m also going to look into this mailing list popunder, which seems to do very well for conversions.  I might try it on PAB first though as that is a more established website.

Unfortunately I wish I could say 8 hours was a normal turnaround time, but it really, really isn’t.  I rushed through a lot of this, and there will be a lot of work in the upcoming weeks.  Really any site I create I usually spend a minimum of two months getting it up.  I spend a month researching for the site as well as planning out a site map etc. better.  I then spend a month just writing content for the site, and doing many, many other things.  However the main thing was just to get this site public as quick as possible and I’ve did so, yay.  Now to do a few other things on the ol to do list, then it’s off to relax in bed.  And get laid.

Current To Do List:37.