NOT a Guru!
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
The site that we are building from scratch is located at http://www.calmingfood.com. Now that we’re about to build a site, the mission and outline will kick in.
It would be a lot easier to show you all of this by video, but I realize that sometimes it’s hard to follow a video and take notes, especially if you haven’t done some of these things before. The “tasks” shown over the next few days can probably be done within an hour or two.
Background.
Laura, who is a very good friend of mine and who owns this site, has struggled with obesity issues for years, and she is experiencing health problems as a result. She is facing possible surgery. Besides hereditary issues, she says that she has food addictions.
Because of the food addictions and corresponding comforting aspects of food in times of stress, we chose the domain, CalmingFood.com. ComfortFoods.com and similar domains were already taken.
The Site Mission and Goals.
The mission of the site is to discuss the calming and comforting nature of food … and how that can translate to eating disorders. The secondary mission is to discuss health issues concerning weight problems.
In short, the goal of the site is to help others who may be struggling with this issue. The monetary goal is to earn money through affiliate commissions. Weight loss is an excellent market.
User-Friendly Updates.
Since Laura will control the site, my involvement is just to set things up. I will not be constantly updating the “html” portion of the site and she is not buying software at this point in time. For that reason, we are putting a blog on the site so that Laura can add content when she wants and so that she is in total control of her updates.
The Site Structure.
The content structure will look like this:
- Home Page – Featured Clickbank Product
- Blog
- Blog Category: Food addictions and eating disorders.
- Blog Category: Weight Loss
- Blog Category: Personal Journal (we’re going to do videos)
- Blog Category: To be named … because it’s a blog, Laura can add as many categories as she wishes.
- Branded Weight-Loss Related Affiliate Site
- About Page
- Terms and Conditions
- Site Map
Hosting and Site Structure: Folders/Subfolders.
For most websites, whenever you see the home page of a web page, it is an index.html, index.htm or index.php file. Sites created with Microsoft and requiring a FrontPage extension might end with asp; i.e., index.asp or some other name. The .html, .htm, php and other extensions are languages that the your web browser (like Firefox) understand and interpret.
Generally speaking, the index page and other pages within your site are stored in the portion of the hosting service that is called public_html. Some hosts might call it “home” or some other folder.
The blog discussed above, as well as co-branded affiliate site(s), will need to be in their own subfolders; otherwise, they will overwrite the index page and possibly some of the other pages within “public_html.”
If you look at the previous example site, Antiquing With Deco Diva, you’ll see by looking at the URL that the blog is located in its own folder called “blog.”
The pages within the blog are also located within the blog subfolder.
If you click on other portions of the Antiquing site, you’ll see that they are not located in a subfolder. For instance, the “about” page can be found at the following URL, which is not located within the “blog” folder: http://www.antiquingwithdecodiva.com/Meet-the-Deco-Diva.html. If you are building an online storefront, you could put each category in a subfolder like we did with the blog page. This type of structure — using subfolders — tends to get indexed better with the search engines.
I’ve been using subfolders forever, it seems like. Now there’s a fancy name for the practice: siloing.
A Closer Look at Your Folder Structure.
To understand the file structure a little bit more, you can go to your control panel (i.e., http://www.YourDomain.com/cpanel) and click the “File Manager” icon as shown in the image below.
As you will see, all of the “main” pages are in a folder called “public_html.” For instance, in the example below, there is a subfolder called “images” that you can put all your graphics in.
Automatic Installation of a WordPress Blog.
It is common nowadays to find a service called “Fantastico” in your Unix hosting account. This can be accessed from your control panel and is represented by a blue smiley face.
When you click on the Fantastico icon, you are taken to a page that features a number of different scripts that can be automatically installed for you. WordPress, Joomla and Noah’s Classifieds are just a few of the free scripts that can be installed with a click of the mouse.
In this example, I’ve clicked the “WordPress” link which takes me to Fantastico’s auto-install area. If you are using this option, click New Installation.
After you click “New Installation,” you’ll need to supply some information such as your email address that you want associated with the blog, your password, etc. In the example below, note that I typed “blog” in as an “Install in directory” instruction. In doing so, Fantastico will install the blog in the subdirectory, like the “blog” at the Antique Diva site shown above. If you wanted your blog as your home page (i.e., it would be the first thing that someone would see if they typed http://www.YourDomain.com), you would leave the “Install in directory” section blank.
You would then follow the installation prompts. WordPress works with a MySQL database. Fantastico will create your database automatically.
Building a Better Blog: Jeff Johnson’s Free SEO Blog Software.
On Laura’s site, we are NOT going to use the Fantastico version of WordPress.
The reason is simple: Jeff Johnson’s SEO blog software is tweaked to deliver much, much, much more traffic to a WordPress site. If I’m going to build a site, I’d much rather do it right the first time around.
Don’t get me wrong: WordPress blogs definitely get indexed quickly and, if they are updated regularly, often. The search engines really like them. But they are absolutely supercharged with Jeff’s software, and when used with Jeff’s free SEO blog software, the search engines fall in love with WordPress blogs.
Best yet, Jeff’s SEO blog software is absolutely free.
Get Jeff’s software here. It will make a HUGE difference in your blog.
Downloading and Extracting Your Software.
After you have clicked the link for Jeff’s software and confirmed your info, you’ll get a download link in your email. Jeff provides excellent video tutorials that show you exactly how to install the software. I’ve added some plug-ins when I use it, so we’ll do the step-by-step thing for newcomers here on this blog, too.
I am using Firefox, which has less security risks than Internet Explorer. When I click the “Click Here to Download Link,” the following screen will pop up, giving a choice to open the file or save it. I prefer to save files rather than opening them straight away in case the power goes out, my computer stalls or whatever.
The file is compressed into a zip format. I use WinZip Pro, so my download options include an “Open with WinZip” prompt. You can get a free trial version of Winzip at Winzip’s site. Alternatively, if you are looking for a freeware, go to Download.com and search for file compression software.
In the example for Laura’s site, I am going to save Jeff’s software into a special folder I have created for the Calming Food blog, as shown below. Organizing your downloads and files from the outset will save you a lot of time down the road, so I suggest you do the same thing. (Learn more about organizing your computer in one of my previous articles).
In the downloading process, the first thing I am going to do is to open the special folder that I created for the CalmingFood.com blog.
Once the folder has been opened, click SAVE and your SEO Blog software file will be save in the appropriate location so you can find it later.
With Firefox, after you have clicked SAVE and the file has totally downloaded, a window will open showing you the download. Double-click the file.
Your compression/extraction software will open automatically after you double-click the file. The image below shows a partial list of the files that are shown when I double-click on the file.
The next step is to extract the files. Note that:
- I clicked extract.
- At the prompts, I specified that the files should be extracted into the CalmingFoods.com blog folder that I had created.
- I’ve selected “all files and folders” in the archive.
After performing the above step, WinZip goes to work and decompresses the software file. In the extraction process, all structure of all folders and subfolders that came with the software will be preserved.
The following image shows the extracted software. You’ll see that it is in a folder called “wordpress.”
After opening the “wordpress” folder, the contents of the SEO blog software are shown. As you can see, there are some folders and main files. The only file that you will need to modify before installing the software on your website is the “wp-config.php” file. It is circled in red in the image below.
You can open the wp-config file with Notepad. Notice at the top, there is information about your MySQL database settings. This absolutely must be configured for your blog to work.
In tomorrow’s post, I will show you how to set up your MySQL database. Don’t get scared — it’s very easy!
~~~ Quick Navigation ~~~
Yesterday: How to Set Up and Access Your Domain’s Email.
Tomorrow: How to Set Up Your MySQL Database; How to Modify Your Wordpress Configuration File.
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I’m making my website related to seo services. I’m planning to start blog on its sub domain. Will this help me to promote my website and services ?
CA – It will partially help. If you use good keywords (click the Google tag to the right to see some free tools) and get a lot of good backlinks, it will definitely help promote your site and services. The free SEO blog software has been amazing in terms of getting search engine activity. Good luck to you.
Hello,
Interesting blog, I just found it and I’m already a subscriber
I hope it’s not against netiquette but I have just begun blogging
my own weight loss(I went down 30 pounds in a month, so pretty good
, and I wanted to know if you could share
my diet for your blog readers.
My most recent post is
weight loss exercise
If you would like to do a link trade
that would be excellent since I want to discuss my weight loss success
with as many people as possible. If I can lose weight then
any one can. Whatever you do, never give up and you WILL
reach all your weight loss goals!
Thanks for reading,
Joan