It’s surprisingly easy to get started creating your own web presence. Here are the basic web site tools you’ll need to get started creating your own website.
Step 1: Register a Domain Name
First you’ll need to register a domain name for your business.
Not sure what name you should choose for your business website. Check out this article about how to choose a GREAT Domain Name.
It’s ridiculously easy to register a domain name – yet there are still business owners who are relying on the latest “free” website or a free social media presence or even a free blog to represent their business.
Even if you choose to engage in “digital sharecropping” by building your web presence on someone else’s web property, you should at least own the “address marker” people will use to find your site.
Word of Warning: Many hosting companies will offer a “free” domain name registration as part of your sign up for their service. When you choose this option – some hosting companies will list themselves as the “owner” of your chosen domain name.
Your domain name is too important to allow someone else to control it.
Pay to register your domain name so you’re sure you control it.
Once you’ve registered a domain name- now you need a website to go with it.
Step 2: Find a Web Host.
Creating your own website starts with hosting. If you stopped by this page earlier – you would have found a link to a hosting company that I had used for almost 5 years. That link is GONE now. Why? Because good hosting can go bad quickly.
Web hosting is a SERVICE – which means it’s only as good as the people providing the service. When this once reliable hosting company came under new management, the level of service plummeted quickly.
When the hosting service I was using for my sites began declining, I began searching for a new hosting company. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use just any hosting company because I develop WordPress powered sites for my clients. During that lengthy search for quality hosting, I was verbally abused – wrongly accused – and generally misused.
In one case, I transferred one of my tester blogs to a hosting company to discover serious problems with the way the server was set up. When I moved the site back to my original host, I discovered that my regularly updated, security minded blog had somehow picked up an “infection” via a plugin.
It’s possible for you to do everything right when it comes to installing and maintaining WordPress and still run into problems simply because your hosting company hasn’t minded their P’s and Q’s.
This is why I began offering my clients worry free hosting through Acumen Web Services.
Step 3: Install WordPress
Once you have your hosting in place – install a WordPress blog. If you’re not using fully managed WordPress hosting, be sure to keep your WordPress blog software updated with every security update not only for the core code – but also the plugins AND the theme.
Step 4: Internet Marketing Basics
Once you’ve got your site up then you’ll need to set up an email marketing newsletter. Very few visitors will buy from you the first time they visit your site. An email marketing newsletter allows you to collect visitor’s contact information so you can continue communicating with them after they’ve left your site.
Setting up your email marketing newsletter as an autoresponder series is not only a great way to make sure every subscriber gets essential email messages, it’s also the only way to set up your email marketing newsletter as a “set it and forget it” marketing tool. If you don’t set up an autoresponder for your email marketing newsletter, plan on investing several hours each month creating your email marketing newsletter. By forcing users to close their autoresponder series, this company has seriously crippled the list owner who wants to create an autoresponder series that grows over time.
If you’ve got a “do it yourself” attitude about making the web work for your business – be sure to check out the essential business blogging tools we offer here.
