LifestyleDesignUnleashed

photo credit: Wolfgang Staudt

By now we have covered the basics of what you’re going to be doing and how you’re going to earn some money online (possibly your first few dollars ever). In this section we’re going to talk about how to set up your minisites – assuming you bought your web hosting and domains like I suggested.

Once we have got this section out of the way – which is by default going to be a little more technical than the other sections – then in the next and final part we will move on to content creation, monetization and marketing which really is nice and simple once you know what you’re doing.

There are really five main steps here to getting your basic sites set up before we start to add your content and market them. If you’ve never built a website before then this may seem rather complicated but trust me here – once you’ve set up a few sites in this way you will be surprised just how simple the process is.

As with anything else, the first time is the hardest and it’s well worth sticking to it until you feel comfortable with the process. The simple art of setting up a WordPress blog will come in very handy for you for numerous future projects and is one of those “foundations” that setting yourself free from your job is based on.

1) Get Your Domains Working With Your Hosting

Assuming you followed my previous recommendations and bought your domains from GoDaddy and your hosting from HostGator then this step should be nice and simple.

You’ll want to open up two browser windows – one for your HostGator account and the other for your GoDaddy account and then log into both so you can jump between your two control panels.

Firstly, add your domains to your HostGator account by finding the “Add On Domains” area of your control panel. Go into it and enter the domains you have in your GoDaddy account. Now HostGator will be aware of what domains it needs to be working with.

Next, look down the left-hand side of your HostGator control panel and you should see a box entitled “Nameservers” where there will be two website addresses. Once you have found this, swap over to your GoDaddy account and find the Domain Control panel.

Tick all the domains you have just entered into HostGator and select the “Change Nameservers” option at the top of the page. When the popup box appears simply copy and paste the two nameservers from Hostgator into the boxes.

Click save and within a few minutes GoDaddy and Hostgator should be working smoothly together. When you type in one of your domains you should find that you’re directed over to your HostGator web hosting. If so, it’s time for the next step.

2) Install WordPress

The next step in this setup process is getting WordPress installed on each of your domains so we can use the software to quickly and easily build our actual sites and thus draw visitors from the search engines and actually make some money online.

In your HostGator control panel find the Fantastico option and click it, then in the next menu select “WordPress” from the left-hand menu.

Simply select each of your domains in turn and then follow the simple installation instructions to get WordPress working on each of your domains. Note down all the new usernames and passwords that you’ll be creating for all your various installs as you’ll need these to log into and set up your sites.

3) Install A Theme

The default WordPress themes are pretty dull and don’t do much for conversion rates on your sites so the next step is to install a new theme to change the overall appearance of your sites.

Ideally we want something clean, clear and plain. Nothing to distract from the content of our sites – we want all eyes on our adverts and affiliate links rather than on the beautiful design of our sites and for this I typically use the ColdBlue theme (which is actually what I am running here at Lifestyle Design Unleashed at the moment). You can download the theme at http://webrevolutionary.com/coldblue/.

Once you have the zipped theme saved onto your computer you need to follow a simple process to get it working on each of your websites in turn.

Log into the WordPress install of your first website and find the “Appearance” option from the menu down the left-hand side. Here select the “Themes” option and in that menu select the “Add New” option at the top of the page.

Select the “Upload” option and then simply find the theme on your computer. Upload it and then activate it to change the appearance of your site from the basic, boring default theme to the new, cleaner theme (which, incidentally, seems to do pretty well for SEO purposes too).

So this for each of your sites then we’re ready to move onto the next step.

4) Install Plugins

Incase you’re new to WordPress a plugin is a small add-on piece of code which enables your basic WordPress install to do all sorts of extra things that the basic setup can’t do.

There are literally thousands of plugins available – some paid but many free ones. Each marketer has their own preferences of what they think works best but luckily as we’re following a very specific process I have slowly tested dozens of plugins over the last few months to find the ones that work best for this system.

Firstly let’s discuss *how* to install a plugin. You will need to follow this same process for each of the recommended plugins, for each of your sites, so this will take you a little time to do but will be well worth it long term. Then we’ll actually discuss the individual plugins (and where to get them) that I recommend you use.

Please remember this is a very specific process so I wouldn’t cut corners if you’re new to building money-making websites. Follow every step, use every plugin because each one has a purpose and builds on the overall effect.

Installing a plugin is reasonably similar to installing a theme. Inside your WordPress dashboard, select the “plugins” option and at the top of the page you should see an “Add New” option. On the next page select the “Upload” option and then upload the plugins one by one. After uploading each one, ensure you “activate” it so that it starts working on your site. Simple.

So what plugins do you actually need? Here’s the list:

All In One SEO

The All In One SEO pack is designed to make your WordPress-powered sites more search-engine friendly. This means more traffic and more sales for you.

Download All In One SEO here.

Contact Form 7

You will be surprised at the emails you can get when you a decently-ranked site. Requests for interviews, offers of free products to review, offers from affiliate managers of lucrative promotional deals and so on. Furthermore there is evidence to suggest that the major search engines like to see the ability to contact the site owner as a sign of a legitimate site which may boost your search engine rankings.

This plugin makes it super-simple to add a professional-looking contact form to your website.

Download Contact Form 7 here.

Easy Privacy Policy

As we will be using Adsense as one way to monetize our site we need a privacy policy if we are not to fall foul of the Google Adsense terms and conditions. Furthermore this is an additional “supplementary page” which the search engines look for as an indication of a “legitimate” site and can boost your rankings still further.

This plugin makes it a 30 second job to add a professional privacy policy page to your website by clicking a few buttons so significantly speeds up the site-building process.

Download Easy Privacy Policy here.

Exec-PHP

In the next and final part of this tutorial we will be talking about creating content and marketing your sites quickly and easily. If you’re going to follow my advice then this plugin will help your promotional efforts. So you won’t use it till the next stage but at least if you download it you’ve got it ready when you need it. I recommend that while you upload the plugin to your various sites you don’t activate it in this step as you will need to change a few settings when you do so.

Download Exec-PHP here.

Google Sitemap Generator

A Google sitemap allows Google to easily find and spider all the pages of your website to give you the best possible chance of significant search engine traffic. This plugin automatically creates a new sitemap as you add content and then lets the search engines know you have new content that they need to spider and include in their index.

Download Google Sitemap Generator here.

PhpBay Pro

PhpBay Pro is one of the key elements of this system and allows you to quickly and easily add Ebay product listings to your pages. This plugin is so essential that quite simply the simple system I am revealing won’t work without it, so you *must* grab this one.

This is the only plugin you will have to pay for because of the amount of effort it takes the programmer to maintain and expand it but personally I have found this plugin more than pays for itself and is essential when it comes to creating content.

In the next and final part of this tutorial I will show you exactly how to use it for best effectiveness but for now just grab your own copy and install it on all your mini sites.

Download PhpBay Pro here.

Sitemap Generator

This plugin creates a human-readable sitemap listing all the content of your site in one easy-to-use page which makes finding content easier for your readers and it has also been suggested that this feature too helps to increase your search engine rankings thanks to the boost in usability of your site.

Download Sitemap Generator here.

WhyDoWork Adsense

Another plugin to make monetizing our websites easier. This plugin makes it as simple as possible to quickly add Adsense to every page of our websites in just a few clicks and so further speeds up the building process.

Download WhyDoWork here.

So go and download these plugins (yes including the one you’ll have to pay for) and then get them installed on each your sites. The it’s time for the final stage, which is changing your WordPress settings so your site does just what we need it to…

5) Configure WordPress

The final step once your domains and hosting is working together, once you’ve installed a new clean theme and all the necessary plugins to make a few changes to your standard WordPress install. After you’ve done that you’re ready for the final step in this tutorial which is really the most exciting bit of all and is where the magic really happens. Get this last bit out of the way and you’re on easy street.

a) Configure Plugins

In your WordPress Dashboard find the “Settings” section and follow the instructions for each of the plugins you have installed so they are working smoothly.

This means creating a page for your contact form and publishing it. This means creating a sitemap page so your sitemap is visible to your visitors. It means creating the privacy policy page. It means going through the settings of All In One SEO to ensure your primary keyword phrases you chose earlier are in your title tags and so on.

Ignore the PhpBay Pro, Exec-PHP and WhyDoWork Adsense plugins for now – I’ll talk you through those in more detail in the final section of this tutorial.

b) Delete Default Post

When you install WordPress it comes with one junk post to start you off. So navigate into the “Posts” section of your Dashboard and delete this.

c) Delete Default Page

When you install WordPress it also comes with one junk “About Me” page so navigate to the “pages” section and delete this too.

d) Change Permalinks

In the “Settings” menu find the “Permalinks” option, select “Custom” and enter “/%postname%/” into the box then click save.

e) Change Comments Sections

Go into the “Discussion” option in the “settings” menu and change your settings so that comments aren’t allowed. We’re building small, focused minisites rather than blogs so we don’t want anyone leaving comments. These sites are meant to be “set and forget” so once we’re up and running we don’t want to have to log in to do any maintenance at all which means no comments thank you.

So find the “Default Article Settings” area of the “Discussion” menu and deselect the “Allow people to post comments on new articles” option. Comments will now be disabled.

Do this for each of your mini sites and you’re all done for now.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this section if you’re new to WordPress this section may prove to be a little difficult to swallow but just follow through the steps and if you’ve got any questions or problems at all just leave me a comment below and I’ll do my best to respond to you.

Appreciate that once you have completed this step you’re really on easy street. The next step will be the final one where everything comes together and you end up with finished sites, filled with content, marketed and ready to start receiving visitors and make you money so keep your eyes peeled for part 4 shortly.

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