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The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
Launch YourNew BusinessWebsite in12 Minutesor Less!
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Website
Introduction
STEP 1: Your Website of Choice
STEP 2: Your Domain Name
STEP 3: A Plot of Land (Hosting)
STEP 4: Launch Your Website!
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Is this eBook right for you?
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
Introduction
Forget everything.
This is where many people get bogged down with assumptions about how difficult
and time-consuming it is to set up a website. Forget everything you think you know
about web designers, servers, URLs, web platforms, programmers, and monthly
maintenance plans. Don’t worry about coming up with a great visual design and a
logo.
I am going to walk you through all of these things over the next 2,000 words.
Together we will create a custom strategy to make your life easier but first let me tell
you a secret. It’s something that all web masters know and don’t want you to find
out...
Getting your business online is not hard!
There is a method I’m going to show you that will get you up and running in under
15 minutes. Follow the 10 steps outlined below as I walk you from zero knowledge
to “web master” (of your own business website, anyways). We are going to create
a visually appealing and informative website, ready to show off your company’s
personality.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
What you will need:
A computer
Your credit card
12 minutes
A Hosting Plan
It’s important to know that you won’t need any technical experience to follow this guide.
I will give you easy-to-understand pictures and instructions, follow
along and you will have your website running in a little under a half
hour. I’m going to walk you right through each step in the process,
if you find yourself lost at any time just go back to the previous step
and move forward again.
Let’s go!
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
STEP 1:My Website of Choice... A BlogBuilding your website on a blog is the
simplest, most effective way to create a
web platform for your business. And most
serious bloggers use WordPress.
Wait. A blog? What? I want a business website, not a diary...
WordPress is not just a blog although it has a blogging component. It is actually a
full-blown content management system. By running your website on WordPress
you’ll have full control of your website as well as a plethora of options and
extensions to customize your site. Also, there’s the added benefit of using the built-
in blogging features of WordPress to quickly and easily add fresh content to your
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
website, keeping your users up-to-date with your business.
WordPress software has been running websites since 2003. 11 years is a virtual
eternity online where technology changes so quickly. You’ll be in good company
while running on a mature, stable platform.
Other businesses that have chosen WordPress to run their website include: Major
League Baseball, New York Times, and CNN. You can view more at
https://en.wordpress.com/notable-users/.
Organizations who use WordPress
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
STEP 2: Your Domain NameOpen your web browser, type in http://www.couponler.com, and hit the enter key.
You’ve just entered the domain name for my company’s website, Couponler. A
domain name is what you type in your browser to access a website.
All well and good, but how do we pick a good one?
There are many formulas online for choosing a domain name and the strategies
don’t always agree. Choosing a domain name for your business can seem scary and
confusing. It’s understandable because purchasing your domain name is one of the
first “official” steps you take towards creating an online presence for your business.
Take a deep breath and relax: With few exceptions, it really doesn’t matter very
much what domain name you choose.
Here’s the good news! Times have changed and search engines have become more
people-friendly. They no longer give preference to exact match domains, which
means that the *relevance* of your website becomes the driving factor in how you’ll
rank in the search engines. And that’s very good news!
Keep your domain name in mind and let’s go to the next step.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
In the past, search engines like Google would
give higher preference to “exact match
domains”. This meant that if someone used
a search engine to search for “restaurants
in Atlanta”, a website named exactly
restaurantsinatlanta.com would be given a
greater probability of showing on the first
page of the search results. It would likely
outrank a website domain with a modifier
word, like “best” as in bestrestaurantsinatlanta.
com. Predicting what search terms people
would use to find your website and using the
“exact match” domain accordingly would give
you an edge in the search ranking but would
often lead to some really ugly, non-creative
domain names.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
STEP 3: A Plot of Land - Let’s Grab a Host!Creating a company website is somewhat analogous to creating your physical store.
In the same way you choose a location for your business, we need to choose a
location (or “host”) for your website. We need to get a virtual plot of land to build on.
This plot of land is your hosting company. The hosting company lets you rent a
server out there in cyberspace somewhere that will “serve” your website. When
someone types in your domain name, the server will respond by displaying your web
application in their web browser. Simple!
There are many “hosting” options to choose from, but most of them all relatively
similar.
It is best to stay away from free hosting. You *could* choose to host your website
for free at wordpress.com, blogger.com, or typepad.com, but it’s not a good idea
for a business website. It looks and feels “amateur-ish”. The pros use self-hosting
to change layouts, add custom plugins, avoid hidden costs of paying for “optional”
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
extras, and to avoid random 3rd-party advertisements on their website. Simply put,
hosting with wordpress.com’s free hosting gives you much less control over your
application than hosting it yourself through a hosting company.
In addition, free hosting limits the look and feel of your website to a few free themes.
Who wants that? Check out this info-graphic to see the complete breakdown of
free hosting with wordpress.com vs self-hosting using WordPress software from
wordpress.org.
How do I choose a hosting company?
Following along with our criteria for choosing the best software, let’s pick the
company that WordPress itself recommends for hosting: BlueHost (http://blog.
couponler.com/bluehost) . WordPress draws attention to BlueHost (http://blog.
couponler.com/bluehost) as being top among the “best and brightest” companies of
the hosting world: http://wordpress.org/hosting.
Other benefits of BlueHost include:
• A very attractive $6.95 monthly fee. Its even cheaper if you purchase a year or
two worth of hosting in advance - down to $3.95 per month - practically nothing!
• A free domain name
• A 1-click WordPress install. (Yep, it really is that simple.)
• Fantastic 24/7 customer support. You aren’t alone. BlueHost can walk you
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
through any questions or problems you might have.
• An unlimited number of email accounts to use with your new domain. For
example, if your new domain name is mybusiness.com, you can add and remove
email accounts for your employees: [email protected], jane@mybusiness.
com, [email protected], etc.
• Never worry about running out of space. BlueHost doesn’t have spacing
restrictions for normal business use.
• “Anytime Money-Back Guarantee”. BlueHost offers a no questions asked rebate if
you cancel. We know it works because we’ve tested it.
Ready to launch your website? Let’s head over to BlueHost now to create an
account and get you up and running!
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
STEP 4:Launch Your Website!
1. Click the “get started now”
button.
One thing to keep in mind, no matter where you register your domain name, if you cancel your hosting it will not cancel domain name. You’ll retain ownership of your domain for however long you paid for it (typically one to two years).
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
2. Your domain name.
If you already have a domain name registered with a domain-hosting service (like
godaddy.com), BlueHost will help you “point” that domain name to your new web-
site. If this is the case, choose the box on the right on the next screen.
If you are going to register your domain name as you create your new website, type
the name into the box on the left.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
3. Pick a package.
On the next screen, fill out your account, package, and payment information. Note
that the 36 month price is the most favorable deal at $4.95 per month. If you’d like
a shorter commitment, choose
the 12 month price at $6.95
per month. Because you are
just starting, you won’t need
to worry with any of the other
options: uncheck “search
engine jumpstart”, “site backup
pro”, and “sitelock domain
security”. See the [REFERENCE
SECTION] where we talk
about how you can increase
your search engine position
and backup your site with a
WordPress plugin.
Click submit. On the following
page, don’t select any of the
offered upgrades. You can add
them later if you like.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
4. Create your account password.
I recommend using their password generation tool to create a secure password. Be
sure to write it down as you’ll need it in the future. Now, login to your new BlueHost
account and we’ll add WordPress.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
5. Your Dashboard
From your account dashboard, click “Addons” and then click “Marketplace” as shown
in the screenshot below:
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
6. The “Mojo Marketplace”
From the “Mojo Marketplace”, click “One-Click Installs”. We are about setup your
website with a single click! Now click the WordPress icon.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
7. Installing WordPress with One Click
Click the “install” button on the next page. Then choose “show advanced” options
on the following page. Feel free to name your site under the “Site Name or Title”
section. This is typically the name of your business and will show up as the page title.
Take note of your “Admin Username” and your “Admin Password”.
Please note that these credentials aren’t the same as your BlueHost account login
information. They are the username and password to your website. You will use
these to enter the control panel of your new WordPress website and adjust settings,
write new blog posts, change the look and feel and more! Leave “Automatically
create a new database for this installation checked”. Finally, click “Install Now”.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
8. WordPress doing the work for you
BlueHost will show you that it is setting up WordPress. When the green progress
bar reaches 100%, you will see the message indicating the WordPress install has
completed. Click “view credentials” to see your new domain.
The 12-Minute Guide to Launching Your New Business Websitecouponler.com
9. Importing your domain
If you chose to import your domain name from another service, you’ll likely need to
wait for the domain to “propagate” or change from the old domain name service to
BlueHost. Follow this BlueHost tutorial if you have any questions.
10. That’s it!
Your new website should be available at yourdomainname.com/wp-admin. Enter
your WordPress username and password from step #7 and I will meet you in an
upcoming PDF to talk about customizing your WordPress software and adding a
theme for your business!
Congratulations on your new website!
Write us and show us: [email protected]
