Newbie about to take the plunge!

by maestoso

Posted: 13 years ago 21 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi Friends,

(I know this is a bit, long, thanks for your willingness to help!)

I was so pleased to find a friendly resource such as this!

I'm trying to whittle down my plans to take my first site live, and I wanted to run my ideas by you. I would appreciate any feedback, commentary, or even links to helpful guides/tutorials that you may know about.

MY TECHNICAL BACKGROUND:

I own Adobe Dreamsuite, and am comfortable with basic HTML and website design. I took a free class at my university about it; I own some "For Dummies" books; and I have numerous bookmarked tutorial pages. I'm still quite a newbie, though.

MY SITE:

I'm a pianist and a composer. I've composed several original pieces. I will record videos of myself performing them, mp3s of myself performing them, and have already created the sheet music of my compositions. I plan to market my site on youtube with my videos (of both my compositions and other pieces). I plan on then selling mp3s and the sheet music on my website. Maybe a t-shirt or two as well. Also, I'll be writing short articles and guides and doing more youtube videos about music and about how to compose and things like that. I think with youtube and these articles, I'm establishing a decent foundation for marketing.

MY QUESTIONS:

Do you think it would be best for me to just to do a simple WordPress or Weebly website instead of making my own? What advantages would I have either way? Like I said, this is my first site, so I've never dealt with hosting or anything like that.

I've looked into tools like e-junkie for facilitating the sale of my digital products (the mp3s and sheets). It would be around $10/month. What do you think about this option? I've also read about creating a PHP script with PayPal that would automatically redirect my customers to a secure, limited download page--I don't have experience with that, though. How hard is it?

Am I heading in the right direction? Do any other suggestions come to mind?

Thanks so much!

#newbie #plunge

brunom 13 years ago

Do you think it would be best for me to just to do a simple WordPress or Weebly website instead of making my own? What advantages would I have either way? Like I said, this is my first site, so I've never dealt with hosting or anything like that.
Use Wordpress. Functional, SEO friendly, no hassle coding and getting things done and a whole lot of templates and plugins for all your needs.

I've looked into tools like e-junkie for facilitating the sale of my digital products (the mp3s and sheets). It would be around $10/month. What do you think about this option? I've also read about creating a PHP script with PayPal that would automatically redirect my customers to a secure, limited download page--I don't have experience with that, though. How hard is it?
Use e-junkie to take advantage of the affiliate possibility. You could also look at plimus or clickbank as viable alternatives.

Am I heading in the right direction? Do any other suggestions come to mind?
Yes, just TAKE ACTION!
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- 1 reply
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- maestoso 13 years ago
  
  Thanks for your great suggestions!
  
  Use Wordpress. Functional, SEO friendly, no hassle coding and getting things done and a whole lot of templates and plugins for all your needs.
  
  Great! I will definitely go with the WP option.
  
  Use e-junkie to take advantage of the affiliate possibility. You could also look at plimus or clickbank as viable alternatives.
  
  My friend, I know I sound like a total noob, but would you mind explaining more about this? I know what affiliate marketing is, but I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. Are you saying that I could set up my site so that online marketers could market my stuff for me? Is this usually profitable for the producer of original content like myself? Would I risk having my content be associated with those offensive, high-pressure, sales/marketing sites? I'd love to know more about this, if you would like to share.
  
  Yes, just TAKE ACTION!
  
  Yes! This is what is all boils down to--just doing it, right! I'm gonna get 'er done!
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  jwmann2 13 years ago
  
  You just need to get the ball rolling. Don't worry. One question will come up, spend time finding the answer and keep going and keep going. A year from now your website will be up and improving more and more.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  robsm69 13 years ago
  
  Its always good to start your IM career on something your passionate about. So your on the right track but just make sure you do due dilligence, such as keyword research etc...And you could also check out webstarts dot com as its all a drag and drop style web builder very easy to get a web page up in no time and its all seo freindly
  Good luck
  Cheers,
  
  Rob.m
  
  Thanks
  
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silverfern 13 years ago

Hey sounds fun. Making the first step is always the hardest.

Wordpress is a great platform to build your site on.

For hosting I would consider Site5 or Hostgator -they are well priced and provide fantastic customer support. They are always helpful & friendly which is very helpful if you are new to the online world. For your domain name I'd recommend NameCheap -they are very competitively priced too.
- Thanks
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ezybux4u 13 years ago

maestoso welcome to the Warriors Forum

Taking action is the first important step, and you have done it.

Another vote from me towards the WordPress platform. Its a winner on many levels.

Commission Junction may be another viable selling platform you could use as well.

Wish you the best of luck with your online marketing.
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- RandySeet 13 years ago
  
  Please have your own hosting and domain name because you never know what will happen to your site as it don't belong to you.
  
  I empathy the technical issues you are facing where prevent you from building up your own site because I'm in your shoes once.
  
  What I do is visit my local library to borrow dummies book for website. You can also learn from youtube tutorials.
  
  Er, as for where to facilitate your product I would suggest you to give out and share your content to your marketplace first to gather feedback.
  
  Then create a product where your audience really desire to buy.
  
  Hope it help.
  
  Yours Sincerely
  Randy Seet
  
  Thanks
  
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tristatemedia 13 years ago

i would use wordpress, less complicated and very user friendly................
for hosting, i have 7 sites currently with godaddy....not very happy with their wordpress setup....every one discourges godaddy wordpress platfroms for some reason.
i heard host gator is better .
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richgrad 13 years ago

1. Use wordpress on your own domain/hosting.

2. Use paypal / clickbank for payment processing. You can integrate aweber with paypal (aweber has tutorials on this) so you can build a customer list automatically.

3. When you take action, you get results. If the results are what you want... SUCCESS! If the results are not what you want, change your strategy and take action again...
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aeros Banned 13 years ago

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- maestoso 13 years ago
  
  Y'all have been very helpful!
  
  I'm definitely going to bookmark this thread and refer to it as I work out the kinks.
  
  Yes, I'll definitely buy my own domain, and then download WordPress. I can manipulate it with Dreamweaver (to some extent). I've heard that "bluehost" is awesome for WordPress sites. I was surprised that no one mentioned it. Has anyone heard of it?
  
  As far as research and strategy, yes, I've been spending hours pouring over different sites and thinking about ways to boost my site's presence. I'll definitely have a blog and articles and things like that in addition to my own compositions and compositions of classical composers.
  
  Thanks very much!
  
  Thanks
  
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maestoso 13 years ago

Oh, and I think I've decided on a digital product delivery platform.

It's called WP eStore. It's just a WordPress plugin. It costs $40, but it is just a one time fee. E-junkie and all of the other platforms have ongoing costs.

Has anyone ever used WP eStore? (You'll have to google it. As a newbie, I guess I'm not permitted to post links yet.)

What do you think?

Also, what do you think about PDF stamping? As I'll be selling sheet music, I think this could be a good way to at least discourage people from wrongfully disseminating purchased sheets. Do any of you have experience with that? It seems like a good idea, but, again, it costs $$$.
- Thanks
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margk 13 years ago

Hey there.

I've been an internet marketing newbie for nine months now. Nine months ago I didn't know much, (I was in your shoes) but I knew that internet marketing was making some people very wealthy and I wanted to be just like the guru's I read about!

I started with the 'just do it' mentality cause I knew that, that was the only way forward.

I found me a domain name, joined Hostbig and decided to use wordpress as my platform. I had no idea how things worked but with the internet as my greatest resource I find out everything as I went along. I'm not gona go into much detail here but I will leave you with this thought...

If you are definite about using wordpress I do have some insights that I've learnt myself through trial & error.

If you tend to have a permanent site housed on the wordpress platform, I suggest you do a manual installation as opposed to a fantastico quick installation.
A manual installation gives you more options to add extra securtiy and believe me I found that out the hardway. So in saying that before you go to work on building your website, make sure security is your first priority.

I brought a great little prodcut of the Warrior Forum called Wp tune up kit and the guide is really excellent, (I'm not an affiliate for that product btw). It provided me with a lot of information I wished I'd had before I took the leap with wordpress.

A lot of people don't really look at the security side of things until it's too late.

And on a final note you can join WarriorForums War rooms. I just signed up recently and the information in there is absolute gold!

I wish you all the best
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RobCopywriter 13 years ago

Use WordPress and get the WP-ecommerce plugin to sell your digital goods, in this case music. I would also try to get on services like itunes or even soundcloud and link back to your site for more traffic and sales.
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mark healy 13 years ago

start with wordpress just to get you started and familiar with the process.i wish u the best of luck
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laustinseo 13 years ago

It sounds like you have got it all figured out tbh well done with that, i suggest using wordpress as its easy to edit and one of the most seo friendly,
I also suggest using twitter and other similar sites, just so you are reaching everyone that you possibly can
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- maestoso 13 years ago
  
  Thanks so much for all your help and suggestions, everyone!
  
  margk, you emphasized establishing a secure website. Forgive my ignorance, but I'm not sure if you are talking about an SSL/HTTPS website, or just a website that is designed to be less penetrable by hackers. I have to admit this is something that I haven't even considered.
  
  Do you have any links to articles or tutorials about setting up a secure site? I would certainly appreciate it!
  
  Thanks
  
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margk 13 years ago

When it comes to security everyone has their own preferences. For me, a manual installation gave me more control over different variables and with that.. piece of mind. So depending on how important your website is to you, you could employ both SSL and strategies that are designed to be less penetrable by hackers.

Heres a couple of websites that explains the benefits of having SSL: use SSL on website
How to use SSL?

Heres where you can go if you decide on a manual installation:
Installing WordPress « WordPress Codex

If you want the guide that helped me set up a manual installation for the first time as well as other resources, take a look here:
WP Tune Up (Sales) | WP Done Right

Hope this is helpful
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learn 13 years ago

If you use Wordpress then depending on what you need it for you'll need to install a "theme" to make the page look like how you want it to look.
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maestoso 13 years ago

Thank you so much for all your help and suggestions!
- Thanks
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deehibbs 13 years ago

Good for you ,its really not that hard to build your own site if you use word press the flexibility theme is good , I use host gator for hosting and go daddy to purchase my domain.You tube has a ton of helpful word press tutorials you just type your question into the search box ,be sure to add the word word press to the question and it will give you a huge list of related step by step videos that other users have made, all the best
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nicholls 13 years ago

Nice information thanks for discussing on it
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