4.8 Stripping All of the Default Crap from WordPress

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In this video I discuss:

  • Exactly what to delete off of WordPress’ default installation

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

4.8 Transcript Below

Alright, we’ve got WordPress installed. I have access to my WordPress account by resetting my password so I killed two birds with one stone there. I needed to reset the password anyways. And now we are ready to strip all of the default crap from WordPress because there’s a fair amount of it. But again, really quick and easy.

So what we’re going to do in this video… I’m about to show you everything on-screen… this should be really quick… but just to guide you through what we’re going to do, WordPress installs a bunch of kind of bloated stuff that you don’t need. And whenever you install it – every single time – you just got to go through and delete, delete, delete, delete. So we’re going to delete a sample page, sample post, sample comment, and some unnecessary plugins that we’re not going to use.

We’re just going to go through and do this really quickly. Like I said, follow along and if I go too fast… it shouldn’t really be an issue… but if I go too fast, feel free to pause until you do it yourself and then play until I do the next thing and then pause and do it yourself. You know how it goes.

So let’s hop on in here to WordPress.

So when you log in to WordPress, you’ll see this is kind of your default page. You know, you don’t need to do this… but I’m just going to go ‘I don’t need help’. You know, you could go through a step-by-step thing if you wanted.

But now, we’ve got all of my… this is what you would see every time you log in to WordPress, okay? So the first thing we want to do, we’ll just work our way down the list.

I’ll go Posts, I’ll go Trash for the ‘Hello world!’ post. And you have all of these notifications, because again, you’ve got all these bloatware. We’ll delete those plugins and they’ll go away.

So I’ll go to Pages – just click on Pages on the left – ‘Sample Page’, I’ll Trash. Look for comments… Oh good! There were no sample comments this time. Oh! Because I already deleted the posted page. Duh. So no sample comments because it was attached to the post that we already deleted.

So now we need to go into Plugins and we’re going to delete most of these, okay? It’s ridiculous… and Bluehost does this by default… but it’s not ridiculous because what they’re trying to do is help and some of these could be genuinely helpful.

But in my experience, some of these are also really, really bloated and they can kind of slow down your website which isn’t a good thing. And there are much better versions. These are kind of the most commonly used ones that have been around for years. And since they’ve become so established, there are competitors that are better than all of them. And in a different video, we’ll replace some of these.

But we don’t need Akismet Anti-Spam. We don’t need Hello Dolly. We damn sure don’t need Hello Dolly.

I’m going to deactivate and delete Jetpack as well which some of you may be kind of like, “Oh my God, he’s deleting Jetpack?” Because Jetpack has a lot of functionality but it is very bloated. Everyone that has development experience – programming experience – would advise you to find other ways to do things that Jetpack does because it’s just so bloated. It loads so many different things that your site doesn’t need to load which decreases your load speed which you’ll find out later is a very bad thing. It can be very bad for SEO and for user experience.

So we’re going to deactivate MOJO Marketplace as well… delete. Deactivate OptinMonster API… delete.

And we’re going to need to add a contact plugin. Technically, we could keep this one and figure out how to use it. I’m just going to choose my own. I guess it doesn’t really matter… but sometimes you get a questionnaire, a survey, when you deactivate something… and I’m going to delete.

So now we don’t have any plugins but that’s fine. We’re going to install some more in one of these next couple of videos.

And that’s it! We just stripped WordPress of all of its unnecessary default crap.

So now we need to kind of adjust our settings; install the plugins that we do want on the site for some extra functionality – that’s really helpful; and I guess then we just need to add some content; pick our theme; and we’re going to be good to go. Then you’re going to have a website up ready to rock. So we’re only a handful of lessons away from that now.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to post them in the Facebook group, I’ll see you there or I’ll see you in the next video.

4.7 How to Install WordPress in <5 Minutes

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In this video I discuss:

  • A step-by-step explanation of how to install WordPress using Bluehost

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

 

4.6 Why WordPress Is the ONLY Platform You Should Use

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Unlock it all by getting the tools your business needs to grow.

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Important links from this video: https://stoppingscams.com/how-to-build-a-blog-from-scratch-a-comprehensive-guide/#why-wordpress-is-best

In this video I discuss:

  • An overview of why WordPress is the only platform that any internet business owner should seriously consider
  • A discussion of WordPress vs. Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, and others

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

4.6 Transcript Below

Okay!

So before we hop in and we kind of set up your domain and we install WordPress which is actually really quick and easy through Bluehost, I want to take a quick minute because this is something that comes up somewhat often. I want to take a quick minute to talk about why WordPress is the only platform you should consider using and I don’t make any money from saying any of this, okay? So this is… you know… there’s not even a chance of bias here. This is just based on experience as an internet marketer.

So in today’s day and age, you’re kind of drowning in an ocean of options. When I first started in internet marketing, you had to at least be able to manipulate HTML templates. I didn’t know how to code them from scratch and I wasn’t very good at even reading code and editing it but that’s what you had to do. You had to take templates and edit HTML. Before that, you had to hard code the HTML. So at least… you know… by the time I started, they had some options to kind of… you had visual editors but they weren’t that good.

And then along came WordPress and it’s really taken over pretty much the entire web design industry – not only affiliate marketing and internet marketing. So I know there are a lot of options out there and I know that they are easier to learn. CMS stands for ‘content management systems’ which there are a lot of them.

You know, some of WordPress’ most direct competitors are like Drupal and Joomla but even those are… you know… they’re along the same lines as kind of technically challenging to learn as WordPress. But you know, when it comes to Squarespace and Weebly and Wix and anything along those lines – there are a lot of them now – there are a lot of people that ask, “Hey, can I use this?” or “Hey, can I use GoDaddy site builder?” or Bluehost may even have their own option for a visual site builder these days. And the answer is no.

Technically, you can use them but it’s going to hurt you. Their ease of use is their downfall because you’re going to get to a point in your internet marketing business – sooner probably rather than later – where you need to edit some things that Squarespace, Weebly, Wix bury so deeply that they’re very hard to find and then you have to go through and like search Google and find… you know… it’s just so difficult because there aren’t as many users for them as there are for WordPress. But also sometimes, you just can’t edit things there. There are things you need to optimize for search engines and you just can’t do it on Squarespace, Weebly, and Wix sometimes. So they’re so simplified that it’s detrimental to someone that’s trying to build a profitable internet business.

And if for no other reason to use WordPress over using anyone else – and just hands down nobody else even comes close – it’s WordPress’ plugin selection. If you’re not familiar enough with WordPress to know what plugins are, (just really briefly) essentially they are little skills that you install on your website. Again, an oversimplification… but you can kind of install these skills on your website and these features that enhance the performance of your website.

So something that you would have had to pay a developer several hundred or several thousand dollars to code, you can simply click a couple of buttons, install that plugin, activate it, maybe adjust some really easy-to-understand settings; and voila, you have so much more capability on your site.

And we are going to work with several of those plugins. They’re all free… and not all plugins are free, I should say… the plugins that we’re going to be working with in this section are free.

And the nice thing even about paid plugins… like the other day, I was looking for a plugin to build FIMP on (to build Free Internet Marketing Project on). I guess this was a week or so ago and I needed what was called a LMS. Where CMS stands for ‘content management system’, LMS stands for ‘learning management system’ and it’s what you use to build training courses and membership areas and stuff like that. And the one I found… I think it cost me like $147 or something like that. Just not that much.

Whereas if I had had to pay to get all of these custom developed, it would have cost me several thousand dollars to have a membership area that’s nice with all these functionality. And instead, because they can sell it to a massive amount of people and those people go out on their own and install it to their WordPress site without any help from them, they can sell it at a much lower price because now they have a mass market product.

And technically, Drupal and Joomla – and even… you know, places like Wix and Weebly and Squarespace – they all have similar things to WordPress’ plugin library and marketplace but they don’t hold a candle. I mean we’re talking about like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of options versus like on WordPress versus like dozens or hundreds or maybe on the low side of thousands for the other content management systems (for the other CMS).

So bottom line is if you want to build a profitable online business, there’s no cheaper or better option than WordPress. We talk about this more in that same article that I linked last video… a little bit deeper… so if we talk about why WordPress is best and it’s the only thing you should consider using, it’s a pretty accurate description and summary if you want to know more.

But at the end of the day, that’s just what it boils down to. You’re going to be so restricted, you’re going to have less access to knowledge and help and tutorials when you Google things online. It is more difficult technically to learn (I will fully admit that) but at the end of the day, it’s a necessary evil. You have to learn how to use WordPress. You don’t have to learn how to code; the nice thing is WordPress for the most part will keep you out of ever having to code and you can hire a developer when you need to for custom functions and stuff like that that you can’t get through plugins.

But you absolutely have to learn how to use WordPress. There are just no ifs, ands, or buts. You need to learn it if you want to build a profitable business. As much as that stinks, Squarespace, Weebly, Wix are just going to tie your hands too much and it’s really going to stunt your potential and your income potential more importantly, and how much traffic you can get – stuff like that – compared to WordPress.

So it’s going to be a little bit tougher but don’t worry. That’s what I’m here for. We’re going to go through it in the training; you’re going to get really deep and into the nitty-gritty; as time goes on, I’ll show you how to do all these things step-by-step on screen or with screenshots. So don’t freak out. It’s all going to be handed to you and you’re going to see it all step-by-step. And if you do get stuck, there’s a lot of information for WordPress online.

So that’s that. That’s why you have to use WordPress over anything else if you want to be profitable online.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to post them to the Facebook group – free for registered members. And I’ll see you there and I will also see you in the next video where we’ll talk about how to install WordPress on your domain within your hosting company. And I will see you there!

4.5 Linking Your Domain Name and Hosting Account

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Unlock it all by getting the tools your business needs to grow.

=====[/mepr-active] [/mepr-show]

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Helpful links from this video: https://stoppingscams.com/how-to-build-a-blog-from-scratch-a-comprehensive-guide/#connect-your-domain

In this video I discuss:

  • An explanation as to why this is necessary (and why it’s not for some viewers)
  • How to update nameservers for domains purchased separately from your hosting company

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

4.5 Transcript Below

Okay!

By the time you’re starting this video, you should have… as I mentioned at the end of Lesson 4.5… you should have your hosting secured and you should have your domain name registered. So if all of that’s set up, we’re ready to keep going.

So this I think is something that people are intimidated by because it can be easy to get lost but I’m going to show you step-by-step with screenshots how to do this here.

So basically, what we’re doing in this process is we’re tying your two islands together. You know, it’s kind of… again, an oversimplification… but you’ve got your domain name on one island, you’ve got your hosting on another island – we need to tie those two things together so that your browser can serve up the files to you from someone’s website when you go to their domain name. Because if they’re on two totally separate islands, nothing good’s going to happen.

So I do want to say again: skip this video if you just purchased your domain name through Bluehost. No worries. But for everyone else (I think the vast majority of people will have probably opted for NameCheap or GoDaddy) this will be really quick and painless. I promise.

So this is done – like I said – by updating our nameservers. It’s similar for all domain registrars that… you know, it’s kind of you have to click in different places to get to the settings but every domain registrar has a place where you can update nameservers. And it’s pretty easy to Google. Say, for example, for whatever reason you had hosting on HostGator and your domain was with GoDaddy. You could search ‘update GoDaddy nameservers to HostGator account’ and you’d find articles probably from HostGator and from GoDaddy directly that would walk you through that step-by-step.

The important thing is that you need to know your nameservers. It’s really simple for Bluehost because everyone has the same nameservers. But if you sign up with a company like HostGator, depending on… you know… what server you’re on in what region, you’re going to have different nameservers. So your nameservers may be ns288.hostgator.com and ns289.hostgator.com or they could be ns.1181 and ns.1182 or… yeah… ns1182.hostgator.com.

But anyways, that would be included. Your nameservers for most hosting companies (for most humping companies, my God!) for most hosting companies are going to be listed in that initial registration email that you received from your hosting company. But again, if not, it’s very easy to search and find out how you find your nameservers for your hosting account. But again, if you’re with Bluehost, it’s really simple. We all have the same nameservers.

So it’s easy: Google it. End of story. Because I’m going to show here NameCheap to Bluehost, if you have a different registrar or if you have a different hosting company, just Google it. You’ll find a good article or a good video on YouTube.

I also show how to do this in this particular link on https://stoppingscams.com/how-to-build-a-blog-from-scratch-a-comprehensive-guide/#connect-your-domain. It’s a long link so you would have to do a lot of typing. But on our article about How To Build A Blog From Scratch: A Comprehensive Guide, we talked about in there how to connect your domain name from NameCheap to Bluehost.

So I’m just going to show you how to do this in screenshots really quickly. The only reason I’m not going to do this one live is like you can see, I’ve blurred out my… you know… full name and any private domains that I don’t really want to share. Apologies, again. But it’s easier for me to do this way through screenshots if the process looks exactly like this. But if I do it live, then I have to go through and I have to blur the video and stuff. So it’s just easy blur screenshots than it is to blur videos. So I’m just going to show you how to do it in screenshots.

The screens would look exactly like this. Over time, this process may change a little bit – like if NameCheap changed the design of their website – the steps may be a little bit different but they’ll probably… even if they look slightly different… they’ll probably be the exact same steps, you may just have to go looking for them. And if they’re totally different, send me an email because it means I need to update this video. Okay? But it should be pretty self-explanatory overall.

The first thing is you need to log into your account and you need to get to the domains settings. So RueTattoo isn’t reflected here because I took these screenshots a few weeks ago for the article on stopping scams. So you would log into your account and then over here on the left-hand side, you would click ‘Domain List’ and that would take you to this page and it would kind of show you all of your different domains.

The PillPupper I’m okay sharing publicly because it’s just not anything anyone’s going to be able to replicate; it’s patented – all that stuff. So I’m not concerned about sharing this one in particular.

So what you want to do from there and once you click domain list, you see this screen, you want to hit ‘Manage’ for whatever domain name that you want to update the nameservers for. And the cool thing about this process is you don’t even have to log into Bluehost to do this. You know your nameservers already because the same thing for everyone on Bluehost. So as long as you know your nameservers, there’s no reason to log into your hosting account for this process.

So if you feel like, “Uh Ian, I never even logged into the hosting account.” That’s okay. That’s correct. It’s nothing to worry about.

So once you click ‘Manage’, you’ll be taken to this page and you’ll see this little section down here magically-named ‘Nameservers’ – that thing we’ve talked about over and over again. So you would just click right here, you would select ‘Custom DNS’ and then you’ll be able to put in ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com (and those are your nameservers if you’re hosting with Bluehost; they don’t have a bunch of different nameservers like other hosting companies do) so you would put those in there. That’s enough. You don’t need to hit ‘Add Nameserver’ or anything like that. That’s just going to add more lines. You just need to select ‘Custom DNS’, put in ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com, and then you need to click this little green checkmark and then they’ll kind of… you’ll see that it’s processing and it’ll say, okay change is saved – and that’s it! That’s how you update your nameservers.

And so now, you’ve tied those two islands together. You’ll possibly see a notification message too that says like, “Hey it could take up to 48 hours for nameservers to fully propagate.” In my experience, that’s not the case. It can happen and don’t freak out if it does. You can always contact NameCheap support or the support for your registrar if you’re concerned about it. But in my experience, it usually happens within a few minutes; it’s reflected within a few minutes. I’ve never had it really take more than a couple of hours and certainly never the full 48 hours they warned you about. So just know that. It’s probably not going to be instant, but they’ll probably propagate within the next few minutes – 15, 30 minutes at max. And if not, don’t freak out because it can take up to 48 hours.

Okay, so that’s it! That’s how you update your nameserver to tie your hosting and your domain together – at least for Bluehost and NameCheap. Again, if you have a different registrar or if you have a different hosting company, just Google it. You’ll find a YouTube video or you’ll find step-by-step documentation with screenshots from either your hosting company or your domain registrar as long as they’re fairly major, okay? So that’s that!

Now we are going to move on in to actually setting up the website, installing WordPress, and getting everything set up. So things are going to start getting really excited because if you feel like this is tangible output, within the next few lessons, you’re going to have a website with… you know… it’s going to be up and live and it’s going to have some content on it. That’ll be done by the end of Section 4 so we’re just a few videos away from that.

As always, if you have questions, feel free to post them to the Facebook group – that’s free for registered users – and I will see you there and I’ll see you in the next video.

4.4 Securing Hosting for Your Website

Thanks for stopping by and checking us out! If you like what you see, make sure to create a free account so that you can:

  • Track all of your progress and easily pick up exactly where you left off
  • Get support from me and other members whenever you get stuck using our members-only Facebook group
  • Secure your spot in a followup accountability course designed to assure you’re making progress

Or simply log in if you already have one.

=====

[mepr-show if=”loggedin”][mepr-active memberships=”2338,2509″ ifallowed=”hide”]Unlock more training for growing your online income — with the business tools you’ll need in the process.
PLUS, get:

  • Time-tested methods to get traffic fast with NO risk of getting Google-slapped.
  • The most profitable ways to make money—and exactly how and when to monetize.
  • Access to Ian’s expertise so that you can ask him questions every time you need to.

Unlock it all by getting the tools your business needs to grow.

=====[/mepr-active] [/mepr-show]

[mepr-show if=”loggedin”][mepr-active memberships=”2338,2342″ ifallowed=”hide”]Twice the results. Half the time. Would you be interested?
Be on the top 5% of online business owners who know how to maximize their online profits. Get new, actionable, and advanced training every month. Focused on more profits. 2X Faster.

WARNING: Goo-roo’s ain’t gonna like this

=====[/mepr-active] [/mepr-show]

Important links from this video:

(discounted affiliate link – these commissions fund FIMP)

FIMP Members enjoy some awesome, exclusive perks at Bluehost:

  • The lowest pricing for Bluehost possible: You can’t find FIMP’s discounted prices on Bluehost’s website without using the link above
  • Exclusive, frustration-free support guarantee: if you join Bluehost through FIMP and ever need help, you have exclusive support options to make sure you always get the help you need in a quick and pain-free fashion

Alternative hosting companies (other than my #1 recommendation listed above) can be found on the members-only Links & Resources page, but unfortunately Bluehost is the only provider specifically going above-and-beyond for FIMP members.

In this video I discuss:

  • The best place to host your websites
  • The value/cost balance necessary for early-stage website hosting
  • Brief explanation of shared hosting vs. VPS hosting vs. dedicated hosting
  • Why purchasing a plan with “unlimited” domains is essential for internet marketing entrepreneurs

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

4.4 Transcript Below

Okay, on to Lesson 4.4!

So you should have your domain name by now, and hopefully, you’ve registered it with your choice – unless your choice was the hosting company in which case you would combine both of those steps here: you would register as you paid for hosting; you would also pay for the domain name. Again, it’s not my preferred or recommended route but to each their own. Totally understand.

And so now we’re going to talk about where to secure your hosting for your website, what that means – all that stuff. You’ve probably heard it before. You may even have existing hosting but I encourage you to watch this video any way around it.

So Part 1 was getting the domain name. Part 2 is getting hosting. Those are the two essential components for owning a website online.

So in case you don’t know what hosting is, just really simply put: it’s your server. You’ve probably heard the term ‘server’ as well. It’s where your files are stored to deliver up to the people that visit your website. So when someone… again, an oversimplified explanation… but when someone types in RueTattoo.com, their browser pulls the files from my server and displays that to them. That’s what makes that my web page. Again, oversimplification – but that’s basically how it works.

So hosting is where your files are stored. It’s essential for having a website online. And there are a ton of different options. I’ve hosted with well over a dozen different companies over the years. I’ve hosted with every single one of the absolute best brands that’s out there and I’ve had varying experiences with each of them.

You know some of them I’ve had experiences that were bad enough to make me never register or never host my websites there again. I’ve also had some frustrating encounters – maybe live chat was a little bit too long – but based on the pricing and what I was paying for… you know… I couldn’t be too upset. I was upset at the time, but long term, it’s just the nature of shared hosting.

So in this video, we’re going to talk about my recommended host and that is Bluehost. And I mentioned this towards the beginning of the training – you know, one of the introductory videos – please use my link if you’re signing up for hosting. That is like the one point that Free Internet Marketing Project receives commissions and monetization consistently. So I would just ask that you please use my link. The link is StoppingScams.com/Bluehost. If for some reason that link isn’t working when you try to shoot me an email and I’ll give you the direct full code of the link. But that should work. StoppingScams.com/Bluehost.

And in my experience, you could Google… you could say, “Okay, should I host at Bluehost?” and you’re going to find a lot of people that are really upset. Because at the end of the day, that’s going to be true for HostGator, that’s going to be true for Bluehost, that’s going to be true for 1&1 Hosting, that’s going to be true for every low-cost shared host.

I have personally hosted with HostGator for years before I moved over to Bluehost. Just full disclosure: I just found the services and the support (the performance overall) to be much better with Bluehost than it was with any of the other kind of low cost shared hosting companies – which is why I recommend them. I personally think based on my experiences that they’re the best place for someone to start off hosting.

And just for full disclosure too, Bluehost pays anywhere from $65 for everyone that signs up. If I do a certain amount of volume, they pay me $125 per person. There are hosting companies that pay much better than that – much, much better than that. There are hosting companies that would pay me up to $200+ if I referred you to them but they’re going to be more expensive, they’re going to be lower quality.

And again, my priority is to put you in the best place, not to make as much money as possible. So I just put all that out on the table. I really hope you support the Free Internet Marketing Project by purchasing hosting through Bluehost using this link.

So the other thing to note is any shared host (whether it’s Bluehost or HostGator or anyone)… you keep hearing me use the term ‘shared host’ which… shared hosting means that you are sharing server space with a lot of other websites. You don’t have your own server. That would be a dedicated server where you are the only website on that server. And in between, there’s something called VPS which stands for ‘virtual private server’ – not to be confused with the VPN. That’s a very different thing that has nothing to do with hosting, typically speaking. But a VPS is a kind of an in-between. It’s a virtual dedicated server basically.

So there are other people on the server but you are allocated a specific amount of technical specifications like RAM and processor speed and memory. So right… this is again eyes glazing over, people are just falling asleep, and just like hitting keys on their keyboard trying to figure out how to make this stop. I understand that’s way more technical than most of you want to know, but I also want to throw it out there for the people that are curious at least at a high level.

So when I say ‘shared hosting’, it’s kind of the most basic level, the lowest cost hosting. You should hope to outgrow any shared host in time because when you get to a certain level of traffic and a certain amount of money per month, it’s just going to make sense for you to move on to at least a VPS (a virtual private server). It’s probably months, if not years down the road. Don’t worry about it right now. They’re more expensive and that’s why I don’t recommended them right off the bat. But you should hope to outgrow any shared host whether it’s Bluehost or HostGator or GoDaddy (if you hosted with them) but I find Bluehost and any shared host to be the absolute best value for when you’re getting started. And like I said, I find Bluehost to be the most dependable of those options.

The other thing is to make sure whatever host you’re going with, most of them will have a really low-priced tier that they advertise. They’re like, “It’s only $2.99 a year for hosting!” And then you look at it and you’re like, “Oh, that’s only for one domain name.” Again, as an internet marketer, you are probably going to run multiple websites in time so just spring for the unlimited domains right from the beginning.

I will also say full disclosure: I don’t say that because I get paid a bigger commission. I get paid the same commission whether you sign up for the one domain account or the unlimited domains account. I just say that from experience.

Technically, you could upgrade when you got to that point but I think it’s just easier to sign up for unlimited domains from the beginning because whether it’s you registering another domain two weeks from now and stating a different site, whether it’s abandoning the niche you’re working in and wanting to host another site two months from now, or whether you’re just expanding into multiple sites down the road… I think my main hosting account has something like fifteen domains on it (they’re all different sites that I run or have run in the past)… so long story short, make sure to buy the unlimited domains option.

Okay so we’re going to hop in and look at this. Again, just like domain registration… I haven’t finished checking out like I said I would but I actually will after this video because we’ll need it for the next video.

I want to come in here and I’m going to… you know… go to StoppingScams.com/Bluehost… and of course, it auto filled my Bluehost review of the URL… so that would take me to Bluehost through my affiliate link. Again, thank you so much if you go through the effort of doing that. You don’t have to. You’re going to pay the same amount either way and one way I get supported and another way I don’t. So I appreciate it if you do that. But you can see here they say, “Oh, starting at $3.95 a month.” That’s going to be the single domain option.

So the only thing I want to point out is really call your attention to the different hosting tiers I talked about.

So with the Basic hosting tier, you’re going to get one website, you’re going to get one domain that you can host. With the Plus tier, you’re going to get unlimited websites. And yeah, there’s all these extra stuff, too. You technically get an included domain.

Personally, again, I would still register it in NameCheap. I’m not even commissioned on those NameCheap purchases. I just say that because they’re going to give you that included domain for the first year, and then the next year, it’s going to build at $25 and every year thereafter – and you’re going to lose in the long run.

But if you want to take advantage of that free domain, the totally go for it. Just know that your costs are going to be higher in the coming years. So you know, you could go up to the next year. I don’t see any reason to. I don’t know why I’m… I don’t see the difference here. Okay, one spam experts, one domain privacy. I see. So even domain privacy wouldn’t be included here which their cost for domain privacy would pay for the first year with NameCheap anyways.

So the only thing I really want to show here is make sure you select the option with unlimited websites. So I would say RueTattoo.com. You would put in whatever domain name you registered and then you would come in and you would just fill up and just checkout anything else. You can uncheck Site Backup Pro (it’s just an upsell), uncheck Site Lock Security. These may change over time and don’t be too terrified of this price because that’s going to change here in a second, too. But they’re just checking those as upsells by default. Again, just like anything else, just like hosting, keep an eye out for those upsells and uncheck them.

And if you’re strapped for cash… again, I mentioned earlier on you’re going to need somewhere between $150 to $200 to get your business started up. The main chunk of that is hosting. So if you pay for more – you know, if you do 36 months; if you do 24 months – you’re going to get a bigger discount. But I am totally conscious of your pains as someone… a lot of you are trying to get a business started for as little money as possible so I just bumped this down to the lowest price for… or excuse me, the lowest term… which is the overall lowest total which is 12 months.

And you just want to make sure to uncheck any upsells because they very clearly add to your total down here. So just uncheck those and then you would input your information.

What it’s going to look like from here… again, I’m not going to checkout onscreen largely because I already own several Bluehost hosting accounts and I’ll use one of those to walk you through what we need to do later. But what’s going to happen is you’re going to get an immediate confirmation after you checkout and in your inbox you’ll see that. And once your hosting is set up for that account, you’ll receive another email that contains all kinds of information. You want to print that out, you want to star it, you want to keep track of that email because it contains some really important information that you may need down the road as long as you’re hosted with Bluehost. So potentially, you may need that email eight years from now if you stayed with Bluehost for a really long time.

So anyways, you would checkout for hosting. And at this point, by the end of this video before you move on the next one, you should have your domain name, you should have secured hosting with Bluehost or already have hosting somewhere else. And in the next video, we’re going to talk about how to link your domain registrar – wherever you registered your domain – to your hosting account at Bluehost.

And of course, if you bought your domain at Bluehost through this process – you know you’re going to pay a little bit extra over time, whatever – you can skip the next video. But anyone that registered a domain at GoDaddy or NameCheap or anywhere else and has hosting somewhere else, you’re going to need to watch the next video because I’m going to show you how to update those name servers. And it’s much quicker and more painless than it sounds. I promise.

If you have any questions, as always, please feel free to post them to the Facebook group – free for registered members.

For anyone that does end up buying through my affiliate link for Bluehost, go ahead and shoot me an email, forward me your receipt, and I have a nifty little bonus – kind of a really detailed reference guide for all of the kind of common problems and encounters and things that people need help with frequently when they’re setting up hosting and stuff like that. So forward me your receipt if you bought through my affiliate link and I will make sure to follow up with you and send you that bonus.

Otherwise… deep breath… we will get into the technical stuff now and I will show you how to update your name servers, connect your domain to your hosting, alright? I’ll see you in the next video.

4.3 The Best Place to Register Your Domain Names

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Please use my NameCheap affiliate link when registering a domain name if you’d like to help support FIMP. These commissions aren’t very big, but every bit helps!

In this video I discuss:

  • The best place to register your domain names based on convenience, short-term cost, and long-term cost
  • An overview of the process of buying a domain name

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

4.3 Transcript Below

Okay!

I just want to follow up on this video or on last lesson really quickly, and because I did, I took a little while. I probably would have taken more time if I weren’t in the middle of recording training and I didn’t want to keep going. But at the end of the day – again – I can rank for anything with really high-quality content if I decide to pursue this niche so I just decided… you know… I’m finally going to choose one of these.

So I’ve tried all kinds of things. I tried ByeByeTattoo. I looked at Lean Domain Search and NameMesh and all the tools we just looked at. And then eventually, I had some ideas I kind of liked like TattooRegrets.com – but that was taken. Of course, you know… things like ThinkBeforeYouInk and BeforeYouInk – ideas I was attached to before – those weren’t available. And so ultimately, I found a handful of… I think all of these would have been good options.

TheDisappearingTattoo.com I thought would have been good or DisappearingTattoo.com – I didn’t check if that one was available but I just felt like ‘disappearing’… something you get used to in this industry is people in your target audience on the whole are probably not as smart as you generally give people credit for… and I was kind of concerned that people would get lost in typing TheDisappearingTattoo and so I just didn’t do that one.

TattooRemovalWeb.com was on that kind of includes the exact match keyword. It’s not as brandable as I’d like it to be, but I found that one just straight through Lean Domain Search. I liked that one. That one would have been very good actually. Nothing wrong with that. Also, TattooRemovalJournal.com was really good because if I do build out this site eventually, it will be about my personal experiences with images from my tattoo removal process and everything like that.

But ultimately, what I decided on when I was looking at TattooRegrets, I went over to Google and I said, “Okay, what are synonyms for ‘regret’?” and one of the words was ‘rue’ like, “You will rue the day.” R-U-E.

And I understand… yes, there is potential for misspelling there. You know again, it doesn’t check all of the boxes; but it’s short, it contains a root keyword, and I really like kind of the double and triple meaning. Like of course, ‘rue’ is also the French for ‘street’… so you know technically, this is TattooStreet.com… So I like the fact that it kind of has a good rhythm to it: RueTattoo… and then of course, the fact that it means ‘regret tattoo’.

So ultimately, I think that’s the one I’m going to run with. So I’ll register that some other time off camera but I want to give you a quick kind of rundown of the steps I just went through and kind of the lens I evaluated these things through before I came to my conclusion. With that being said, let’s jump into Lesson 4.3 and we’re going to talk about the best place to register your domain names.

As I mentioned, it’s a lot more complex than most people think. It’s not as simple as “Oh go register here.” It can be like I could just phone it in and be like go register your domains at NameCheap or register your domains through your hosting company. But for me, that’s a disservice to you because there’s more to it than that.

So the three options I’m going to talk about here are registering your domain through your hosting company, registering a domain through GoDaddy (which is probably the most well-known brand for domain registration), and then also NameCheap (which some of you may have heard of; other people may not have). So I’m going to talk about these three major options.

There are a ton… there are dozens, if not hundreds of domain registrars out there (I’m not going to compare them all) but in my experience, these are the three that I’ve used over the years and I think these are the three most common in the internet marketing community.

So there are advantages to each of them. The main difference is cost. One thing that I want to emphasize is – you may or may not know this – if you register a domain name and you don’t pay for domain privacy, you open all of your registration information to the public. All of that information is public. So someone can search RueTattoo.com if I’ve registered it and I haven’t paid for domain privacy. They can find my address, they can find my phone number, they can find my email, and they can find my full name.

Personally, that’s not something I’m too comfortable with. I don’t think it’s something most people would be comfortable with. So always purchase domain privacy. And that’s included in all of the pricing we’re going to discuss here and it’s one of the things that really shifts the conversation from one registrar to another and makes one much more advantageous than the others in my opinion.

So if you want the absolute easiest option, the best thing to do would be register your domain with your hosting company. The reason I say that is because there’s a technical step in between that I’m going to teach very clearly and it’s going to be very easy to follow which is called ‘updating your name servers’. If you register your domain with a registrar that is not your hosting company, you have to connect the two. I’ve got a lesson for it coming up. Don’t worry about it. Don’t panic. It sounds really technical and scary. It’s actually a really simple thing. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing or why it’s happening technically, it’s a very easy thing to do. And so, you’ll just have to follow the clicks that I make on screen and it won’t be an issue.

But if you register your domain with your hosting company, you eliminate that step because your hosting company is now your domain registrar. They know your name servers are theirs so you don’t have to connect the two. They’re both in the same place. But the disadvantage is that’s going to cost a little bit more. That’s going to cost about an extra $10 or $12 a year. The cheapest option but it is the most convenient without a doubt. The easiest $10 a year I know.

For some people watching the video, it may be like, “Oh it’s just $10 a year.” For a lot of people too, it may be like, “Man, $10 a year!” For some people, that’s actually quite a significant amount of money when we’re talking about startup costs.

And the thing I really want to call your attention to is as an internet marketer, you will probably own a lot of domains in time if you stick with this. I don’t even know how many domains I have. I know there are a lot of internet marketers… I’m not this extreme… but a lot of them own hundreds.

And so if you’re talking about a $10 difference times 10, that’s $100 a year. If you’re talking about a $10 difference times 100, that’s $1000 a year. Just for no real value add because you wanted to cut out a technical step.

So personally, I don’t recommend this option especially because in the training in the next lesson, I’m going to talk to you about how to tie the… not next lesson but this is 4.3… so 4.5 is about how to connect your domain name and your hosting company. Super easy. So I don’t recommend this option personally. You just don’t have anything to be afraid of.

The next option to discuss would be GoDaddy. I think a lot of people default to GoDaddy because they have some really good upfront pricing and they run some incredible promotions and so a lot of people tend to end up at GoDaddy because they could find a domain for $1 for the first year or $3 for the first year of a .com domain plus privacy.

And the problem with GoDaddy is they’re going to make their money back somewhere, right? They can’t just afford to take a loss always. So what’s going to happen is you’re going to get that really special promotional pricing for the first year; and then the next year – if you’re talking about a .com domain plus renewal fees – it’s going to be somewhere around $25 and it’s been going up over the years so depending… it could get up to $28, $30 per year. And for me, it’s just not a big enough value add.

You get the best deal in the short term so this year your domain may cost you a $1.08 after fees – I think it’s like $1.17 – or it may cost you like $3 including domain privacy. But every year after that, it’s going to be rebuilt at $25. And again, for one domain, not that big of a deal. For 10 domains, a little bit bigger. For 100 domains (if you end up having a pretty large domain portfolio because you just kind of find a domain you like and you’re, “Yeah, I’m going to register that.” It’s fun – a lot of people end up doing that) GoDaddy nor hosting company are going to be the best option because they’re going to be expensive… the most expensive… I shouldn’t say the most expensive but more expensive than NameCheap.

If you want the cheapest option long-term, as in the longest… you know, outside of talking about kind of bulk wholesale suppliers that you have to like pay an upfront fee with and stuff like that… the best mainstream, easy, approachable option is NameCheap.

So the first year, your domain privacy is included for free. And then this is where their big difference is: they only charge $3 for it for every year thereafter; whereas, GoDaddy charges like $10+ and the hosting company typically charges somewhere between $10 and $12 just for privacy alone.

And on top of that, NameCheap’s baseline pricing is also cheaper; whereas, GoDaddy charges about $15 for a dot-com domain per year at the full non-promotional price. The hosting company charges around the same. Some of them go up to $16, $18 or north of that. NameCheap typically starts somewhere around $10 or $11 especially if you have a coupon code for the first year.

So yeah, that’s that. My personal choice – in case you can’t tell – is NameCheap. I think I actually said it so I kind of ruined the punch line there.

So I want to take a quick look at how to do this. The process varies slightly from registrar to registrar but it largely remains the same. The steps are going to look very, very similar. It’s basically going to be find a coupon code using Google, and put the domain you want to register, purchase it, and then you wait sometimes an hour or two until the domain registration is fully-processed.

What I will say is don’t buy hosting through your domain registrar (obviously with the exception of people that are choosing the first path where you register your domain through your hosting company). It’s just not usually as good of hosting and it’s also more expensive typically and the support isn’t as good a lot of the time. We’re going to talk about hosting in the next video and my recommendations there. But for now, my recommendation – very strong one – is do not buy hosting through that just because you’re buying a domain with that registrar. There’s just not any reason to do that when there are much better hosting companies out there that are around the same price or cheaper and specialize in hosting rather than specializing in being a domain registrar.

So a quick walk through of how to get domains as cheaply as possible through GoDaddy and NameCheap. (So again, I’m getting way to too close to the camera, kind of cut off the top of my head.) So let’s look through here. So let’s get over into NameCheap. As you can see, I’ve already searched. I’m going back to the home page and start from the beginning though.

And actually, the first step would be find a discount code. So I’m just going to go ‘NameCheap discount codes’. NameCheap typically has their own page like you can see right here it’s on the NameCheap.com domain. So I can click here and I can see ‘Discounted Registration and Transfer’. DOGDAY8 is their current discount code. It’s not huge… but, you know… it’s worth a quick search. It’s worth a quick Google search.

The same thing, you could search something like this or ‘GoDaddy discount’ alone would probably pop it up and you’ll see here GoDaddy discount $0.99 domain names and more.

So I could type in RueTattoo.com, search for it, and you can see I would get $0.99 first year pricing on this. But again, if I add this to cart and I went through checkout, I think I have to sign in and go through checkout which I don’t.

So you can see privacy protection here is going to be an extra $8 per year and it’s going to renew at $10 per year. So, you know now… I’m going to pay $9 today but next year I’m going to pay $25 plus taxes and fees; whereas with NameCheap, I’m going to pay… what is it? What’s our current discount? $9.66 plus $0.18 and privacy is free for the first year, and then next year, it’s going to renew at $14 instead of $25 – which is why I register all my domains with NameCheap.

So next lesson, we’re going to talk about securing hosting. I want to… let’s see here really quickly… there’s linking… okay. So yeah, linking your domain name and hosting is what I’m actually going to walk you through step-by-step because it’s kind of intense. It can be kind of intense if you’ve never done it before. It’s really simple overall but there’s not much more to talk about.

I could checkout on camera and – I’m sure to the joy of many people – put my credit card information online. But I’m not going to do it. There’s just no reason to. I’m not going to register a domain live.

It’s just really, really simple basically. So we’ll go back to the domain search. I’ll put RueTattoo.com. I can search and then – if it’s going to search – I can come down here and I can say I want to add this to cart, I want to view cart, and then I would have to sign in to checkout, of course. I went too quickly and it didn’t get added to the cart.

So again, there’s just not much sense to me going through this. Basically in checkout, ta-dah, promo code, I apply DOGDAY8. Okay, I need to log in before it’s going to apply the promo code accurately. So again, I’ll do that off camera. I don’t want to share my username and log in to my account and share all domains on camera. I’m sorry, no offense. But you can see WhoisGuard available for free.

GoDaddy is actually a little bit more complex of a process. The thing you need to watch out for with GoDaddy is they’re going to try to hit you with upsell after upsell after upsell after upsell. Their checkout process is a horrible user experience. NameCheap is going to try and hit you… so they’re not going to try and hit you with some upsells… they’re going to offer you like hosting too, but it’s much more subtle and less in-your-face and annoying than GoDaddy.

The important thing to note… you know… like I said, I’m not going to do it on camera… but the important thing to note as you go through this process, it’s just like buying anything else online. You just need to watch the upsells to make sure you don’t accidentally purchase hosting or you don’t accidentally purchase an upsell that you had no interest in or no use for.

So with GoDaddy, your promotional pricing should stay pretty much unaffected on your final page of checkout with the exception of a few cents for fees. And the same thing for NameCheap. Just make sure you pay attention to the price on the final page of checkout before you confirm to make sure you haven’t accidentally added any upsells. That’s the only thing I can think to advise you on that’s noteworthy in the checkout process.

Other than that, I’m going ahead and buy this domain off-camera and I will see you in the next video where we’re going to talk about securing hosting and what that means and what the best options are for that.

So if you have any questions, as always, feel free to post them in the Facebook group – free for registered members. And other than that, I will see you in the next video.

4.2 The Anatomy of a Perfect Domain Name

Thanks for stopping by and checking us out! If you like what you see, make sure to create a free account so that you can:

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Or simply log in if you already have one.

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[mepr-show if=”loggedin”][mepr-active memberships=”2338,2509″ ifallowed=”hide”]Unlock more training for growing your online income — with the business tools you’ll need in the process.
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Unlock it all by getting the tools your business needs to grow.

=====[/mepr-active] [/mepr-show]

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Be on the top 5% of online business owners who know how to maximize their online profits. Get new, actionable, and advanced training every month. Focused on more profits. 2X Faster.

WARNING: Goo-roo’s ain’t gonna like this

=====[/mepr-active] [/mepr-show]

Helpful links from this video:

In this video I discuss:

  • How long it takes to find a good domain name
  • Exact match domains (EMDs) vs. non-EMDs
  • What makes a good domain?
  • Helpful free tools for picking a domain name

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

4.2 Transcript Below

Okay! Now that we’ve got all of that out of the way, let’s talk about your domain name. I think a lot of people will get tied up on this (again, just like everything else we’ve covered) and it can actually be broken down into a really simple set kind of rules so that’s what we’re going to talk about in this section and how to find a domain name, et cetera.

So the anatomy of a perfect domain name.

This process is more time-consuming than most people think. I think a lot of people jump into this and they can’t find a domain name within 30 minutes or an hour and they think it’s peculiar; they think it’s a bad sign and they’re alarmed by it. That’s perfectly normal. It’s perfectly normal for the process of finding a really good domain name to take one to four hours or more. You may end up doing it for six or eight hours over the course of two or three days. That’s perfectly normal.

So don’t feel like this is something you might just like hop on and be done in 10 minutes. I guess it’s possible, but there are some check boxes that we’re going to talk about in this video that you really want to make sure you check for a domain name and it takes time – especially in somewhat saturated niches – to find a really good domain name. But we’re going to look at some tools that helps with that, too. A lot. That help a lot.

So an important thing to note because I get this question sometimes: you cannot change a domain name later. You could build a different website on a different domain or you could transfer your website, have a… it’s kind of a technical thing so unless you’re technically inclined, you probably have a developer transfer your website from one domain to another. But it’s really not something you want to do. There’s a very particular way to do it correctly and it’s a difficult and technically challenging thing. So if at all possible, you want to get it right the first time.

So another thing worth noting – just like picking a niche – is not to fall into that ‘analysis paralysis’. It can be easy to fall into that, because you know again, we’re talking about a lot of different kind of things you really want to see in the ideal domain name. But at the end of the day, you’re not going to find one absolutely perfect; you’re going to do the best you can and hopefully you get something really, really good. You should get something really, really good if you follow the training and use the free tools that I’m going to point you to in this training.

So hey, I think it’s important… I can see a lot of people going, “Hey Ian, ‘to find good’ – what does that mean?” So let’s talk about some really clear and tangible guidelines for what makes a domain good, okay?

Old-school training is what’s referred to as an EMD which stands for ‘exact match domain’. If you search Google… like if you search the term ‘Google exact match domain’… like four words ‘Google exact match domain’ on Google, you will find articles where Google de-emphasized the importance of an exact match domain.

I want to pause here really quickly because if you’re more technically-inclined and very advanced – which I know the majority of the people watching these videos won’t be and that’s perfectly fine – someone might say, “Oh…” well someone I saw even recently in training said exact match domains are really good. And they can be. There’s a technical advantage that would be way, way, way too overwhelming to explain at this point because it has to do with off-page search engine optimization and search engine algorithms and what’s referred to as ‘anchor text’ which is the links or the text that is used in a link. Like if you see someone put ‘Click Here’ and that’s what they used to link to a site, the anchor text is ‘Click Here’.

So technically speaking, exact match domains are likely to get more links that contain their search phrase that they’re trying to rank for because it’s the name of their domain. And that can also insulate you, give you a little bit more cushion to not be penalized by Google. And right now I bet 90% of people watching this video are going… like your eyes are just glazing over… and that’s why I say don’t even worry about that because when Google de-emphasized the importance of an exact match domain, it definitely helped level the playing field some. And at the end of the day, if you create value, it doesn’t matter what keywords are or are not in your domain name. It doesn’t matter what your domain name is. It’s going to get ranked with or without the keyword in the domain name. So that’s the important thing to remember.

But the old-school training in internet marketing… if you see anything even from a couple of years ago… maybe even as early as a year ago and especially five years ago plus… you know, three to five years back… everyone was saying, “Okay, you want to find your main keyword that you want to target and you want to buy the exact domain that matches that.” And that’s why you see a lot of things like MensSupplements.com or MyMensSupplementsHelp.com, like these really crappy domain names because they were just trying to get their keyword into the domain name and you don’t have to worry about that stuff as much anymore.

So if that’s what you’ve been taught in the past, I give you total permission to just kind of chuck that in the trash and move on because there’s better more up-to-date training and that’s what you’re going to learn here.

As I mentioned, new-school present day, there’s a lot more flexibility for branding based on the more level playing field due to exact match domains being de-emphasized by Google. So let’s talk about the anatomy of a perfect domain or as perfect of a domain as you can possibly get.

Absolutely hands-down, .com if you can get it. .net and .org technically are also okay – they rank just as well. My problem with .net and .org are if I go to a website once and I pay attention to the brand name and I catch the brand name… say for example, StoppingScams.com… if I want to go back to that site I’m like, “Oh yeah, I saw this thing on Stopping Scams the other day…” and I’m going to put in Stoppingscams.com first. So if I had the domain StoppingScams.net or StoppingScams.org, that visitor would have trouble finding me. Maybe they can find me in Google if they search, but the top of mind as far as domains go is always – world-wide – .com. Flat out. And that’s why personally, I never register domain names that are not .com – at least, domain names that I’m trying to rank and make money with.

There’s some more advance training that I’d like to get into teaching at some point. I’ve dabbled with things like PBNs and private blog networks to make sure I’m up to date in the community so I’ve experimented with some things… you know, some properties I do not touch with PBNs because I don’t want to get them penalized… but other things I think it’s important to keep yourself up to date with all the skills in internet marketing.

So in that case, I have purchased .orgs and .nets but those aren’t to rank and make money with. Those are to use… you know, to leverage and to build ranking for other sites, which again, is so far beyond the level we’re at right now that is PBNs. To do them correctly are so technically demanding they require so much knowledge. So don’t even worry about that right now. If you’ve heard PBNs and you’re like, “I want to get into that!” If you’re still learning to build a website and you’ve never had a profitable internet business and you don’t even know the basics of on-page/off-page SEO, I would not venture into PBNs right off the bat because there’s so much foundational knowledge you need to build between here and there.

And I hope to teach PBNs at some point as well, but for now, just again taking us back to the present moment… .com if you can get it and just know .org and .net are okay if you’re okay with them. But also, I want to share my personal standard: I keep searching until I find a .com always. If I’m trying to make money with a site, if I’m trying to build a brand through a website, I am going to find a .com even if it’s not the most desirable brands because that .com was taken and I have to come up with another brand, I will sacrifice that for a .com rather than going .net or .org. So keep that in mind.

A really important note here is I just very specifically mentioned .com, .net, .org intentionally. Do not use other domains. Do not use other what are referred to as TLDs (top-level domains) even… .com, .net, .org are the ones you should use.

Particularly, do not use like .co, .nz, or .com.uk, .co.uk – anything like that. Regionally-specific is going to severely inhibit your ability to rank worldwide and one of the beauties of an internet business is that you can rank and talk to people all around the world and make money from people all around the world as website traffic. And if you choose a regionally-specific domain, you limit that ability.

So again, if you’re going to venture out of .com, only venture into .net and .org. Don’t consider anything else, okay?

And you may be going, “Oh, but I’ve seen .infos rank!” It’s true, they rank just like… again, as a general rule of thumb, you can find contradictions to some of the things I’m saying but I’m absolutely giving you the best practices and I strongly recommend staying within those.

So the second component of a perfect – again, as close as you can get to perfect domain – is for it to be memorable, brandable (those typically go hand-in-hand) and easy to spell.

A lot of the times, you’ll see these days someone like drop a letter and sometimes you sacrifice one for the other. For example, Tumblr is a huge website and they’re not spelled correctly. It’s T-U-M-B-L-R. So they dropped the E. And it became a huge website. So that’s totally possible; but at the same time, is that level of success likely for everyone that launches a website? Definitely not. So you have to factor those things in.

So the more memorable and brandable it is and the easier to spell it is, the better. And also, the shorter, the better. I wouldn’t say there’s any hard rule… you know, I run the website PinTurningTexan.com, I have a VirtualRealityGinger.com – are both niche sites that I’ve profited from in the past and those are both pretty long domains all things considered. I’ve even had longer ones in the past way back in the day. So I would say priority over shorter. If you can find something that’s more brandable and memorable and it’s easy to spell but it’s a little bit longer, I say personally, go for it.

But you want to keep it as short as possible. You don’t want it to get out of hand. Just use your best judgment. There are no hard and fast rules like “Don’t exceed 15 characters”. It just doesn’t work that way. Just use your best judgment, be smart about it, and just know the shorter you can keep it, the better. I really would not try to make it more than two or three words if at all possible.

And the other thing to note is if you can include a root key word in your domain or brand, go for it. Do it. So an example of a root keyword would be… it’s a spin-off of an exact match domain so if your niche was ‘men’s supplements’, you may try to get ‘supplements’ and you may not need to get all of ‘men’s supplements’ in your domain name but you may try to get ‘men’s’ or ‘supplements’… you know, kind of root chunks of your keyword that are going to apply across a lot of the keywords and a lot of the articles you write over time. That’s awesome.

And if this just kinds of confuses you, you can just throw it out the window because these are kind of – again – in order of importance so .com is the most important. Memorable, brandable, and easy to spell is the next most important. The shorter the better is the next most important. And then if you can’t get a root keyword in it then fine. Like Stopping Scams ranks for a ton of keywords that have nothing to do with scams and they don’t have the word ‘scam’ in them. So you can absolutely rank for keywords either way – for search terms either way – so I wouldn’t emphasize this too much but if you find it kind of convenient, you can kind of stick it in there and sneak it in there. Perfect. Like that’s awesome.

It may help you with a little bit more of ranking power, but at the end of the day, it’s not going to do your business in just because you didn’t get a root keyword in there.

So I want to mention and then I want to show you really quickly a handful of really helpful tools. My absolute favorite is LeanDomainSearch.com. I’ll show you what that looks like. There are also a couple of potentially helpful tools that I’ll take a look at from time to time if I’m not finding what I need from Lean Domain Search. NameMesh is really good and so is Nameboy.com.

Typically, what I’m doing with these tools… occasionally I’ll find something that’s really good. I’m like I’m going to register that domain name. End of story. And it works out really well that way but it doesn’t always play out that way. I would say more often, what happens is looking at all of these ideas make me think, “Oh! I wonder about this. I like this one. It’s similar to that but not quite. But I like it. I think it’s really brandable.”

So you can use any domain registrar to check other ideas that rattle loose. A domain registrar is like GoDaddy.com, Namecheap.com – Google even has a service where you can register domains. And so you don’t have to obviously… you don’t have to buy everything you search.

And I’ve heard people have this ‘conspiracy theory’ that the moment you search on GoDaddy, a timer starts running and it’s only going to be available for so long. That’s not true at all. I’ve searched stuff on GoDaddy like years… like a year or months before I’ve registered it and then I finally get around registering and it’s still available.

So don’t feel like just because you’re putting it into a system, now some magical timer starts and someone can see and they’re going to register it before you. It doesn’t work that way, okay?

So as you go through these tools, you can pull up any other registrar. We’ll talk about which one is best to use in a coming lesson, but for now, you can use any of them – GoDaddy, NameCheap, anybody – to check those extra ideas that rattle loose. Because for me personally, those are typically the best ideas. Even though I’m using these tools to kind of stir up ideas, the best ones aren’t listed on these tools themselves.

An important thing to keep in mind, again, to aid with avoiding analysis paralysis is that there is no 100% perfect domain. There are going to be sacrifices one way or another: you may not get a root keyword in there; it may be kind of long. It may even… for some of you… if you’re okay making that sacrifice not be a .com. Again, that’s not something that I do but plenty of people do it with great success. So just keep that in mind. Like you want to get the stars aligned as closely as you can but you may not line them all up perfectly and it’s okay. That’s okay. It’s good. You need to be okay with that if that’s what happens.

So we’re going to talk about registration options in the next video and specifically talk about where you should register your domains because it’s not as straightforward as ‘Register Your Domains Here’. There are different advantages and disadvantages to each one (I’m going to talk about three different paths specifically) and that’s going to be in the next video. There’s more to it than a lot of people think. But for now, we’re going to hop into a couple of these tools and take a look at them and what they look like in person… right? Live.

So let’s hop over here and let’s take a look at this. So I’m going to go to Lean Domain Search… also like change my… (Oop! There’s the top of my green screen! Spoiler alert! Okay. So I’ll just sit further back from my computer so I’m not just like here the whole time because probably like that was a way too close. Sorry about that.)

So Lean Domain Search is my personal favorite. I really like it and I’ll show you why.

So let’s say for example… I think I’m still trying to decide between tattoo removal and dachshund discectomy – which of those niches I’m going to build out. I probably won’t build out fully; most of this is just for training purposes. But those are both niches I’ve thought about pursuing in the past and I think I might pursue. We’ll see. But at the end of the day, let’s just run with one.

So let’s just say, ‘tattoo’. You can also include ‘multiple’ here. I think you can include ‘removal’ as well. And you have all of these different ways to sort. This is why I love Lean Domain Search. You know, you can sort by Popularity; you can sort by Length (so if you sort by length now you’re going to see all of the shorter ones first); you can sort by Alphabetical; and you can also sort by Starts with Search Term or Ends with Search Term.

So I searched this specifically as a tattoo removal niche site. I can’t remember if Lean Domain Search does both… Yeah, so they do. They definitely do. So you can see they just kind of merge them together but you still have them adding prefixes and adding suffixes to kind of give you a mix and you can just like… this list just runs and runs and runs and I just see here and I go through some of these and I go, “Okay which one?” Like, “Okay.”

The domain that came to mind… One day I was thinking about… I was like, “I’m going to register that if it’s available – even if I don’t build the site out yet, I’m going to register that,” was ThinkBeforeYouInk.com. Just really brandable in my opinion. I think it would’ve been fun to build. It’s not available. And BeforeYouInk even was not available so it’s like okay, I’m going to have to find something else.

So you can see… like you go through and there are just all these great suggestions. A lot of them. Like I just saw one it was TattooRemovalResearch. And all these ones that are lit up green? These are all available. And I believe they are all available as .coms. So pretty handy, right?

And I could also just like put in plain ‘dachshund’ and so… you know, all kinds of… I wouldn’t make anything as a domain name DachshundDiscectomy whatever. Because again, that would not be easy for most people to spell. And even if they’re like, “Oh yeah, I can spell that.” Most people can spell it. Like how memorable is it, right? I’d rather be brandable than be an exact match domain in today’s search climate.

Interesting… DachshundMagazine.com is available… I find that kind of funny. So you just get all of these great suggestions and these are all available. And yeah, they’re all .coms. DachshundMagazine.com… that’s crazy that’s available. It probably won’t be after people watch it up in this video.

So I want to pull you over into another one. Let’s get in here to NameMesh. Go to page.

Alright. So again, this one I don’t find quite as helpful but it does have its uses. You can put in one word; you can put in two words. I also typed in ‘removal’.

Okay, so now… you know, if you have all different kinds of categories like none of these are going to be… again, a lot of these aren’t going to be .com, .net, .org… so we just wouldn’t consider any of these.

And same thing with these. Like they’re just playing around with the words I input and using top-level domains or domain endings to play into that keyword – and I just wouldn’t look at them.

In fun, you see they’ve kind of cut out characters. Again for me, personally, nobody’s going to remember this crap. Tttrmvl.com. Like yeah, oh I’m sure.

And even I think what’s most likely to happen with a domain like this is someone misreads it, they think it says TattooRemoval.com and the next time they try to come back to your site, they end up going to one of your competitors. So I wouldn’t even look at those.

And you see an SEO category. So you can play around with this one, too. It can be helpful to stir up ideas. I have found it helpful in the past but not always – I’ll just emphasize ‘not always’. But by far, Lean Domain Search is my favorite of these two.

So let’s get back in here… the keynote… and we’ll go to Nameboy.com. So Nameboy, you can actually enter them in different spaces and you can see that this kind of allow hyphens. I think I may have skipped that over in my training. I thought I mentioned it somewhere. I did not.

So another side note is I personally would recommend not using hyphens in your domain name. Maybe using one, but even that… like again, for me it’s a hard rule. Personally, I’m only going to use .coms. I am not going to put hyphens in my domain name. A lot of the times they’re just associated with lower quality websites. So I won’t click ‘Allow hyphens’ here and I’ll hit ‘go nameboy go’. And kind of like Lean Domain Search, it’s going to pop up a bunch of different combinations. This is an interesting mix between Lean Domain Search and NameMesh. Kind of some middle ground.

I think they even have a tool on Nameboy… No. There are tools out there too, where you can put in your own custom prefixes and your own custom suffixes and kind of just throw in the root keyword you want to work around and they’ll make suggestions. But I can’t remember which one that is. You can just also – in addition to these – Google free domain research tools or domain suggestion tools and you’ll find all kinds of other stuff.

I’ve just found personally over time… especially Lean Domain Search has been a go-to for me especially for stirring up ideas. And like I said, there have been times I’ve just been like, “Oh! DachshundMagazine… I’m buying that!”

So that’s the end of this lesson, we’re going to tie it up here. In the next lesson – like I said – we’re going to talk about the kind of differences between the major registrar options, what the pros and cons are, and basically it all comes down to cost and what your tolerance is there. And so I’ll talk to you about the cheapest option, the most convenient option, et cetera.

So that’s in the next lesson. I’m going to play around here for a little bit and find a domain that I can kind of use as an example as we continue throughout this section and I will see you all in the next video.

4.1 Winter Is Coming — Preparing for Website Setup and Design

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WARNING: Goo-roo’s ain’t gonna like this

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In this video I discuss:

  • This is where the difficulty really begins for most people, but why that shouldn’t matter
  • A reminder of why all of this will ultimately be worth it
  • The mentality you need to weather this industry and succeed

Please direct all questions and requests for support to the FIMP Facebook group (free for registered members).

4.1 Transcript Below

Hey there! Long time, no see!

Once again, another day, another section. It’s time to get in and we’re talking about website building now. So we’re getting into some pretty serious stuff. This is kind of the very tangible and noticeable starting point for your business – like its birthday.

As soon as you get a website up, it all becomes very real. It can be a very challenging thing, but as always, I’m going to make very clear what you should expect. I’m going to do my best to help you temper a mentality that is going to set you up for success very well as you encounter some of these challenges. And most importantly, I’m going to put together some training. I’ve already put together some training that we’re going to go through together that I think sets you up for success better than anything else on the internet talking about this stuff.

So with all of that being said, I named this first lesson in this section “Winter Is Coming” which of course anybody from Game of Thrones will get… anybody that’s an actor in Game of Thrones will get that… anybody that’s a fan of Game of Thrones will get that. For the rest of you, it just basically means prepare for battle like things are about to get hard potentially and I’m about to equip you with everything you need to go into that battle. So don’t freak out. We’re going to start off by talking a little bit about what to expect and we’ll go from here. And we’ll get into actual like screen sharing and step-by-step – all that stuff – is going to kick off in this section.

So the important thing to know and keep in mind… The best mindset to have as you’re going into building a website – particularly if it’s your first time but even if you’ve never built a profitable full-time or part-time niche site – it’s really important to have the mentality of “I know this is going to be challenging. I know I’m going to encounter stuff that makes me angry, that frustrates me, but at the end of the day, it’s 100% necessary.”

Something for whatever reason is floating around in small pockets of people pursuing an internet business, they ask, “Can I make money without a website? Can I make money online without a website?” And the answer is, frankly, hell no! There may be ways where you can piece together inconsistent income, posting like to Craigslist and stuff like that, but even those businesses most of the time – the vast majority of the time – are highly dependent on having a website at its core.

So the best way I can think to explain it to people is trying to run an internet business without a website is like trying to run a brick and mortar store selling things out of the trunk of your car. Like you’re just set up so much better for success if you learn to build a website if it’s not 100% required – which I’m kind of in the mentality that it is but I know that there are exceptions and someone may come along and, “Oh! There’s this one guy that in a case study he didn’t have a website.” Like fine. And whatever. YouTube channels, all that stuff – everything works better, everything is simplified, everything is more in your control and you are more likely to succeed across the board if you’re operating a business online with a website.

So if that’s at all like a question floating around in your mind, the answer’s no. From me, the answer is no.

As I mentioned, there are going to be a lot of challenges ahead but this kind of big amorphous blob that may be so intimidating is what stands between you and your dream business, right? This is an essential step and this is some of the hardest stuff that we’re covering here. Everything from here out will probably not be remotely as technically challenging from here to when you’re making money. This is the technical stuff. This is the stuff that people are afraid of. But again, I’m going to walk you through it step-by-step, tell you exactly what to expect, and I’m going to walk you through everything on screen.

So there’s really nothing to be afraid of here. Just know that this obstacle that some of you may be very intimidated by is the most technical thing that’s standing between you and a successful internet marketing business of your dreams that you can travel with, that produces more income than you may be able to produce in the workforce, and et cetera. So it’s important to keep that in mind.

Also, this is what stands between you and a better future. A better future not only for yourself. But I know a lot of people are very motivated because they want to provide a better future for their families. This is you know… you just got to like rip it off like a Band-Aid. You know it’s going to sting but you got to go through it.

And the good news is you only have to learn a lot of this once. Also, a very important thing to realize as you go into this, there will be things that you encounter and you’re going to have to study them on your own. You’re just going to have to Google them and figure it out. But the good news is you only have to figure it out once because from then on, you’re going to know how to overcome that. And over time, you do that more and more and you see the amount of time you’re researching things go down and your productivity obviously goes way up.

So sometimes, you’ll be making slow progress; but just realize you make the slowest progress the first time you do it. And from then on – especially if you’re teaching yourself these skills as you go – it’s going to be easier and easier and easier until it’s almost second nature.

Another thing that I’ve mentioned in a previous video is it’s very important to have the mentality and realize even what feels like wasted time is not wasted. If you feel like you spent two or three or four hours just trying to troubleshoot this one problem and you finally get it and you think, “Oh God, I wasted three hours… I wasted four hours doing that.” It’s not a waste because you just tucked away something else in your arsenal that prepares you better for the same problem – the same challenge – down the road and it’s very, very important to remember that.

So the best way I can set you up for success here is to really emphasize that you need to have an independent mentality to succeed in this industry and this is the point where you are going to have to exercise that and practice that the most.

At the end of the day, there are millions of website owners online and a lot of them are using the same tools and going through a lot of the same challenges as you are. Not everybody that owns a website is a pro. I mean, I’ve been doing this now for over 10 years and I still don’t know how to edit code very well. I can still – very possibly – break my website when I edit code. So you’re looking at a guy that is not technical at all. I hire developers for that stuff or I just figure out a way to work around it and I’ve found a lot of ways to work around it over the years.

It’s just so important… you know, I was having a conversation with my wife recently – actually, just yesterday as I’m recording this video – because again, she’s starting her own internet business and she has a tendency as she’s getting started to interrupt over and over again throughout the day and say, “Oh how do I do this? How do I do this? Okay I did this what do I do next? Okay, after I do these things, what do I do next?”

It came down to a point where we had to have a conversation because it was interrupting my workflow. I’m trying to put together this just like massive amount of training, and then on top of that, I’m running my other businesses and managing team members. And I just couldn’t afford to deal with those interruptions over and over again so we had a conversation yesterday.

And I had said at one point like you’ve just got to figure it out like everyone else that runs an internet business, that tries to start and internet business. You’ve just got to figure it out. It’s what stands between you and success. And at the same time I can tell her a lot of what to do, but again, it comes back to the analogy: I want her to learn to fish. I don’t want to hand her the fish. Because then, she’s dependent on me for her whole business and that’s not sustainable for my business or for hers.

So we had to talk about it and she said, “I apologize. It wasn’t my default thinking basically to go out and research it before I asked about it. And now that it is, I know to do that.” And I have no problem if she researches at first and she can’t find the answers, she comes to me. That’s what I’m here for, right? She’s my wife. I frickin’ better be there for her when it comes to situations like that.

But I say that because it’s a very real thing and it made me realize other people are going to face this exact same challenge. And I had never even thought because I’ve had to be in research-first-ask-questions-later mode for years now. I had never even thought that someone’s thinking could default to “Oh I’m going to ask someone.” Because again, there are millions of people out there that have encountered… probably hundreds if not thousands of them… have encountered a lot of the issues that you’re going to encounter and a lot of the challenges and they’ve posted about it online and people that are more experienced have come and asked them.

So you just have to use the resources at your fingertips. Try and Google it first, use multiple search terms if it doesn’t turn up immediately – just do the best you can. And if you find yourself researching and researching for an hour and an hour and a half you still can’t find the answer, then post to the Facebook group. Again, as always, it’s free for registered members here and that’s what the community is there for.

So I really want to emphasize: you need to step into a very serious mindset of “I am on my own”. And I don’t say that in a bad way because you have to hit that point of independence to succeed in this industry flat out. Nobody succeeds in this industry just expecting to have their hand held every step of the way. It just doesn’t happen. You have to have a self-seeking, independent mentality to build a profitable internet business. Period.

So I’ll stop harping on this on this but it’s so, so, so important and I want to speak to this next point.

If you ask somewhat of a basic question in the community – you know, the Facebook page – or you email me, either me or another community member in the Facebook page says, “Hey, go Google that,” or “Hey, search the Facebook group,” don’t be offended by that because these things are out there for you to find. It’s your job to get in the mentality of seeking them out. Now for more advanced stuff, that’s totally called for to ask for help. But again, that’s what the community is there for.

But just keep this in mind: if you ask a fairly basic question, someone says, “Hey, just Google that,” or “Hey, search the Facebook group for that,” (and myself included) please don’t be offended by that. If we answer the same questions over and over and over again, nobody would ever get anything else done.

So it’s just essential that you hit this point. You know, I’ve said that a billion times now so I’m going to stop saying it but I can’t overemphasize it. I really can’t. It doesn’t set you up for success any other way than if you establish a very independent self-seeking, I’m-going-to-help-myself mentality.

So like I said, this is the most common place… as we enter into building a website… this is the most common place that people fall into that “hand-holding” trap. Like, “Oh, I just need someone to hold my hand!” No, you don’t. None of us had someone to hold our hand for all this stuff and we found a way to success and it is up to you to do the same.

There’s a lot of information out there, so again, the community is here to help as much as we can. But when it comes to really basic stuff, basically you just have to – if you encounter a problem – Google first. Google first, try to find an answer yourself, and then move on and ask the community if you can’t find an answer.

I’ve said this over and over again so I’m not going to say it again: just establish an independent mindset. You will find… and I don’t mean this in an offensive way… you will find that the quickest way to my bad side is to email me – especially repeatedly – with really basic questions that you could just Google.

Because again, I have a very strong passion about helping people. Please don’t mistake what I’m saying now to mean anything contrary to that. But I’m building a business, right? I’m running businesses, I’m running teams. For someone to send me an email to say, “Hey, how do I change this thing on my name servers?” (if that doesn’t make sense to you, we’ll talk about it later in this section) when it’s a really simple thing to Google, that just shows like it’s a matter of respect. Like I’m in the trenches with you, I’m trying to build a business, my time is very valuable. Like I don’t mind helping for really kind of specific difficult things. And again, that’s what the Facebook community’s for here at Free Internet Marketing Project. That’s why I check into the Facebook community and chime in and answer questions.

But at the end of the day, it’s not only the quickest way to my bad side, I think it’s the quickest way to a lot of experienced internet marketers’ bad side. It’s just a pet peeve, because again, none of us had that. So I think for anyone to fall into that mentality of like “I need to have my hand held” comes off to… even if it’s not the intention of the person on the giving end of those questions… to the person on the receiving end a lot of the time it comes off across as a sense of entitlement and a disrespect for that person’s time.

So anyways, I say all of that… again, winter is coming… I’ve harped on that enough… I say all of that to say fasten your seatbelt because it’s probably going to be a bumpy ride as we go through and we do a lot of the technical stuff for building a website. But this is it. Again, this is kind of the birth place of your business. This is where everything starts to get really tangible and exciting.

And yes, there are going to be some challenges but they are all totally surmountable and you can do this, okay? You just have to have the right mentality, you have to keep pressing forward no matter what, you have to learn from your mistakes, and eventually before you know it, if you keep the effort going, you’re going to have a profitable internet business.

So we’re going to dig in and start talking about how to find a domain name, we’re going to talk about where to get hosting, what makes a good domain name, how to connect your domain name to your hosting account, how to set up your website, install WordPress, what to look for in a WordPress theme – all that crap is covered in this section.

So it’s going to be a big one but it’s also going to be super helpful and it’s going to turn a big corner. Whereas up to this point we’ve talked about a lot of theory, we’ve gone through a lot of slideshows, this is when you’re going to start doing work and you’re going to have a really tangible output by the end of this section. So I’m excited for it. I hope you’re excited for it.

As always, if you have questions, feel free to post them in the Facebook group, alright? I guess research first and then post them in the Facebook group if you still can’t find the answer. And I will see you there and I will also see you in Lesson 4.2.

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