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Did anyone else here.....

by laurenceh
17 replies
start in IM as a complete website newbie?

i've been reading and learning in regards to im and all the elements to it, have some great ideas for campaigns and promotions.

I've looked at products to promote, have all my keyword tools and am all ready to roll out my first campaign.

So i registered my first ever domain, registered with my host, and one touched downloaded Wordpress, which obviously i've heard is the easiest program to create good websites for a newbie.

BUT...having stared at the opening wordpress page like a rabbit staring down the barrell of a farmers gun i had a realisation- I know nothing about websites.

Simple terms like permalinks, add custom fields, allow pings is a new language. This isn't even the beginning of the creation phase and i have no clue what i'm doing!

What good is desire to learn and grow, creativity and imagination if i am like a baby learning to walk??

I was even a bit stunned by the admin area of hostgator and setting it up!

I'm not stupid but i really feel like i'm in over my head!

Is a complete website virgin destined for IM disaster or can it be done??

Bit overwhelmed at the mo!
  • Profile picture of the author Peter Adamson
    The risk is that you allow yourself to be distracted by the technical aspect of your site and not focus on IM which is just marketing anyway and has little to do with the things that overwhelm you.

    So, to answer your question, your noob status in web design/management is not a negative factor if you understand markets, mass psychology and you can write.

    Just try to limit the amount of time you spend on the infrastructure and focus on marketing. Set time limits.

    BTW why WordPress? It is a blogging platform not a content management platform which it seems you want.

    Have you thought of trying your hand on squidoo until you can prove to yourself that you can get results? Some people do very nicely on squidoo stores. You may need some confidence under your belt to give you the strength to push your way up the steep learning curve that awaits you. By using a platform like squidoo you could set the technical part to one side for a few months, and drip feed yourself website knowledge while you spend the lion's share of your time actually marketing.
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    • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
      Originally Posted by Peter Adamson View Post

      why WordPress? It is a blogging platform not a content management platform which it seems you want.
      In theory that might be true, however, you can easily use WP as CMS.

      (Hmm. Maybe it's time for a little ebook/guide about how to use WP as a CMS to manage your landing pages, other pages and a blog on the side...)
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  • Profile picture of the author laurenceh
    Thank you peter.

    Have to look at Squidoo. I must admit i thought it was a blogging type platform as well.

    As for my choice of wordpress i think i was suduced by people saying how easy it was and that it was great for beginners!

    As far as websites go all i want is a basic company website, (in case i get to a point where i promote something where a network or similar wants to see a "company site" so only really need a 2 page site for that.

    Other than that i'll just need to have landing pages for getting people to merchants and i was also looking at something where i could add a video which is another reason i lookked at Wordpress.
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  • Profile picture of the author Voasi
    One thing about Wordpress is that it is a HUGE community and there are thousands of people willing to help you out. Just do a few searches on Google with you question and you'll come across an endless supply of tutorials on how to setup your own wordpress site, what everything means and what tools you need to get the ball rolling.

    Here's my advice though. You'll want to be able to add plugins and themes to your website. To do this, you'll need an FTP software. CuteFTP is a free one. Download it and then grab the FTP username and password for you site and then try looking up a few tutorials on how to use themes/plugins.

    Plugins of choice:

    All in One SEO
    Dagon Designs Sitemap

    There are THOUSANDS of plugins, but those are the ones I always start with. Most wordpress blogs I create will have a ton more plugins, but those 2 are FOR SURE added to every wordpress site I create.
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  • Profile picture of the author megashape
    Actually no, I'd been building websites & blogs before I went deep into IM.
    So I had a huge advantage upon my competitors (most of them),

    I think you can't really become successful in this market unless you bother to learn the basics of web site building & maintaining.
    (BTW if you too lazy to learn it, that shows something about your personality which obviously doesn't help you out here)
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    • Profile picture of the author beninewie
      Hi laurenceh,

      Everyone has to start somewhere! I second Peter's recommendation of Squidoo, it'll get you started on the IM stuff without you really needing to know much about websites.

      However if you're planning on a long career in IM then learning as much about websites as you can will be really beneficial. Wordpress is a great platform, and much easier to learn than some others (try setting up a drupal site without any knowledge!), but that doesn't mean it won't take some effort on your part to get up to speed.

      As Voasi said there is a huge community of people using wordpress and tonnes of free tutorials to walk you through various bits.

      My suggestion would be to have a 'sandbox' site. This is a website that you just try stuff out on and that if it stuffs up it doesn't matter because you're the only person who's going to bother looking at it anyway. You can host this on your personal computer or on hostgator.

      This way you can muck around with stuff, it's really the best way to learn.

      Oh and also remember, it's all only 1's and 0's and pretty hard to break so don't be afraid to try stuff out!

      Cheers,
      Ben
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  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    I second (third?) the comments above about needing to know how sites work and the basic principles of SEO and attracting targetted visitors.

    After all, if no one visits your site it doesn't matter how well you write - not much will happen!

    Using Squidoo is a good way to start and both Blogger and Tumblr are easier for newbies than WordPress.

    But you do need to either learn some of the mechanics yourself or find someone who can help and coach you until you're able to fly solo.

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      I say start with your own site or blog - and muddle through learning as you go. There is very little about blogging that you can't learn with a simple google search.

      The first light bulb moment for me when I was teaching myself to build html sites was that almost every "task" is a simple procedure with a big, fuddy-duddy name meant to make it sound hard.

      Google should have charged me for searches when I was new - every time I ran into something I didn't know how to do I googled it and learned about it. If I did it wrong, I redid it.

      The problem for me with starting with something like squidoo is it's too easy to start depending on sites you don't own or control - they are good to use but best used to lead people to YOUR own site or blog.

      kay
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  • Profile picture of the author Teresa Coppes
    Even some of the replies are overwhelming - CMS? FTP? Say what? When I started I was completely overwhelmed and spent waaaay more time than I should've but there wasn't a lot of information out there for complete and utter newbies. I'd read an ebook and it'd say "Setup your website". Umm....that wasn't very helpful. I believe what helped me was the free ebook Create your first website by 3:45 this Afternoon by Chris Farrell. And the best part? He had pics too! Chris Farrell's How To Create Your Own Successful Web Business --- FREE Download
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  • Profile picture of the author Loco.m
    I didn't try to make anything off the internet till years after I had been playing with forums.
    I don't regret starting earlier, I think I learned a lot of valuable things those first few years.
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  • Profile picture of the author darrin_cooper
    Wordpress will be your best bet.
    what you should simply do is just start off just adding content & publishing it. At the end of the day, that's all it is.

    You can have all the terms in the world, but at the end of the day it's about:
    1. Add Content
    2. Publish
    3. Hope for someone to click.

    If you simply start w/ that, and do it quickly, the other items will come.
    You will then learn the marketability of your actions of what ELSE you will need to do to be able market the CONTENT that's published and be able to Monetize through methods such as PPC, PPV, adsense, adwords, amazon, CJ, affiliates, clickbank, display ads, etc. But, your not there yet.....



    Originally Posted by laurenceh View Post

    start in IM as a complete website newbie?

    i've been reading and learning in regards to im and all the elements to it, have some great ideas for campaigns and promotions.

    I've looked at products to promote, have all my keyword tools and am all ready to roll out my first campaign.

    So i registered my first ever domain, registered with my host, and one touched downloaded Wordpress, which obviously i've heard is the easiest program to create good websites for a newbie.

    BUT...having stared at the opening wordpress page like a rabbit staring down the barrell of a farmers gun i had a realisation- I know nothing about websites.

    Simple terms like permalinks, add custom fields, allow pings is a new language. This isn't even the beginning of the creation phase and i have no clue what i'm doing!

    What good is desire to learn and grow, creativity and imagination if i am like a baby learning to walk??

    I was even a bit stunned by the admin area of hostgator and setting it up!

    I'm not stupid but i really feel like i'm in over my head!

    Is a complete website virgin destined for IM disaster or can it be done??

    Bit overwhelmed at the mo!
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  • Profile picture of the author laurenceh
    Thank you peeps. Lot of good suggestions. Gonna be reaing alot today. Think it was just a shock to the system as i understand the SEO and marketing basics and kinda thought building the site would be the easy bit!
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  • Profile picture of the author acedalright
    It gets easier and easier as it becomes a lifestyle.

    Take one component at a time and learn-the-heck-out-of-it and then move forward, of course it helps if you're a curious person.

    Don't be scared of a little jargon here and there.

    The more you do the better you'll get.
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  • Profile picture of the author morry
    Don't get caught up too much in all the technical stuff. I've been doing this for years now and I still get baffled by web host management thingos.

    As for the original question, unless you were born connected to a laptop, I'm pretty certain we all had to start somewhere. Don't be in a hurry to get going. You see all the products that claim you can make millions in a week and you feel a bit down that you can't even get a site up.

    Newsflash, it takes everyone time to get going. I know several internet millionaires and none of them got there overnight. That being said, work as hard as you can to get there as fast as possible.

    And I'm also of the opinion that wordpress is a great way to start. I wouldn't ever base an entire business on a site that I don't own myself.

    If you've got some money, just hire someone

    If you don't, just do the hard yards now until you can hire a webmaster type guy.

    Sean
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  • Profile picture of the author laurenceh
    Well people success!

    Last night (after much reading through the day) managed to download a couple of new wordpress themes, UPLOAD them to wordpress via ftp, and then managed to scrap together a very crappy first draft site! Even got a picture in as well!!!!!

    Pigeon steps but was very pleased, from where i was when i first posted to now!

    Got a couple of questions which i'll post here in a tick
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  • Profile picture of the author laurenceh
    so the questions were,

    1. What are the essential/must have plug ins?
    2. What is the best way to ensure security on a wordpress site?
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