What step comes first, second, third...?

[Gail Harris]

I am trying to start my online business website and keep running into brick walls. I'm thinking I may be taking steps out of order or something. I could use some help with the appropriate steps to take to get this going. I'm confused and desperate to make this successful.

[TracyR]

[AlexNewell]

[Gail Harris]

After getting a domain name, hosting, & WordPress installed what would a newbie do next?

I am starting a recipe website and want to connect to affiliate programs in order to make it pay off. I had the web site going but was not successful in getting the separate pages to show on my home page via WordPress. So I tried starting again and didn't even get as far as installing the plugins. I unzipped the files and uploaded the unzipped files to the public_html/wp-content/plugins folder. They don't show up in my plugins list so I can activate them. Does anyone know what can cause this? Is there a better way to unzip/upload these files so they show up in my plugins list?

Thanks for your help.

[nar321]

NOTE: Copied and Pasted from the site
Widgets plugin is not installed. Please install it.
Went to your site, For sure you haven't enabled the wiidgets either on the plug-ins page or if needed by the developer of the plug-in what ever way the author chooses by way of additional steps needed to activate a specific plug-in.
What version of Wordpress are you using?
How did you install it?
It is easier to get Wordpress working and then activate any needed plug-ins.
Many themes now come with Widgets, requiring only the Themes actiation. No FTP needed nor in some cases activation on the plug-in"s page

So deactivate all plug-ins, can be done on the plug-ins page. Get Wordpress working the way you like as far as being able to post content. Then and only then start activating plug-ins one at a time, verify that the specific plug-in is working and move on to the next one. HOpe this helps
YouTube.com has many Videos on Wordpress. Probably a good idea to watch as many or few as needed to familarize yourself with Wordpress.

[Oregon Coast Guy]

Gail,

Just as an aside, you should not be surprised by low payouts if you decide to use Adsense as one of your monetization models.

Unfortunately, in my experience, recipe and food-related ads tend to generate .01 to .03 per click. You may find the exception, but that is generally the rule.

Just to let you know that it won't be anything you are or are not doing with Adsense.

Regards,

Tony

[Gail Harris]

Tony,

I haven't even gotten to that point yet. But thanks for the warning.

[angienewton]

[JosephRatliff]

Gail,

First of all, take a deep breath. It can be frustrating at times in starting an online business.

Ok...

You need a plan, do you have one? If not, sit down right now, and map out a daily plan to include traffic generation, website flow (what you want a visitor to do at each step in your marketing process), and call to action or conversion (how you are going to ask for the money).

This does not have to be a deep plan at first (trust me, it will get deeper as time goes on ).

Then...

What types of marketing are you using? Articles? PPC? Forums? Blogs? and...how are you using them?

What I mean is...

Do you have specific objectives for each of those methods? For example...

* Number of articles written per day...where to submit them...how long this whole process is taking per day.

* Number of blog posts per day...are you focusing on one post per week as "link bait", which is a post that is so fantastic that it makes people ache to link to it.

* Are you using social marketing? Digg.com, Stumbleupon.com, Reddit.com...have you set up complete profiles at each of those sites and started participating?

* Forums...is your sig file boring as heck? Will it entice others to click on it? How long will you participate in forums each day?

* PPC (be careful in your niche with PPC). Are your ads written with keywords, but at the same time enticing enough to make someone click? How many do you have? What site do they lead to? Is that site a "capture site" to capture leads?

As you can see, there are a few questions that you can answer for yourself to produce the steps you are seeking.

I hope that helps Gail.

[Mohamed_Mnafeg]

[tess47]

AWESOME post Joseph! You just about covered it all!

I would suggest, once you DO have a plan and know what types of products you want to promote, you start IMMEDIATELY building your own list - this is the one true way to make a good living with affiliate products.

It does take time, but in the meantime take all the steps Joseph suggested - just do everything you can think of to get seen!

And BUILD YOUR LIST in the meantime

[JosephRatliff]

[Richard Norman]

Hello

I was just browsing this thread and thought I might add something.

I have, up until this juncture, been self taught, soaking up information, learning by my mistakes etc.

I am in fact now waiting for Lynn to get better so that she can make a decision with regard my application for elite membership.

I feel a little uncomfortable with the label "elite", purely because I am so far in my website development, from this sobriquet.

I felt like Gail does on many occasions, less so now as I do have some idea of what is going on in general with regard marketing my web site.

So I think that knowledge will help Gail, I appreciate that is easy to say, but it has worked with me.

But knowledge which is right for you at your particular stage of development, I would have thought being a member of the elite group, you could explain exactly where you were to Lynn and she could help you from there.

Anyway, good luck Gail.

Regards

Richard Norman