How to build your First Website


WordPress is my first choice when building out a site. Don’t be afraid of WordPress. If you can type in “Word” you are golden. You do not need to know HTML or any coding and there are a ton of both free and paid for themes/skins with different features.

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that takes creating a website to the level of the beginner but makes you look like a pro. Everything in WordPress is point and click or even drag and drop for images and other content.
Best of all WordPress is free.  

Installing WordPress on your host is a cinch.

The two hosting companies I suggest are BlueHost or GoDaddy as your hosting provider. Both allow you to do a point and click install of WordPress. Their hosting is both affordable and reliable. 

https://www.godaddy.com/hosting/wordpress-hosting

https://www.bluehost.com/wordpress/wordpress-hosting

Both of these plans install wordpress for you and have some very useful benefits like updates, a free SSL certificate and malware/hack protection. Plus you can upgrade as you grow to a higher level of service.

I am not going to give instructions step by step on working with WordPress. There really are tons of fantastic tutorials about getting around the WordPress interface on YouTube, Udemy.com, Lynda.com and WordPress.org

Make an outline of what your main pages will be plus you must have legal pages included.

Next you will want to start adding content to your site. Begin with 5 pages (minimum) of content of at least 400 words and at least three to four posts that are 200 words or more. That is a good start for your website.

Remember to reference your outline so the content has a theme and is geared toward your most ideal audience.

When adding content to your site I suggest creating the pages or posts in Word first. Once you have completed the page content, copy and paste it into the content area of the page selected in WordPress. 

You are going to want a header graphic or logo for your site to make it memorable. One of the resources I use all the time is Fiverr. You would be amazed at what people will do for five bucks. You can get everything from logo design, business cards, animation and videos all done from people looking for work on Fiverr.

If you are more the DIY person I suggest pixelmodo.com or canva.com  you will be amazed at how easy it really is to create quick logos, social images and more without  pricey graphics software. Each has templates and guides to get you going fast. 

Step 7. Building your Site

Why do I insist you build a website? 

You could start with a YouTube or twitch.tv channel, but now you are relying on a third party that may impose rules about your content and shut you down at any time. You always want to have the option of hosting your own video content and a place to send your Video channel subscriber to that is yours.

Can’t I just start with Pay Per Click and drive traffic to the offer page?
I don’t believe in what I like to call “pass through marketing”. This is where you just send the customer straight to the retailer and get a commission with no hope of ever getting that customer again. 

Another thing to keep in mind is most merchants do not allow direct linking in paid search. This means you may not use their URL in your paid ads. Instead you would direct traffic to a landing page on your site with links to the merchant you want to promote. Repeatedly testing offers this way can get very expensive and you will not have anything to show for it except an empty bank account. It is also very intensive and not for the faint of heart.

Having your own Web site will give you a piece of internet real estate that you can constantly improve on and consistently make money from loyal visitors or subscribers to your email opt in list.

A word about free platforms to host your content- Nothing is ever free. That hosting resource is paid for in some way and usually, it is your content that gets monetized with ads the “free” hosting platform stuffs into your content or next to it. You will have absolutely no control over the ads and won’t earn a dime from. Plus you know all that fine print in the user agreement, yeah you agreed to this and your site/content may disappear without any warning.  So please just do not do this.