I know many people who visit this website either struggle to build WordPress websites or simply cannot make any money from this venture. There are many models you can follow when building a WordPress website, and for that matter you don’t even have to use WordPress if you don’t want to. (you must be crazy though )

You can build a WordPress website into a authority website, an e-commerce website, or even a niche website. Of course there are many more options. Either way, each website can become its own little business, earning you a decent amount of income.

So lets get down to it

If you know anything about me, I generally build authority websites that can go on for ever and ever. Sometimes this means that I pick a more general niche with probably huge competition, divide that niche by categories, and load the website with tons of content. (only great content though) I go for longtail, short tail, highly competitive keywords.

So this is how I make money online, but this is not all there is to my business. I also have many niche websites, review websites, product only websites, and so on.

Today I am going to openly show you a website that I created (or maybe my VA did) about six months ago. I am going to tell you the exact steps I took in making this website and how it has progressed so far.

I have to confess right now that this website is definitely not up to my standard OCD set up as I simply do not have time to fix it at the moment. However the reason I want to show everyone this website is because it is actually making money and it is nowhere near perfect. I want you to see all the good and all the bad and realize that you can do this too.

Here is the website: http://wordpresswebsitehost.com/ Don’t leave though! Take a quick look, see how ugly it is, and then come back!

Why did I start this website?

I was basically building a website to keep my VA busy and I had an idea about making a website that sold Web hosting. If you have never sold Web hosting before, it is one of the most highly paid affiliate products out there. For example if someone clicks on my Hostgator banner and buys even the smallest product, I get $100 commission for bringing them in the door. Not every website can just simply start selling Web hosting though. Trust me I have tried to sell it on some of my authority websites, but the audience needs to be targeted, so that never worked.

How did I start this WordPress website

1. I searched for a domain name that had something to do with hosting. In my case I wanted to tie it in with my WordPress website group. When I started to research Web hosting, I realized that it was highly competitive niche and therefore I did not research keywords at all. I was not going to rely on search engine optimization to get me traffic in the beginning.
2. I created a WordPress theme using Artisteer as I probably was not a member of Elegant themes at the time.. ( I will be changing the Theme later)
3. I created a page for each hosting company that I wanted to promote. Please note that these are pages, not posts.
4. I created a static front page with a table full of affiliate links and a link to see a full review of the product.
5. I have researched some keywords to narrow down what categories I wanted for the articles.
6. I installed a minimal amount of plug-ins, just enough to get me through. For example I installed Affiliatecamo to cloak affiliate links and get every article pointing back to a review page.
7. I got 10 articles written about Web hosting and scheduled them to post one every four days.
8. I relied on my VA at the time, to fill the product pages with reviews and affiliate links.
9. I put a backlink on one of my PR 6 websites and possibly 2 others. That’s it for linkbuilding.

After all this I spent a few days editing mistakes and content, but never finishing to my standards. When you visit this website I do not expect criticism as I am showing this website in good faith. Of course it can be done better and it will be in time. I am totally open to suggestions though!

Potential Greatness Kept Knocking?

Unfortunately I lost interest after about a week and was often reminded that this website existed by seeing the odd $100 commission coming in. Believe it or not, this is exactly how this website started as well. I often say that I build websites and wait for the website to show me potential. This website you are reading right now, did exactly the same thing. It showed me potential.

The funny thing is that I still ignored the potential in this hosting website as I was just too busy, but then Google had a good old page rank update. I was awarded with a page rank 4 on this hosting website that I had left for dead. So there was another sign slapping me in the face.

Wake up Mitz!

Ok the PR 4 woke me up about the website. This led me to a little bit more promotion, and when I say little, I mean little. I added a link to the website in an article I wrote on my Tips4PC website and also answered a few Yahoo answers, of course leaving a link to the website. That’s it though.

Anyway I got paid $200 into my bank and was curious as to where it came from. I logged into my Commission Junction account for this website and noticed a balance of $700, $600 for August and $100 just outside. The $200 I had already been paid for was July earnings for this website which occurred before I had woken up with my second mini line of promotion. I rarely even go to Commission Junction as I really make all my earnings from Adsense, Clickbank, some individual affiliates, and now Amazon. All this was a surprise to me.

What caused this website to be so successful?

It is not successful yet but has the potential to be extremely successful! Obviously we can see that.

So what caused this website to be potentially successful?

Here are a few reasons I have thought of:

• The static front page is a complete affiliate table and there is not many other options on the page and less you scroll right down to the bottom of the website.
• If a visitor lands on an article on the website, links to the review pages are embedded into the articles. The articles themselves are not interlinked.
• The only outgoing links are to hosting affiliate websites and to this WordPress website.
• The articles that I have published are all original content. These have started to be picked up by the search engines and are getting a very small amount of traffic.

In the screenshot below I show you the settings I used to set my static front page. The first thing I did was create a page with no sidebars. Then I chose this page in the settings below.

What are my plans for this WordPress website?

• I thought about writing some guest posts for this website but have not even got around to it. When that happens that will definitely kick this website onto my earnings radar.
• I also thought about making a banner for it and buying some cheap advertising space on other blogs..Lets face it, $100 a sale can afford it.
• I will hopefully have time to answer a few more questions on Yahoo.
• I could also add a link into my authors bio on the websites that I already guest post on. This means that the link will automatically go want to all the posts that I have already published on other peoples blogs. Can you see the power in this?
• Schedule more articles to run and keep the blog flowing with fresh content.
• I thought this would be a small niche website, well kind of small, but it could turn out to be something bigger. This was not my intention.

Can you copy this?

Sure! Just remember that the domain name I chose really has no one searching for it. Therefore you can buy a domain name like these:

websitehostingcost.net

websitehostingcost.org

americanwebhosting.org

andwebhosting.net

bestwebhosting2011.net

bestwebhosting2011.org

domainnameandwebhosting.net

domainnameandwebhosting.net

bestwebhostingnow.net

bestwebhostingnow.org

topwebsitehostingtoday.com

topwebsitehostingtoday.net

…that are available right now and then reproduce what I have done… Then start driving targeted traffic to the website. If you do use one of these domain names then please do your own checking to see if there are any searches for it….

Just remember that this is my WordPress website case study and I do not guarantee your success doing the same thing or offer personal help to anyone. Believe me, I know everyone needs help and it is impossible for me to do so. The best way I can help you is if you follow this blog.

WordPress Website Case Study Conclusion

Even if the Page Rank disappears on this website, it is extremely easy to drive some targeted traffic to it and still make sales. The page rank has nothing to do with the success of the website. It does not matter that I placed a link on one of my websites because I could have just as easily guest posted on someone else’s site to get a link.

This is what I call handing you a website example on a platter!

I am interested to hear your comments about this WordPress website Case study??

Should You Follow Your Passion When Building WordPress Websites? I could be opening a can of worms here but I sincerely believe  that having a passion for a topic when creating a website is extremely important. Making money online could not possibly be your only motivation?

There are a few exceptions of course but holding passion for what you do will help you get your job done!

Have you ever met someone full of passion? You walk away thinking about them. They make an impact on you.

When SHOULD you follow your passion?

• When you have been interested in something forever and you want to absorb every bit of information about it.
• You love talking about your passion and bore your friends and family when you never shut up about it.
• You do not care if you make money because you enjoy your topic so much.
• You are obsessed with some weird thing that no one knows about.
• Your hobby or passion is not socially acceptable.
• You went to a world convention for your hobby and you were the only one there.

When you SHOULDN’T follow your passion?

• You are obsessed with some weird thing that no one knows about.
• Your hobby or passion is not socially acceptable.
• You went to a world convention for your hobby and you were the only one there.

What are some advantages to following your passion?

You will last longer

Hopefully if you enjoy writing and creating content about your passion then you will be in it for the long haul. When building websites, wealth does not always come over night and takes a lot of time and hard work. Even if you have ticked all the boxes on my WordPress website checklist, it still takes time to become successful.

You will be a true expert

To become a true success in the website game you will need to prove yourself as some kind of expert in your chosen field. If you have a passion for your subject it is almost always easier to learn about what you like, rather than something you despise.

My friend has a passion for numbers and is an accountant, whereas I hate doing my books and could not think of anything worse. Her passion shines through because she gets excited about weird things like tax deductions. I avoid thinking or talking about doing my books and tax as the whole process annoys me. I would much rather talk about something that I like.

People will trust you

People trust experts or webmasters that appear to be passionate about their topic over ones that are clearly only in it for the money. It is easy to see someone’s passion shine through the content they create. People with a passion for something seem to study it thoroughly because they enjoy doing it. This also means that they can easily help other people as they are not troubled to find answers.

Real examples

I will use myself as an example. I have more than a few websites and I feel the importance of passion every day.

Passion: If I have passion for a website topic I tend to neglect all other websites and the one I am passionate about gets top priority.

Medium passion: If I cannot work on my main passion I will choose a website I have medium passion for.

Knowledge: Knowledge comes with passion but passion does not come with knowledge. Therefore I have websites that I am more than qualified to run as an expert but I have no passion for it.

Nether passion nor knowledge: If I do not have either passion or knowledge then the website turns out to be a mistake and has to be sold or I let it die.

Can you Create Passion?

I am not sure if you can create passion, but I am sure that you can change your perception of something. For example, when you are washing your car, you can see this as a horrible chore or you can imagine how nice it will be to drive a nice clean car. Imagining a nice clean car at the end of this job is like dangling a carrot in front of a rabbit.

Conclusion

Should You Follow Your Passion When Building WordPress Websites? Hell yeah! Do you know what I am talking about here or am I the only crazy one? Don’t answer that!

Anyway if you have passion, this can be the basis for not only your success, but your happiness as well.

When you say you are into Internet Marketing, why do you always get those funny looks? Even when you have told the person what you do they still come back and say “Yes but what do you do?” OMG do I have to spell it out. I build websites and make money from that. “Oh so you are some kind of graphic designer or website designer? Who do you build websites for?”

Do I have Loser printed across my forehead? Don’t get me wrong, its not so much a loser look, as a total confusion look.

At this point I am over it. I have tried explaining what I do to people but it just goes over their heads. It is the same old scenario I get every time someone asks me what I do. It’s bad enough that my family has no idea what I do, let alone every person I meet getting that puzzled look also.

It’s a lonely life when you start on the road to becoming a successful Internet marketer. Your friends and family think you are crazy as they have never heard of such a job. You have no friends until you actually find someone that has Internet Marketing in common.

You almost feel like you are preaching about a religion that no-one wants to here about. Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin, I am obsessed with what I do, and once you get me started….

Why friends and family do not like Internet marketing?

• They fear the unknown.. like UFO’s.
• They think it is like a cult and we are all brainwashed.
• They think you are full of s**t.
• They think it is an unstable lifestyle with no guarantee that it will work.
• They have no idea how it works and therefore think it is stupid.
• They think everyone on the internet that makes money is a scammer and rip off merchant.
• Most people are bought up to get a job and work for a living. Making money online is not a real job, or so they say.
• They do not understand how powerful the internet is now and how it will grow in the future.

What do the Internet Marketers think about the remarks they get?

• One day you will see!
• One day you will wish that you had listened to me.
• Internet real estate will be the most valuable land to own.
• Just because you can’t see it does not mean it doesn’t exist.
• Great things have to start somewhere and the revolution has started!
• If Alexander Graham Bell had told his friends about the telephone idea do you think they would believe him? It hadn’t been invented so how could they understand.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? If you are anything like me then you will be feeling the deja vu come over you now.

Its like living in another world because you are so interested in something and want to talk about it, but no one wants to listen. They go along with the conversation but are really just waiting for an opportunity to change the subject to something that interests them and is worth talking about.

Internet marketing is a legitimate job, its just that you sometimes invent your own path to success. We are taught many paths to follow in life, whereas Internet marketing is almost unguided. This is where it becomes an unsafe path for many normal people. That’s why your friends and family will probably never understand what you are doing, unless they actually do it for themselves.

When a business is looking to build a new WordPress website, what are the plugins or features most useful to most companies? I have my special list of plugins I use and they do vary from one website to another.

• Social Plugins: All WordPress websites need social plugins. It really doesn’t matter if your website is for business or not! You want other people to have the opportunity to spread the word about your website. If you do not put these share buttons, tweet buttons, and like buttons in front of your visitors then how do you think the word is going to get around…. My number one plugin for this is….Digg Digg
• SEO Plugins: We all know how hard it is to do SEO by hand… This is why I use WordPress. It does so much for you when you install the SEO plugins… I use Google XML Sitemaps, All in One SEO Pack, MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer.
• Comment Plugins: Commenting is very important on your WordPress Website and especially when it comes to business and you would like a person to comment more than once..This is why I use  Subscribe To Comments which lets the user tick a box to be notified of follow up comments. This brings them back to your website to see the new comments… I also use CommentLuv on certain websites where users will comment to get a link to their latest posts…It is published with their comment…
• WordPress.com Stats is a great tool that shows up in your dashboard and lets you know how many hits a particular page is getting. Nice to see stats right there in front of your face.. I am sure that there are other stats plugins out there…
• Keyword Link Plugin is pretty handy. This WordPress plugin can be set to create links to a url of your choice if a particular keyword is mentioned. So for example you can make an affiliate link to EBay…Every Time the word eBay shows up in your website it will be auto linked to what you set it to.

I can list a ton of them here, but what in your experience are the best?

My goal here is to link the wordpress blog entries to a frame in a personal site. So I want only the blog entries to appear, but none of the menu bars or other things associated with wordpress only what was posted. I know wordpress is done in PHP so i was wondering if anybody knew the specifics of the coding and how I would go about doing this.

Thanks!

I haven’t a clue how to use WordPress and Comicpress to create sites and publish comic strips! Please help. Do you know of a good walkthrough? Thanks much!

I have a website that has been up and running for some time now, and for numerous reasons I want to replace it with a WordPress site.

So, how do I start building the WordPress site – in a seperate folder from the “public_html” folder? Then when you are ready to move it into the public_html folder, do you have to correct whatever file-paths and link errors?

I would like to start a free WordPress blog on the WordPress site (not my own domain) but I don’t like the themes they provide. Can I use a downloaded theme on there? I have seen some WordPress hosted blogs with different themes, so it looks like it’s possible.

I have a WordPress blog now, but I can’t figure out how to get readers into there! I have been using MySpace and it’s been great, subscriptions like crazy, but a lot of them don’t have wordpress…so no leads there. Besides, I am posting the same info to both, so it’s not much of a point of them getting one. How can I increase my WordPress readership? I already utilize tags, but I still only got about 89 views in two weeks.

Thanks in advance–serious answers only, please!

I need 2 set up wordpess through a webhost…

i know i have to download wordpress but whats a good host to go with? and after i set up an account with a host, how difficult is the set up before I can begin building a site? and last but not least, can i still import the free wordpress templates?