I am very much a newbie, but ...

OK. My replies to each question:
1. Yes, you do need a website. You can get a "free" site or you can have one that is hosted and you maintain full control.
2. As for setting up a website, you have 2 choices:
a) you choose WordPress either for free or for hosting and you maintain that
necessary control.

When it comes to websites, you either spend money to pay for somebody to create a website for you.

OR you spend the necessary time reading and learning how and build your own site. This can be free or hosted.


I hope this info helps......

Hi Rickey,

Welcome to the forum.

First up. . . don't start by paying for a membership platform as it won't help you learn the essential basic steps you need to go through.

Start by learning how to set things up yourself.

You can learn most if not all of the basics for free by using google to find answers and by searching the forum here.

As a start you should register a domain name and get some basic hosting so you can begin to experiment.

There are plenty of options for domain registration out there like namecheap for example.

Most hosts will provide a Cpanel where there are options to install wordpress using something like Softaculuous. It is as simple as selecting the option to install wordpress and following the steps.

A good basic membership plugin you can use the free option to play around with is S2Member.

Don't get too hung up on going to far too quickly.

Get a domain. Get hosting. Install wordpress.

Follow some free tutorials.

Practice getting familiar with wordpress and the basic steps inside your CPanel like creating an email account etc and then learn as you go.

Everyone starts in the same place.

Maybe try to find someone locally in a group near you who offers basic support with things like you are trying to do. In many cases there are free courses run in local libraries or other institutions to help with setting up a website.

Find someone to look over your shoulder and help.

Learn the basics first and save your money.

When you start you should only pay for the domain and a basic low cost hosting with the features you need. I've tried many hosts and I like skynethosting for some of my local ecommerce businesses because they are fast in my market.

Everyone will have a different opinion about the best registrar for domains, best hosting etc.

In Australia I'd always used crazydomains for registration but have used godaddy, namecheap, 1&1 etc etc when buying domains because of different offers they make.

Be aware, you don't need to host the domain you buy on a service offered by the domain name registrar. Often they will try to bundle you into extra options that you don't need when you are trying to learn and get started.

Just register the name and get some cheap shared hosting $5-7 per month with cpanel. for example I just check Skynet has US basic hosting from $2.45 per month but you might want to get not the cheapest because of the features.

I'f you need some basic hand-holding I'm happy to help but I run a pretty big and busy business so could only give you some quick pointers for you to get going and then you would have to do the work and put in the time to learn and apply what you learn.

You'll probably get a ton of different advice on here and my recommendation is to take your time and learn the basics for free before you start paying anyone for anything OK?

Best regards,

Ozi

So you have a bit of a learning curve?

1. Buy a domain from godaddy
2. Get a hosting account [hostgator is fine]
3 Add the domain you bought to your hostgator account
4.Install wordpress [instructions on hostgator site [it's very very easy]
5. Search on youtube how to set up a wordpress site

That will all keep you busy for a month.

When you've done all that come back here and refer to this post.

You'll get all sorts of advice....I've been making my living online with multiple websites and this is the route I suggest to anyone who is new/lost/needing guidance.

If none of it works out you'll have spent about $20

Or you could ignore this advice and probably still be going round in circles in 2 months time ;0)

I somewhat agree with Laurence, but, cautionary advice about WordPress, be prepared to spend a bit of time (maybe a lot) learning how to make it work for you and what you want.

So, while you are learning and building your website, you could begin to sell some of your collection as either one offs, or as bundles and you don't need a website to do it.

You will need:

A promotion. This is a sales page. Can be a pdf file created from Open Office (free), hosted at Dropbox (free), and to start you can use your sig file here to try to generate a little traffic.

You need a payment process, most use PayPal to get started, it is free too.

You can put your PLR, etc. up at dropbox and send your customers there for download or you can create a private way, via changing the link name, to protect your stuff until you get started.

I call these little simple, one page sites: AUTOMATIC PRODUCT VENDING sites, you want to set up a vending machine for your stuff, eventually having a web site, but while you are building and learning (and spending money)...

You are sitting on STORED VALUE, all that work you want to sell is bringing you in nothing, right? Put it to work. Use FREE to get started, but BEGIN quickly and fail forward. Feel free to contact me for some more free advice, OK?

GordonJ

All of the advice in this thread is good advice - that's rare.

The advice above is basic - don't get stressed, don't try to do everything at once, accept there is a learning curve but it's a few foothills, not a mountain.

Others have given you some good advice to get started. However, I want to talk about what should happen before you start putting anything on a website, buying a domain, etc.

Recurring income is a dream come true. However, you have unknowingly already discovered the biggest problem with this dream: you don't have enough want or need to pay someone else a monthly fee for using their platform so you are looking at alternatives.

If you can't/won't pay others monthly, then do you see how the people you want to target may have the same reasons for not buying from you monthly?

They don't want or need whatever it is you are selling bad enough to cough up the dough monthly. So, they'll look for alternatives.

And, unless you add value of some sort (besides the silliness of changing titles and author names) to those PLR products, the fact is that I can probably find it somewhere for free or pay someone less than you are going to charge who has more experience than you do, a nicer sales letter than yours, a faster site than yours, etc.

I'm not trying to be negative, but realistic.

Now, if you can figure out how to add enough value and build up the desire/need enough so that they are willing to pay monthly you can have a good business.

If you can't, your site will be like the hundreds or thousands of membership sites sitting there all lonely because no one wants or needs whatever is being pitched enough to pay monthly.

So, figure this piece of the puzzle out first. Then you can get help with some of the technical aspects if you need to.

Good luck.
Mark

Thanks to everyone that responded to my questions. I deeply appreciate your comments and suggestions, and I will take into consideration all the valuable information you provided. Rev. Rickey McDonald

If you need a website

Namesilo, Namecheap, Z.com are some reputable registrars...costs around $10/year

Buyshared.net some plans only costs around $10/year...

you can start a website for only $20/year...of course once you are earning you may want to scale up your web hosting to maybe hostgator...

but everything only starts from there my friend. Good luck in your journey, I am still trying to figure out how to earn on mine...tbh

I'll try and answer your questions as simply as I can because I know how difficult and impenetrable this stuff is in the beginning.

First you will need a domain, this is like purchasing land, upon which you will eventually 'build' your shop. The main Domain sellers are GoDaddy and NameCheap, but WPX Hosting also sell domains and you get a free Privacy service with it.

Setting up a website (building your shop) can be done a number of different ways. Some people have suggested finding free hosting (builders service) but I don't think that's a good idea - the website will be of low quality and likely have ads all over it (they have to pay for hosting costs somehow).

Finding a paid (but inexpensive) hosting provider is a good idea, though some are better than others. Generally speaking, the more money you can put into hosting, the more you get back. I understand that you're on a budget however, so I would recommend starting with lower-cost hosting providers in the beginning.

GoDaddy is a bad idea (they are unreliable and sell your personal info), as is Bluehost (surprisingly expensive and mediocre overall). I always recommend avoiding big, corporate hosts like these but in your circumstances perhaps HostGator (under the same family as Bluehost) would do the trick.
If you want better performance and reliability but for roughly the same price, then SiteGround is definitely for you!

Setting up a WordPress website will be your best bet in my opinion. Speak with SiteGround and you can begin with their WordPress Hosting package.

Since you want to set up an online shop, installing the Woo Commerce plugin will take care of everything for you (and its free!). Again, speak with SiteGround's support staff if you're feeling stuck - they pride themselves on good (and in-house) customer support.

That Woo Commerce plugin will really take care of a lot of the hard work for you and works specifically with WordPress, which is why I recommend it.
WordPress is very straightforward once you get in there and setting up WordPress will be taken care of for you by your hosting provider.

Managed WordPress hosting is a step up; much of the technical work will be take care of for you and customer support will be there to answer all of your questions and fix things for you. Of course, the price is higher for a service like this.

SiteGround is fine for starting off but if you do get some traction farther down the line, you'll need to consider moving to a better, more powerful host.
WPX Hosting is a managed WordPress hosting provider and currently have the most free services with their hosting - meaning more bang for your buck.
Again, they will be more expensive than other hosting companies, though they certainly have the most value for money. They are less expensive and offer more than the more widely-known WP Engine.

These are your basic steps to setting up a working website with retail functionality. Minus the techno-babble!
If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask me! I hope that helped