Business and Lifestyle

It is not another instruction for newbies about setting up web-site, this is a step-by-step guide on how to setup web-site that will sell. That is exactly what you need in the beginning: some investment of time and money resulting in fast result.

Marketing concept of your first website

1. Getting domain name. Remember known “silver bullet test”? That’s a good idea to start – choose keyword that passes silver bullet test, e.g. the keyword that is the most important for your project now. Then register domain with that keyword.

Examples:

• thebestmarketingbook.com – bad example, as it is … occupied, as it is not focusing on what people will search in search engines, as it is too wide for you in the beginning
• how-to-market-to-dog-owners.com – bad one, don’t use “-” in the domain name
• marketingfordogowners.com – great! not the best one, but if your product or service addresses this problem it is one of the best options
• Need more inspiration? Check google for “choosing domain name” to learn some more basic rules

.com domain vs. local domain:

• If you do business only locally register local domain, otherwise .com is better option

where to register? there are a lot of options, don’t use cheap one, as they tend to hide real pricing sometime and for sure you don’t want any problems in future. You can use mydomain.com or godaddy.com to check for free domain names and buy one for you.

• Buying domain on auctions – it is not your game yet. Choose some brand new and free.

Technical aspect. After registering domain you will need to host web-site somewhere. It is not rocket science, so what you will need to do from hosting company is “Name Servers” that you can specify in domain name’s settings.

• For hosting use something inexpensive and easy to setup. For instance hostgator.com is a good option.

Basic legal check: when registering your domain do a basic legal check. Use google to find out if there are some businesses under similar name. It is really necessary if don’t use some generic name. Registering marketingfordogowners.com is generally safe from this point of view. Checking local trademark (US trademark check) is also a good idea to prevent problems in the future.

So here it is step-by-step:

1. Register your new domain.
2. Register hosting account. Get name servers from them.
3. Specify host’s name servers in domain settings.
4. Login to your hosting account and add you domain there (if necessary)
5. Login to your hosting account, create a new SQL database. Save database name, user name and password.
6. In the web pane of your hosting account find out how to open File Manager.

2. Setup your Wordpress blog

Why WordPress? It is easy to setup, you don’t need to think about design issues right now, in the future you’ll be able to easily share access with your team. If you still thinking about “paid web-site design or using WordPress”, choose WordPress.

Step-by-step instruction:

1. Download latest WordPress from http://wordpress.org/download/
2. Use File Manager from hosting admin panel to upload and unpack the archive (normally you need to do is in html folder)
3. Using File Manager find file wp-config.php in the root.  Update there database, user name and password fields (look for define(‘DB_NAME’,  define(‘DB_USER’, define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ).
4. Type your domain in browser and hopefully it will open WordPress setup page.

3. Getting plugins you need

• First you need to download and install good Theme, for instance iNove is a good and popular one (in the admin panel of WordPress check Appearance -> Scheme section).
• Second, go to Settings > Permalinks, select there for Permalink “Custom structure” and enter there “/%postname%.htm”

Then, you need to install some must have plug-ins.

• “All in One SEO Pack” for better web-pages from SEO view point
• “Google Analyticator” or similar plugin to easy Google Analytic installation – register with Google Analytic and with Google Webmaster Tools if you have not done this yet.
• “AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Button” or similar plugin
• “Google XML Sitemaps” or similar for making sitemaps automatically

Add robots.txt file to the root of your blog directory. This will prevent from indexing of pages that are not important for you. For instance robots.txt for this blog.

4. Fill your web-site with information

You don’t need something detailed now, what you need are only few pages!

• The main page with short description of what you do, don’t just write text there, add bullet list to make it more readable.
• Add a sale text there, use google to learn more about principles of copywriting.  That is where you should invest significant part of your time.
• The order page where visitor can contact you to place order or place order directly. Don’t use mail, install simple contact form instead.
• Testimonials or portfolio page – show what you have and what people say about this.

5. Add some more relevant pages

If you are in “marketing for dog owners” niche, have pages that address to owners of big dogs and small dogs.

6. Maillist or autoresponder

Give out something useful and free to get visitors of your web-site signed up into your maillist. This is must have tool for future up-sale! Don’t skip this step.

In the beginning the free product might be just PDF file with some step-by-step instruction on how to solve some problem that is important to your visitor.

Here is detailed plan to how to setup email autoresponder.

7. Order logo

Don’t invest much in this, find guys on eLance, you will design you a unique logo according to general idea of your project for 50$. Modify scheme a little so that your logo will be on the top (you can ask the same design guys for 50$ design you a logo and modify image files of headers for you).

8. Order promotion of your web-site

Find someone on eLance who knows SEO and will agree to work for result. E.g. you fund escrow account there and release funds only when agreed result is achieved.

Normally SEO guys want you to pay them monthly, this is not your choice now. Formulate the task as “I need marketingfordogowners.com to appear in the first 3 results of google for keyword “marketing for dog owners”. Please, bid to the project with your price and timeline”.