30 Day Challenge To Get Your Business Online

[Cpt Chaos]

Wonder what went wrong with this thread, would've been good to see the remainder of the posts

[workshop]

I am based in Knysna trying to do much the same. But it's a mission. We actually give sites away, threatening to broaden their horizons, transform their lives. But we never quite seem to get there. It's a bit like the story of the rainbow. There is always a distraction. So, I have only had one catch in fourteen years of fishing the net. But it's enough and we soldier on.

Comments on www.iteachknysna.com would be appreciated.

[workshop]

The mistake that most of us make is to expect too much, too soon. One wants to start as simply as possible. To learn how to drive. And Wordpress is the ideal tool. It doesn't matter whether you are setting up a site to profile your business or whether you intend to use it to offer an online service. It's all the same. Once you have decided on a domain name you need somewhere to host it.

And there are so many options, it is difficult to choose. But bear in mind that this is likely to be the first of many sites and you are going to make a lot of mistakes before you get it right. So my advice, while you are still learning, is to go cheap and choose a service provider that has been around for long enough to give you some assurance they won't fall over and die on you. I use shared servers, based in the States, paying anything from $7 to $10 a month for a hosting account that allows one to Add On multiple domains.

These generally come with a cpanel to manage your sites and install scripts like Wordpress. It is easy enough to do once you know how. But this is all stuff you can come back to later.

Right now you want a site to practice on. Decide on a domain name, choose a hosting service and get someone to set you up with your first site. Weebly and Wix do this for free. But it's not Wordpress and I am not sure whether you get a database with their free offering. I doubt it. Their service also comes with the constraint that you build your site using their scripts and if you want to move at any time all you take with you is your domain. So it makes sense to pay R60 to R100 a month for hosting and a couple of hundred for an installer to set it up for you.

What you get is www.iteachknysna.com without the classifieds plug-in. Yes, it is ugly. The point however, is that it works. And believe me if you are going to set up a web site, that is what you want. You want something that you can drive, something you can grow and develop. Worry about spending money on it much, much later.

[workshop]

You now have a domain, a hosting account and a web site. What's next?

Go to http://yourdomain.co.za/wp-admin
Copy your user name and Paste
Copy your password and Paste
Click Log In

This should get you in to the admin console/dashboard

Look for and click on Page - in the menu on the left
Select Add New
Enter a title - Test
And for text - use Test again
Click on Publish

Don't worry about breaking anything
Everything can be edited and fixed

And if that worked do the same. But create a Post this time

Once done if you look top left you will see "Your Domain" next to a Wordpress logo
Click on it
Select view site

If you get this far there are a few more buttons to push but you are mostly done. You have just created your first site, created your very own wave, you have just gone global. This to me is the beginning of everything. This is communication. The very essence of the word. You have the ability, we all have the ability of communicating with anyone or everyone, no matter who they are or where they are.

All that is required is for you to push those last few buttons and you are there.

[workshop]

The next thing you need to do is to start thinking Google
This is not complicated either
Google started with an idea, just like all the rest
And there is only one simple rule you need to think about

"Do no evil"

It's no more complicated than that.
Log in to your dashboard
Go to All Pages
Double click the Test page you created
Scroll down till you find All in One SEO
(if it's not there speak to your installer)
Add a key word rich Page Title tag and save

It will take Google three days to three weeks to pick it up and you are on your way
You will have to come back to add the description and key words but that doesn't really worry Google
You must also add some key word rich content on the page but once again Google's primary interest is that title tag and your back links which we will get onto later.

[Dave A]

It seems the challenge has been taken up anew

[workshop]

Don Quixote rides again in the relentless pursuit of.............................

[workshop]

We have set up a site, baited a hook for the Google spider and thrown our line into the water
And we now wait.....and wait......and wait
This is what fishing is all about

But while we are waiting we need to reflect on what we are doing and why

Ultimately we want a list of search phrases (key words) that visitors are going to use to find your site
We want the most obvious (primary key words)
And we want the not so obvious ones (long tailed key words)
They are all important
This process is called key word research
A service you will pay an expert a lot of money for when you learn how to do it yourself
It's exhausting, an endless task
where the tracks you follow fan out, converge and disappear in a swirl of dust.
(I like that last bit).

[workshop]

We are waiting for Google to pick up the title tag on your test page
We have a list of search phrases and key words which we keep adding to as new combinations come to mind
We now need to start building the site.

This we do by building static pages
And the first page we create is the Contact page
Someone might very well stumble across your unfinished site and want to contact you.

Go to your dashboard
Select Pages in the menu on the left
Select Add New
Enter a title - Contact
Add your contact details to the text box
Scroll down to All in One SEO
Enter your area, city, province, country and the name of your business or any combination you consider to be more appropriate

Click on Publish

This is how you build your site
Page by page, day by day, month by month
You need to seed your key words into the title tags of the pages you create
Building a word picture and site structure that Google can use

Don't try and do everything all in one sitting
This is an ongoing effort and anyone who does happen to find your first clumsy attempt
Won't give a damn
They might even stop to ask you how to do it.

[workshop]

We have set up a title tag for both your test page www.yourdomain.co.za/test
As well as your contact page www.yourdomain.co.za/contact
These are known as child or internal pages


But we still need a title tag for your home page www.yourdomain.co.za
And it might have been better to have attended to this first
This is where we place your primary key words

But it doesn't really matter

Google is busy and it can take up to three weeks before they pick up and digest what you are doing
So the chances are that you have time to tidy up before they arrive
And if you do miss the bus there will be another and then another
So make a few mistakes, learn from those mistakes
Everything can and should be edited and changed on an ongoing basis

But do understand that at the same you do need patience
And whilst listening to the chatter don't believe everything you hear
Experiment and explore for yourself, watch, listen and share.

Go to your dashboard
Look for Settings at the bottom of the menu on the left
Select All in One SEO
(If it's not there ask your installer why not)
Change plug-in status to Enabled
And add a Title tag for your home page in the appropriate field

This should (as far as is possible) look like a page title
But in practice you want to cram it full of all your primary key words
You need to be careful to avoid key word stuffing, however

And there you have the conundrum that will face you for evermore
There are no rules in this game
Just guidelines and common sense.

Ignore Description and Key Words for now
Scroll down to and click on Update Options
It's done

Finally click on the site name top left of your screen, next to the Wordpress logo
This will take you to your home page
Point your cursor anywhere in the body of the page
Right click
Select View Source
And you will be confronted with the gobbledy gook that is used to tell the browser what to display
You are looking for <title>Key words</title>
It's right near the beginning and that is what Google feeds on, what you need to set up in every page and post you make and what you need to edit and fine tune till you get it 99% right.

[workshop]

This is not the sort of advice you are going to get from the professionals
And at this stage most will be curling at the edges
But then again, three, four five years ago there were very few professionals who even knew what a targeted back link is
And to them it was all pretty pictures, eye candy and how much you can afford?

But that's all wrong.
If you want to drive a vroom vroom
You need to know how to steer the confounded thing.

Forget about branding, no one is looking and if they do so what?
You are digging the foundations and can worry finishes when you have a roof over your head and a constant stream of visitors.

The next page you want to create should tell whoever visits your site something about your business
And you are going to be surprised at how little you know about the business you run
You are also going to write more than you need to
But don't agonise over it, get it down, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and all. It can all be changed later.
And once again don't forget All in One SEO and your title tag
You are placing another piece to the puzzle.

That done we are going to change the landing page
Right now we get presented with the default Hello World post and "Just another Wordpress blog"
This we want to change to Your Domain

Go to your dashboard
Find and select Settings - bottom left in your menu on the left
Select Reading
And change Front Page displays to A Static Page
Choose the page you have just created
Click on Save Changes.

Go to Your Domain top left
Click and view your site and new landing page.

[workshop]

Far too many people baulk at publishing an unfinished, incomplete web site.
They would rather spend R1500 to R15000 to get someone to do it for them and then to forget about it
Don't. It does not work for any of us
All that is going to happen is that you will turn around and tell everyone that the internet does nothing and is a waste of money.

That's not right
The internet works just fine
You are the problem!

All it takes is a bit of spare time.
Get to know the medium
What it can do, what it can't do
Get yourself to the point where you can make informed decisions
And then start making those decisions.

This is ninety percent common sense
And if you lack imagination like I do
The other ten percent it takes for someone else to make it look good.

[workshop]

But if it's look and feel good, that is a must have
It's easy enough

Go to your dashboard
Select Appearance from the menu on the left
Click on Themes
Choose a Theme, any theme
Click on Activate

Go to Your Domain, top left next to the Word Press logo
And view your handiwork
You have just designed (changed the look and feel) on your first site

It's that simple

You literally have thousands of designs, thousands of templates to choose from
Some are good, some are not, some are free, some are not
But understand that you can come up with something that looks the part
And we will get to downloading templates all in good time.

What you need to know now, is that you can, if it is really that important for you.

[workshop]

We have created an About Us page, a Contact page and a test page
We have changed the landing page to the About Us page
We have primed the pages for Google's spider by setting up key word rich title tags for each page from a list of search phrases we have drawn up

We now need an Enquiries Form
To add some functionality to the site we are creating

Go to Plug-ins on your Dashboard
Select Installed Plug-ins and look for Fast Secure Contact Form
(if it's not there ask your installer why not?)
Once again as with your graphics you have a host of functional options to choose from
If you want an Enquiry Form or Classifieds or a Shopping Cart you download, plug-in and learn from the mistakes you make
In this case we are assuming the plug-in is ready and waiting for you
And all you have to do is to activate it.

Select Pages then Add New
Add a title Enquiries
Add [si-contact-form form='1'] to the body of the form
Add some key words in the All in One title field. Something that is relevant to your location - possibly your business name and address.
Click on Publish

Try it out
It probably won't work
But there is a reason for that

[workshop]

And the reason is that there is a good chance we haven't looked at the site settings and the mail is going to the wrong address.

Select Settings from the bottom of the menu on your dashboard
Go to General
You can edit the site Title (not to be confused with the title tag)
Change the tagline from "Just Another Wordpress Blog" to something like Another Very Useful Web Site

Make sure the email address is good
You don't want to allow the public to register so skip that
Change the time zone to UTC+2
The rest of the settings at your discretion
Save Changes and test your Enquiry form

Go to Permalinks
I use "Post Name"
Save Changes

I also use Log In Lock
To keep the little furry critters out
But we don't have to worry about that just yet
As long as you keep your scripts up to date you should be bullet proof.