Drakeford and Associates Consulting is a "Community-Minded" Development Consulting Firm. We specialize in proposal development, relationship development, non-profit consulting, strategic planing, organizational structure development, motivational speaking and partnership development.

Is it okay to have advertising on your website? Of course it is, as long as it's not overdone.

Advertising is everywhere; you watch TV and a half- hour program is really only twenty-minutes long because the other ten-minutes is filled with advertisments. The same thing with radio, is it music or ads that you hear the most of? TV and Radio would not exist if they didn't sell advertisments and sponsorships!

Open any magazine and you will see 1/4 page, 1/2 page and even full-page ads all over the place. How about newspapers? Sure there are ads all throughout your newspapers too, advertising is everywhere!

You take a drive and you see billboards along the side of the road or ads plastered all over the trucks and even some cars that you pass. Walk through the mall or any store and there are ads all over the place. You cannot get away from the ads. Even lying on the beach you are liable to see an airplane fly by dragging an ad banner behind it or sky-writing an ad! There is no escaping advertising, it's a way of life. So why shouldn't you have ads on your website?

Everyone has heard of Google. Most of the websites you visit now have Google ads on them which are related to the website you are viewing. Every time a visitor clicks on a Google ad somebody, somewhere is making some money; why not you?

Another way to make money from your website ads is Affiliate Programs. You sign up as an affilliate with different companies that would make sense advertising their products or services on your website and every time someone makes a purchase through their ad on your site you receive a commision.

I use Commission Junction for all of my affiliate programs. Check it out, it's FREE to join. The skyscraper ad on the left side of this article is an example of a Commission Junction ad. Click on it and you will be taken to Geeks.com website. If you were to make a purchase I would get a commission from the sale.

Of course the best way to use the ad space on your website would be to sell it to local merchants. Once your site is established and you are getting a lot of traffic then it will be easier to sell ad space locally.

The bottom line is, if you want to make some money from your website then you need to have advertisements on the site. More on this subject in future newsletters.

If you are going to design websites then the first thing you need to do is learn HTML. You will need this even if you are going to use other programs for designing which automatically put the code in for you. You can teach yourself the basics of HTML just by searching the Internet for HTML Tutorials.

My favorite program for website design is NetObjects Fusion. I have been using it ever since version 1, many years ago. The version I have now is version 10. This program is user friendly and offers many extras. It will put the HTML code into the site for you, but it's always good to be able to tweak the code yourself. There are templates available which can be edited as needed.

Another must for website design is Photoshop. This is a graphics program where you can design a webpage or edit photos or make your own graphics. It's an absolute must have for any serious web designer. Photoshop runs about $650.00, it is expensive, but I believe it's a necessity!

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/

Does your church need a website? We offer special rates for churches. Visit our website, you can see our portfolio there and a rate page. The rates listed are a guideline only to give you an idea of the cost involved.

If you are a church we will take $50 off the setup and design fee and we also offer additional discounts for small churches with less than 100 members in their congregations.

Here is the most recent church website we have designed.

www.kingdomadvance.org