I have never made a website before. In order to sell an information product I produced and am currently fine tuning, I have decided to take the plunge.
I spent most of yesterday and today reading through a lot of different options, and giving myself a crash course in various useful terminology.
First things first, there is an enormous amount of worthless crap out there, and it takes patience to find reliable reviews of different products that aren't just affiliate marketing propaganda.
As a non techie, after my research, I decided to go with the following:

1. use Blue Host for domain registration and hosting
2. download and use wordpress.org for website creation, paying for the premium Thesis template, which by all reports seems to be the best way for a non programmer to make a SEO optimized site with vast flexibility.

I will update you once I have the beta version of the site up and running and would appreciate constructive criticism.

One bright idea I had was to start charging people now to get cash flow going - I would call it preordering and would include some sort of call to action or discount to make it sound better. I was thinking of copying Roosh and maybe including a red countdown clock at the top of the homepage.

What kind of information product are you selling?

If you don't have web design/programming skills, I think wordpress will do a pretty good job helping you out with that. Let us know how it goes with your product.

tip for bluehost, search for "Bluehost 3.95" and you'll get on a link to give you a cheaper rate for a year I believe, worked for me at least, not sure if its still doing it and its the first year only. maybe try 2.95, but not sure if that works. I use bluehost too, but mainly for random blogging and ideas of websites. not monetizing it at all really. i should but I'm kind of aimless.

there is a self install for Wordpress on the control panel for the domain names. I register the names through them too, saves time, have several domains, a message board, etc. I'm interested in how this works and will follow this too.

It would be good if someone could break down the process. I've been told before that hostgator are a good bet for the host and they have wordpress, wiki and other softwares that can be installed at a click of a button.

What's the deal with buying a domain? I've found one I want that isn't used, who do I register it with? Any domain company or are there benefits of using a certain one?

Once hosting is bought, the wordpress software installed and a domain bought, what next? Certain wordpress plugins that should be installed? Need to get SEO done? Content more important than SEO initially? Need to do something to get your website on search engines? There's a million more questions probably.

If someone could just breifly break down the initial steps from the beginning to having a functional website that would be great. I'd appreciate it and I'm sure many others too.

Quote: (04-25-2012 08:06 PM)torontokid Wrote:  

What kind of information product are you selling?

Real estate related. Targetting new agents, helping them get to their first commission by seeing how people like them have done it.

Quote: (04-26-2012 03:21 AM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  

It would be good if someone could break down the process. I've been told before that hostgator are a good bet for the host and they have wordpress, wiki and other softwares that can be installed at a click of a button.

What's the deal with buying a domain? I've found one I want that isn't used, who do I register it with? Any domain company or are there benefits of using a certain one?

Once hosting is bought, the wordpress software installed and a domain bought, what next? Certain wordpress plugins that should be installed? Need to get SEO done? Content more important than SEO initially? Need to do something to get your website on search engines? There's a million more questions probably.

If someone could just breifly break down the initial steps from the beginning to having a functional website that would be great. I'd appreciate it and I'm sure many others too.

Probably the best pair of articles on this I came across were these:

part 1: http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/09/21/th...n-3-hours/

part 2: http://blog.amirkhella.com/2011/03/09/ho...and-bolts/

Dude, you don't need to download wordpress if you use bluehost, they have an autoinstall feature.

Quote: (04-26-2012 08:23 AM)dulst Wrote:  

Dude, you don't need to download wordpress if you use bluehost, they have an autoinstall feature.

Yep, I used it. I was going to self host to get more control, but at this point that is not necessary for me.

I have a Wordpress Multisite install with all the plugins including a multilingual plugin for translations if you want to do sites in other languages. No hosting needed, no installation needed etc. And a whole bunch of premium themes for Woothemes as well. 5 bucks a month for the guys on here. Send me a pm if interested.

Quote: (04-26-2012 07:00 AM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

Probably the best pair of articles on this I came across were these:

part 1: http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/09/21/th...n-3-hours/

part 2: http://blog.amirkhella.com/2011/03/09/ho...and-bolts/

Thanks will read,

Quote: (04-26-2012 09:12 AM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

Yep, I used it. I was going to self host to get more control, but at this point that is not necessary for me.

I think when you use Wordpress on somewhere like bluehost/hostgator you are self hosting, it's only when you use a free word press blog you are restricted to what you post, e.g. you can't have a commercial money making site...no?

Bluehost has Weebly now on it (http://www.weebly.com/), which is a website software. For $9 a month you can add more features, I'm playing around with it a bit.

example (nothing on here really but you get the idea): http://osmosishealthcare.com/

seems a bit more aesthetic and easier than wordpress.

here is the difference from the control panel:

Quote: (04-26-2012 10:17 AM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  

Quote: (04-26-2012 07:00 AM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

Probably the best pair of articles on this I came across were these:

part 1: http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/09/21/th...n-3-hours/

part 2: http://blog.amirkhella.com/2011/03/09/ho...and-bolts/

Thanks will read,

Quote: (04-26-2012 09:12 AM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

Yep, I used it. I was going to self host to get more control, but at this point that is not necessary for me.

I think when you use Wordpress on somewhere like bluehost/hostgator you are self hosting, it's only when you use a free word press blog you are restricted to what you post, e.g. you can't have a commercial money making site...no?

You are right. Ive paid extra for my own IP address and SSL, backup, etc.

I read those blog posts and they were useful, thanks for that.

Quote: (04-27-2012 02:09 AM)AlphaTravel Wrote:  

I read those blog posts and they were useful, thanks for that.

I found something 100X better.

Some guy made a step by step video tutorial perfectly broken down into small lessons, showing you how to build an ecommerce website using wordpress and thesis. Amazing and free!!!

http://www.byobwebsite.com/courses/how-t.../overview/

Quote: (04-29-2012 12:42 PM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

Some guy made a step by step video tutorial perfectly broken down into small lessons, showing you how to build an ecommerce website using wordpress and thesis. Amazing and free!!!

http://www.byobwebsite.com/courses/how-t.../overview/

The world of Wordpress and ecommerce has changed since those old videos. That's one ugly website he has built there.

Sure it's "Free", if your time has no value.

Quote: (04-29-2012 12:58 PM)ManAbout Wrote:  

Quote: (04-29-2012 12:42 PM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

Some guy made a step by step video tutorial perfectly broken down into small lessons, showing you how to build an ecommerce website using wordpress and thesis. Amazing and free!!!

http://www.byobwebsite.com/courses/how-t.../overview/

The world of Wordpress and ecommerce has changed since those old videos. That's one ugly website he has built there.

Sure it's "Free", if your time has no value.

Ok, do you have some better suggestions as to how I can make the most out of my time while learning?

Also, you have to pay after first series of videos.

Just youtube how to do it. There are entire free series on there people make going from nothing to full website.

I'll give the video a watch either way, might learn something.

Yeah that website sucks.

There are e-commerce templates you can buy for yourself for 30-40 bucks.

Far superior to the website the guy in the video made.

From a quick google search-http://templatic.com/ecommerce-themes/emporium/
http://designwoop.com/2011/10/21-best-wo...ce-themes/

Check those out.

I've also heard great things about Shopify.

http://www.shopify.com/

Interesting thread on BHW-

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-se...setup.html

A lot of people are opposed to using Wordpress for e-commerce.

Quote: (05-01-2012 01:25 AM)torontokid Wrote:  

I've also heard great things about Shopify.

http://www.shopify.com/

Interesting thread on BHW-

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-se...setup.html

A lot of people are opposed to using Wordpress for e-commerce.

is it necessary to know how to code to use those themes you linked to?

Quote: (05-01-2012 01:25 AM)torontokid Wrote:  

I've also heard great things about Shopify.

http://www.shopify.com/

Interesting thread on BHW-

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-se...setup.html

A lot of people are opposed to using Wordpress for e-commerce.

What specifically is their opposition to e-commerce on Wordpress? That site requires you to be a logged in member to view content.

Quote:Quote:

Interesting thread on BHW-

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-se...setup.html

I only recently became aware of BHW, great website. The making money section of the forum has a goldmine of information in it.

I wouldn't use wordpress for e-commerce.

I run a few e-commerce stores.

It is better to go with an opencart software like Zen Cart or Cre-loaded and then get customization built in by coders on odesk or something as and when you need it.

It might not seem a big deal at the start but further down the road when you start making sales, you're going to need what you're working with to be customizable to your exact needs, and Wordpress is a blogging platform, not an e-commerce one. The simplicity of wordpress isn't good for stores, because where as an affiliate site or a blog just develops more pages, stores need more backend the more successful you get.

Just trust me on it.

Also; Blackhatworld is a reasonable site, but you have to sift through the dirt to find the diamonds.

Also Part II; If you're looking to launch web-businesses at the moment, be very careful about what SEO work you do/pay to have done. Panda updates are causing chaos, and I know loads of ecommerce people are finding it really tough. Keep abreast of the news in the Internet world for the next couple of months, it'll be real sink-or-swim time.