Now that you have a domain name, the next step in your make money online journey is to find a home (or a web host) for your domain name, and to fill up that site with content. Be prepared, though, for the road is filled with... reading material.

For example, I highly recommend you install (or have someone install) a WordPress blog in your site. Here's where to place it, and why...

I'm assuming this will be your non-free hosted web site, so I recommend you place your WordPress blog in a folder of your site. For example, place the WordPress files in http://www.manuelviloria.com/blog (you can call your folder blog, articles, or anything you wish) instead of just in http://www.manuelviloria.com/ (the root of your site).

You might be wondering: "So why is your blog in the root and not in a folder, Manuel?"

This is an experimental site, my friends. I've created sites where the blog is in a folder, and sites where the blog is in the root.

If you can write at least 30 posts about a certain topic (and assuming you don't want to write any more than that), then go ahead and install your WordPress blog in the root of your site.

But if you're going to build a multi-functional and multi-topic site (which works great for beginners), then install your WordPress blog in a folder. One thing great about this is the flexibility you will enjoy!

For example, you can have other folders (not necessarily WordPress-powered):

  • Photo album
  • Videos
  • Non-WordPress blogs
  • Niche topics; folders containing static web pages
  • Experimental content
  • Electronic products for sale
  • Mini-websites for local businesses
  • Direct Response Sales (sell your own product)
  • Affiliate Marketing (refer people to other merchants)
  • Email Listbuilding (keep in touch with people, even if they leave your site)
  • ...and much, much more! :-D

In other words, your site is more than just a WordPress site (although you'll probably start off with a WordPress blog).

There are times when your webserver will not be able to display WordPress pages properly. There will be moments when the part of your webserver that powers those WP pages will go experience errors.

Well, guess what? The non-WP parts of your site will still continue to work. And that's why it is to your advantage to make your site as flexible as possible. Don't put all your eggs in one WordPress basket, so to speak. ;-)

Still, I'm assuming we're in beginner mode at the moment, and your currently empty site will get its first taste of content with the help of WordPress.

So...

Remember what I said earlier about reading material? I know it's a pain, but it will help if you take the time to learn some of the techie stuff. I highly encourage you to at least skim through the WordPress Documentation.

This way, when you choose to work with a techie, you'll have a better idea of what is going on.

Please resist the urge to just write and not care at all about HTML, PHP, scripting, and other technical stuff. You might be surprised what you can learn in a few months. Afterall, you survived school and all those reading assignments, right?

Okay, what happens to your homepage if your WP blog is in a folder?

There are many things you can do with your homepage. The most basic would be to quickly describe what your site is about, and to provide a link that leads to your WP blog.

Eventually, as you create more pages in your blog (and hopefully in the non-blog folders of your site), each of those pages will have a link that points to your homepage.

And when that happens, your homepage will gain a lot of search engine strength, so to speak, that when you do launch a new section (or folder) in your site, the search engine robots will quickly learn about it. But we're getting ahead of the Make Money Online series of lessons...

In the meantime, think of 30 articles you will write in your blog. No, you don't have to write them all in one day. And neither do you have to publish all of them in one go.

For now, review Make Money Online Lesson 1, read up on WordPress, think about your future writing projects, and if you're raring to go out there and publish online, find a techie who will help you with the nitty-gritty of WordPress installation.

Until the next MMO lesson... :-)

Make Money Free Account

"Making Money Online Lesson 2"
First Posted: February 26, 2008 | Filed in: Make Money Online

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