Starting your own business or brand is easier than ever.

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1 How to create a WordPress website or blog with Adam Beckett at Energy Rockstars Introduction Starting your own business or brand is easier than ever. The Internet allows everyone to test - launch at next to no cost and no risk. With a little time and effort focused in exactly the right way you will succeed. Let me emphasize focus again; the Internet is full of distractions that can kill your launch. Stay on track and within a day you can launch your first test. So, whether you want to launch an existing business online in the most effective way or start something completely new, we need only focus on the top 2.5% of actions as used by the World s top online Marketers. Don t Panic! If the word Internet worries you, there is no need to be concerned. Basic skills are all you need to test and launch.

2 Who to trust as a mentor I ve spent over ten years studying Marketing. A lot of that time was wasted following confusing advice from self proclaimed 'Guru' figures; people associate the internet marketers with scams and there are many people ready to rip you off online with expensive online courses. It took me years to find a small group of internet marketing mentors and what you realize after a while is that these good people tend to know and trust each other. The internet is a big space but honesty definitely pays off. I hope this guide and all my future tips will teach you everything you need to get started fast and avoid all the common mistakes online. You will be able to work from Home, or from anywhere in the World where there s an Internet connection or reception for a Smartphone. Technology will make your Life better. Keep it in it s place though basic skills are all you need. Don t worry about all the latest Apps and gadgets, you ll waste hours messing around with something that s not effective. I ll guide you through what works and what doesn t. Are you ready to start? We re going to launch you online in a few hours.

3 Here s a few tips to help you get more done: Aim to set up the basic website or blog in two hours. Do concentrate on something you re passionate about, because this will sustain your interest in the long term.this may be a personal talent or area of business that s very appealing to you. Remember this is a business powered by passion but not a hobby; there needs to be commercial Intent in other words, there should be enough potential buyers with decent money to spend. Start with the right name for your website or blog! This applies to all business brands. The right brand name massively affects your profit potential. Think of Coca Cola it is so catchy; there is rythym, rhyme and alliteration. Top Tip - how to get targeted traffic A brand name as described above takes a long time to gain traction, unless you start investing money in pay per click advertising on social media sites such as Facebook. A low cost way to gain 'traffic' from internet search engines like Microsoft Bing (Google is much harder and more expensive and plenty of searches are carried out using Bing)

4 As an example if you are selling smart meters for supermarkets choose a 3-5 word title for your website domain name i.e. smartmetersforsupermarkets.com Keep it niche You need a smallish group of people interested in a certain niche subject - say you found between people searching in the UK for smart meters for supermarkets you're quite likely to have a few searchers become buyers. How to to keyphrase research Here's an example of how to find the right size market Enter "smart meters for supermarkets" in inverted commas into Google - if you're focusing on UK buyers adjust the settings tab in Google search. This is not a real example but lets assume for sake of this exercise that this brings up 1900 Google search results. Now this would be plenty of good 'focused' eyes to your blog or site if it appears on page one of results. However its going to be very hard and time consuming to rank on page one of Google search results, Bing and Yahoo search results are much easier to rank high on, although there is no guarantee you'll rank on page one. There really seems to be no hard and fast rule just do the basics, throw out ten one page mini sites and see which ones get the interest and more importantly where the sales come from. Bing was the second most popular search engine site in the United Kingdom after Google in 2017 with a rising share of search

5 engine market at a conservative 11% of searches carried out in the UK So if you set up smartmetersforsupermarkets.com and we assume that 11% of searchers use Bing (lets round it down to 10%) that's 190 UK searches per month - this is on the low side. Now if you have nineteen thousand monthly UK searchers on Google you'd have 1900 people searching per month who could find your website or blog. This is bang on the money for what we term an EMD These sort of websites are known as 'Exact Match Domains (EMDs), cost very little to make and often only have 1-3 pages. They are incredibly effective at driving highly targeted traffic. The words in the domain name exactly match the key phrase i.e. smartmetersforsupermarkets.com I put these out all the time and often link them back to my main brand websites like my own energyrockstars.com Many of these EMDs will not be a success but a few will work very well. Because they cost under 20 and take only a few hours to set up you can easily fit this into your time and budget Let's get back to the introduction Headlines are so important if people don t get hooked by your headline, they won t read the content or sales copy in your website. I ll show you how to write outstanding

6 attention-grabbing headlines. so let's use 'the best smart meters for UK supermarkets' as the title of your site. Google and other search engines will read your site just like a Human does; in the West we read top to bottom, left to right and so do search engines. The best businesses solve the biggest pain or problem and they solve it immediately. If your home page of your mini site reads at the top of page "Are you having a major problem with your supermarket smart meter?" you can then then offer a 300 word article helping the reader to solve that problem and offering your best solution. This solution could be a 300 word article on how to solve the problem, asking the reader to get in touch with you. It could also be a longer more detailed guide written by you which readers must people either buy or subscribe to an newsletter in order to get the detailed info - this is a great way to build an list of readers who you offer more tips to. This way we can build know, like and trust with your target audience. Very few people are going to buy immediately on impulse, the time is rarely exactly right. This is why telephone cold callers have to make seven calls before the prospective buyer says yes or no. Much easier and less soul destroying to let your bulk er send out seven s automatically.

7 By the time you ve read this short guide and made your first effective trial website you will have done more right than eighty percent of people. The information I m giving you now took me years to dig out and could be worth a lot of money to you in future, so you re in the right place. Now take a quick break! Next we ll be launch your first ultraeffective website or blog one that converts viewers to buyers. Most sites do not convert well, but yours will be better, far better. Next I'll show you : 1.Where to host your domain 2.Where to buy a domain name 3.How to quickly set up your website or blog I can only recommend the resources that work for me - you will find them all at Energyrockstars * If setting up your own website or blog isn't for you, get someone else to do it. Elance or Odesk have assistants that can set up everything for under 100 and I have links with very clever web designers if you want something well presented. Once you get used to the process, it is fast and simple to do and it takes me under two hours to set a complete mini site up.

8 1. Where to host your site or blog and which tools to use First, I don't recommend the free website hosting services such as wordpress.com etc. as you are limited to what tools and web links you can use. Also you cannot have your own domain name which creates a poor impression from the off. What you need is your own website or blog hosted somewhere. I host all my sites on Hostgator, buy my domain names from Namecheap and build my sites on wordpress.org Before your choose your site or blog domain name you will need to host that domain somewhere. I have always used Hostgator as they have proved reliable and have a 24 hour web chat facility if you need help. Here's my discount link to Hostgator Signed up? Grab your custom name server Once you have set up a Hostgator account, log into the dashboard homepage and look in the left hand column. Scroll down right to the bottom. Here you will find your custom nameservers (there are two of these starting with the letters 'NS' followed by a number.

9 You need these nameservers for the next part of the setup process which is buying a domain name and transferring it to Hostgator. 2. Where to buy a domain name I recommend Namecheap the place I buy all my domain names. But first you have to set up hosting for all your websites or blogs before you buy any domains. A note on selecting domain names I recommend you buy the.com or.net domain which rank highest on search engine results. You could go area specific, such as.co.uk. This may not rank as high but helps with trust when a potential visitor sees your site or blog address. Once you're signed up on Namecheap, log in and go to your domain list

10 On the right hand side click the 'manage' button

11 Select 'custom DNS' and enter your Hostgator nameservers in the space provided (there are two spaces) tick the save symbol and confirmation of transfer will be indicated

12 Be aware that it can take up to 24 hours for the domain name to transfer across to Hostgator. Once this has happened its is time to create your website or blog So your domain has transferred across to Hostgator.

Now login to your Hostgator control panel and click 'Addon Domain' - enter your full website name as below and the second box down will be auto populated.

13 Now login to your Hostgator control panel and click 'Addon Domain' - enter your full website name as below and the second box down will be auto populated. Now click the 'Add domain' button Your domain will be added and you are almost ready to instal on Wordpress. At this stage you can also setup an address related to your site or blog (see below) On your Hostagtor control panel click accounts - here you can create your custom address

14 Once your custom address is set up, you can access it via the 'webmail' button on the Hostgator control panel Why set up a custom address? I use custom addresses for all of my sites or blogs. It looks far more professional since it relates directly to the web property in question. That's the hardest part over. Next we are finally ready to create your site or blog on Wordpress!

3.How to quickly set up your website or blog log into wordpress using yourwebsiteorblogname/wp-login.php for example smartmetersforsupermarkets.com/wp-login.

15 3.How to quickly set up your website or blog log into wordpress using yourwebsiteorblogname/wp-login.php for example smartmetersforsupermarkets.com/wp-login.php this takes you to the admin dashboard area In the menu on the left, choose settings > reader settings Choose to display a homepage or a blog on the front page

16 Under settings > general write your key message in 1-5 words. This could be s'mart meters for supermarket chains' for a pure traffic generating site (EMD) or you could have something shorter conveying a brand feeling. Your key message will tell Google and real people what the site is about. When deciding on your 2-5 word key phrase, you need to do research first to see how many searches are being carried out per month, but thats another lesson entirely, which I've touched upon ealier. For now focus on setting up your site.

17 Now its time to choose the look of your site. You do this by selecting a theme. You can buy a theme, however there are many free options that work fine. Go to appearance > themes

Search the themes on offer. I find that plain and simple themes do work best for the energy industry. Also plain text links work better than having banner adverts.

18 Search the themes on offer. I find that plain and simple themes do work best for the energy industry. Also plain text links work better than having banner adverts. I've used a theme called MOG however any simple theme will do. You can add a header image if your choose, although I wouldn't even do this when trying out an EMD site for the first few days. If I do decide a site is worth investing in I use Fiverr.com for all my headers. As the name suggests a header only costs $5, as do many other jobs like graphics or short videos. If you want to get free images and create your own simple worded banners or photos overlaid with words use Typorama - I paid around 3 for this app.

19 There is no need to pay a fortune for expensive design work when you are trying a site or blog out. See if it flies first then spend where you have to. Time to create your first page or blog post. Click the + symbol and you will be given the options Here we are adding a new page

Plugins We'll come to how to make a page or post found by search engines in another lesson, right now here is my current favourite plugin tool for wordpress.

20 Plugins We'll come to how to make a page or post found by search engines in another lesson, right now here is my current favourite plugin tool for wordpress.org which will definitely yeach you a lot about how to structure your page or post to be found more easily on the internet. Its called Yoast SEO and I found out about it through a guy called Glen Allsopp who has writes great blogs on internet marketing. Lots of web designers recommend this plugin. WP super cache is another good plugin. It makes your site load on screen fast, avoiding delays that may discourage new visitors. You can stay updated on new tools by subscribing to my news

21 Go to plugins > add new to search for 'yoast seo' and install with a couple of clicks. You can install any plugin in the menu on the wordpress dashboard, its all self explanatory and remember to adjust the Yoast SEO settings once you've installed. After you've written the body of any script go to this plugin area located underneath the main post or page body and type in the focus keyword or key phrase. It will show you the do's and don'ts.

22 Some final words : key features of a successful site or blog I've dissected many successful online properties in a bid to find what really works; there are commonalities between them that you should feature on your own creation. Focus The sites are very focused on either one or a small handful of subjects that the audience favour most. There is a clear call to action that is featured at many points during on the site or blog. One of the most effective call to action is to get visitors subscribed to free updates by so that you can offer further tips over time to build trust. You could include a subscribe link at the top and bottom of the site, in a sidebar, within the main body of copy or on the bottom of posts and pages. Lack of distraction The visitor should not be confused by too many actions to take, such as sharing on social media, commenting, opting in for updates, requesting a callback, sending an - keep it simple and ask for just one action to take wherever possible. Give away something valuable for free This is usually a free written report, video or audio giving away information that gives a great benefit to the target audience,

23 perhaps something hidden or not obvious, an 'insider' report, tip or trick. Often the visitor has to opt in for updates to receive the information or perhaps pay a small price which can raise the perceived value. Once they're in they are hooked on the great value you've given upfront. Offer a guarantee Offering a money back guarantee or even just reassuring people with a 100% satisfaction guarantee as corny as it sounds can actually help. Third party credibility If you have testimonials (I prefer to use the word 'reviews' as thats the word people use when they search online) feature them prominently wherever you can. Any special qualifications or other credibility also helps. The more credibility you can build the better. Use scarcity You must be careful not to overdo this, but employ scarcity when you can. For example, offer free info to only the first hundred people that subscribe to the blog or website updates, limit the number of customer places, set a time limit before the price of your service goes up etc.

What to do now Now you know how to set up a website or blog for free or next to nothing you have a golden opportunity to try a number of marketing experiments using all those bright ideas you have

24 What to do now Now you know how to set up a website or blog for free or next to nothing you have a golden opportunity to try a number of marketing experiments using all those bright ideas you have stored up. Far better to let them see the light of day and be shared with others; to be honest most will fail. Accept that and focus on whatever generates the best response and outcome. Perhaps you think that a certain idea for a brand is the best thing ever, but your buying audience may disagree! Accept this and move on swiftly, limiting sentimentality strictly to your spare time. Your business success depends on adapting quickly. It is really important to be passionate about whatever it is you are doing but don't let that passion be misdirected. Hit that sweet spot between something you love and something thats financially viable - that's real success. I hope that this guide has proved a valuable lesson for you. No doubt you will appreciate more tips as you go along, so feel free to learn more about my simplest and most effective energy marketing strategies > click here to find all the best resources Wishing you every success! Adam Beckett, owner at energyrockstars.com

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