Two Major Site building
options
As
you saw previously, your Hostgator account includes a free site
building program, and if the kind of site that you want to build
happens to match what Hostgator are able to offer, then by all means go
ahead and use their program.
Unfortunately however, it is almost certain that the type of site that
you can build using the site builder that they offer is not going to
generate the kind of website that you want to build.
After all, you are going to create a site that is focused on providing
boxer dog training information whilst promoting a dog food related
information product from that site.
Consequently, the first thing to consider is, what are you going to
feature on your site apart from details of the affiliate product that
you are promoting?
The answer to the question is, you are going to provide your visitors
with information about dogs and dog training. Even more specifically,
the majority of the content materials (i.e. information) on offer are
going to focus on providing information that relates to training boxer
dogs.
Thus, the type of site that you can create using the free Hostgator
site builder program is probably not going to be particularly
well-suited to what you want to do. You therefore have two choices of
how you create your site.
Option one is to do things the 'traditional' way by building your site
using HTML. This may sound as if it might be complex or difficult, but
in reality, it is not.
If you have no experience of using HTML, it is not particularly
difficult to build a site in this way because there are plenty of sites
that provide free information about how to use HTML. Simply run a
Google search for 'HTML tutorials' and you will find plenty of sites
like this one where you can learn everything you need to know about
HTML scripting.
Using the information from HTML tutorial sites like these, you should
be able to create a simple web site pretty much as you want it to be,
but it is not necessarily going to be a quick or easy process.
In order to do so however, it is definitely going to be easier to use a
WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') site editor as an editor of
this nature makes it far easier to see what you are doing as you are
doing it.
Download the excellent (and completely free) NVU WYSIWYG site editor so
that you can use it to build your HTML site quickly and easily.
Another HTML option is to start from a site template of the kind that
can be downloaded free from OSWD or Free Web Templates. There are
plenty of free templates available on the net and if you can find
anything that appears suitable for the kind of site you want to build,
using a template makes a great deal of sense.
Doing so obviously cuts down the amount of time and effort you need to
expend on creating your website which is an important consideration. It
is not until your site is finished and published that you can start to
earn money, hence getting to that situation as quickly as possible is
definitely something to aim for.
The only problem with the majority of free templates that are available
on the net is that most of them are not really suited to online
marketing sites. Consequently, starting from a template could mean that
you would have to do so much work to modify it to make it 'match' your
requirements that it might have been quicker and easier to start from
scratch in the first place.
On the other hand, if you want a site that is perfectly matched to your
own requirements, one that looks and does exactly what you want it to
do, then creating your site using HTML should probably be your favored
option. However, in this case, you will almost inevitably have to start
from scratch, because using a site builder or a template is unlikely to
come anywhere near what you want.
As previously suggested, creating a site using HTML can be a slow and
relatively time-consuming process, particularly if you are learning how
to code in HTML as you are going along.
For this reason, I would or most certainly recommend an alternative
non-HTML site building option mainly because this alternative method is
quick, easy and creates superbly effective websites.
The alternative that I would recommend, particularly to an online
marketing beginner, is WordPress. This is a site building resource that
was originally a blogging platform which has developed over the past
two or three years to such an extent that it is now a highly effective
(and extremely simple) site building tool.
Using this particular site building resource, even the greenest
beginner can create a website within an hour or so in a 'worst-case
scenario'. It should in fact be far quicker and easier than this.
To install WordPress on BoxerDogTrainingExpert.com, you have two
choices.
The first option is to download the program from WordPress.org before
installing it manually by following what the site calls the 'famous
5-minute installation'. Whilst I would suspect that the first time you
are installing it, it will take a little longer than five minutes, it
should nevertheless take no more than an hour to install and activate
the site from beginning to end.
The alternative installation method does however genuinely take less
than five minutes. Open the cPanel of your Hostgator account and look
for the icon for 'Fantastico' or 'Fantastico De Luxe' near the bottom
of the page under 'Software/Services':

'Fantastico' is a suite of programs that are already pre-installed on
your site, ready to be activated whenever you decide that you want to
start using that particular program. One of the programs that is
included in the 'Fantastico' suite is WordPress. All that you need to
do to prompt program activation you need to do is click on the
WordPress link in the program list:
And then follow the step by step installation instructions. The first
thing you need to do is click on the 'New Installation' icon (on the
next page) that will transfer you to the main installation information
page as shown below:

At the top of the page (1) will be the main domain name, below which
you have the option of choosing a sub-directory of your site in which
to install WordPress (2). However, because in this case, you want to
install the software on the main BoxerDogTrainingExpert.com site, you
would leave this box empty.
Next, you need to create an Administration username and password (3 and
4), after which you move onto the 'Base configuration'. The 'Admin
nickname' that you choose for yourself (5) is the name that will appear
as the author every time you add new information or content to your
site, with the e-mail address (6) being the one to which any queries or
comments that are submitted to your site by e-mail.
Next, you give the site a name (7) and a 'byline' that will appear
underneath that name at the top of your WordPress page (8). Finally,
click the 'Install WordPress' button (9) and that is the installation
essentially complete. Using the information from the previous screen
shot, you now have a site that looks something like this:

It is plain and basically little more than functional but at least you
have a site that is live and published on the net.
The next step is to change the appearance of your site by finding and
installing a new site template - known in 'WordPress-speak' as a theme
- to make the site look more relevant to your subject matter.
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