Who this course if for:  If you're the curious "do it yourself" type of person who has not used (or is new to) WordPress, and you want to built your own website - this course is for you.  Especially if you've never purchased a domain name, a webhosting account, and you don't know what themes and plugins are.

You will learn how to build a WordPress website in a single day.  Everything you need to know from how to choose a domain name and webhosting, to how to install WordPress, plugins, themes, configure initial settings, setup domain email, and more.  All content is well laid out in easy to understand layman's terms in complete walkthrough videos.

 

The first step to winning more customers is to have a website which impresses. Investing one day of your time in building a website you're proud of will ensure your prospects see that you mean business. If you're still using Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo as your main business email address and you don't have a professional looking online presence you can send your potential customers to, then this course is for you.

Mark Copeman is NOT a designer, nor a developer, yet he knows what looks good and with his business of online training to private and public audiences, he now has over 100 website builds behind him, proving anyone can build their own website... and quickly too.

 

What You Get:  16 modules, 5 hours and 100's of over the shoulder clicks alongside pen and paper explanations which take you from nothing to a completely finished website you can be proud of.

In module 1, Mark guides you through some of the considerations when buying a domain name for the very first time. Whether you're deciding to trade as a company or an individual... where you are in the world and whether or not you have hyphens in your domain are all important considerations. He then goes on to show you how to look up potential domain availability using a tool that will save you a LOT of time. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

If you've never had any involvement with website building before, the idea of buying web hosting can sound like a daunting idea. In this module, we continue in the practical vein by examining several web host providers. Mark explains what's important and what's not when it comes to the technical specification you need to get you up and running. He examines the merits of buying hosting in the US versus any other country and explains the important things you need look for. After some comparison, he then goes on to make his hosting recommendation and finishes by giving some top tips on searching for coupon codes before buying! _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

When we said this course was 'look over the shoulder' we meant it! In this module we actually show you how to buy your webhosting. We block out our credit card details of course - but other than that, we explain exactly what you need to do and give our recommendation for exactly the hosting set up you need to buy. Once the transaction is completed, Mark then gives you a tour of the hosting setup. You will find out how the admin system - cPanel can be your friend, despite it looking complex at first glance. He reaches for pen and paper to put what you've bought into context. This is rarely done by experts - people assume people get it - however we believe in de-mystifying technology and making this site build as simple as possible for you. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

This site that we're building together in a day is going to be built using a system called WordPress. You may well have heard of it. You may well have bought this course because of this fact... whatever your situation, rest assured we're using it because it's the simplest and fastest way of getting a high quality site live for you. If it's good enough for the New York Times, it should be good enough for you! We start with the basics - once again, using pen and paper to explain WordPress terminology so that once we start to build the site out, you'll know exactly what Mark is referring to. If you've always wondered what a Widget is, this module is for you. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

One of the beauties of using WordPress is just how simple it is to install. Now we've bought our domain and hosting, and you understand how WordPress works, Mark now explains how easy it is to install a brand new installation which we will of course go on to customise over the coming modules. Once installed, he then logs into the new installation and give you a quick tour of the clean site, and relates what you learnt in the theory of the previous module to what you can now see on your dashboard. Everything becomes clearer now and we can now focus on building the site, now the infrastructure is in place. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

We go back to pen and paper for the majority of this module. This is such a key session - it may send shivers down your spine - but it will be worth following Mark's advice in this module. Planning is essential for any form of marketing communications and no more so than building your very own website. It's now time to have a serious think about exactly what it is you are looking to say. There is a triad of things to consider - Content, Function and Design. Mark explains all these considerations in detail and then gives valuable insight into how to move things to the next stage with two exercises he asks you to complete. Fail to complete them at your peril - and don't move on to the next stage until you've followed the advice given! _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Now we understand what we're looking to achieve, it's time to start configuring your WordPress installation. In this module we start the setup process and having built dozens of WordPress sites, Mark gives his recommendations of the way things should be set up for maximum effect. If you've always wondered what a Permalink is, and how they should be set up - this is the module for you. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

One of the areas we considered in Module 6 was Design. It's a tricky area for two reasons - firstly, it's very subjective (the good news there is that you're in charge of your own look and feel!) and secondly - there is so much choice, it's almost overwhelming. Hopefully you completed the exercise in Module 6. If you did. Module 8 should be rewarding as we give you all kinds of inspiration and explain how and where to go looking for designs you can download to add to your site. Mark explains the difference between free and premium designs and considers whether it's worth paying for design. He also goes on to point out a number of excellent places to find themes and makes a recommendation as to his favourite place to go. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Once you've chosen your theme, it's now time to download and install it and from this module on, we start to build the website that you're looking at right now. Yes, the whole course culminates in creating this getmorecustomers101.com site... from the theme selection to creating the pages to adding the functionality etc. In this module Mark talks through the various options you will have for configuring your theme. The one you choose won't necessarily be the same as the one he chooses, however there will be similarities and at all times, he points out what you should be looking out for with your theme. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

We need to go back to your findings in Module 6 once again as we start module 10 and begin to discuss navigation. WordPress is now extremely flexible when it comes to setting up and designing menu navigation. Until recently, it was tricky. Now it's straight forward - if you know how of course. In this module, we set up the navigation for this site in the header bar and footer areas and Mark also explains how you can set up menus of perhaps favourite links, which can be included in widgets... which will lead us nicely on to Module 11... _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Sidebars and widgets are really important parts of any website. They are also quite complex, due to the endless possibilities of what you could include within them. In order to add widget functionality to your website, you might find what you're looking for within your theme or WordPress installation itself. You might however need to download additional plugins to give you the additional functionality you're looking for. In this practical demonstration, Mark shows you how to add a set of favourite links, your Twitter feed and an advert - made up of an image with an HTML link attached to it. You're actually going to learn a line of HTML code in this module... which you'll be able to use time and time again! Don't run away from it - it's easy when you know how. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Now we have the look and feel and some structure to the site, including our navigation, all ready to go - all those placeholder pages now need to be filled in with interesting, meaty content. The way to do this of course is to start adding content to your pages (Mark explains once again how they differ from posts) and adding new pages too. In this comprehensive module, you'll learn how to add copy, edit content and add hyperlinks to your copy. In addition, you'll find out about the power of using page templates and find out all about the quick ways to edit pages in bulk as well as how to password protect a page for your favourite client. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Now we've learnt how to build static pages, creating and editing blog posts is now a breeze, because it's essentially the same activity. There are however some specific differences between pages and posts and we talk about them in this module. The one area of content we didn't consider when talking about page editing was the addition of images to your content, which is of course extremely important and we look at the inserting and editing of images on your posts in this module. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Plugins are small pieces of software which bolt inside your WordPress installation to give your site additional functionality. Most plugins are free. Some aren't, such as the pop up window we use to display the videos on this site. Now we're nearing the end of the build, Mark recommends 3 plugins which are essential to any web site. There are hundreds more which might turn out to be useful, but we'll save those for another time. For now, just to get you up and running, we recommend you take his advice and get installing. He shows you how to search for, download and install a plugin (a simple process really) and then configures three to get you started. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Now you have all the tools you need to finish your site, it's time to go and do one last thing, linked to your web hosting - and that's to set up your shiny new email account, using the domain name you bought at the start of this process. We have to do two things - firstly set up your server - so we need to go back into cPanel. Secondly, we need to configure Outlook so that it can download the email your server is now configured to receive. Once again - click by click, this all becomes clear and will enable you to 'throw away' your Hotmail address and look professional in front of your clients. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Whilst we've given you all the tools you need to be able to build the site, there is a lot of detail that goes into finishing a site like this completely which wouldn't be worth teaching in detail, because all sites are different. That said, we think you'd feel cheated if you saw the where the site was at the end of Module 14 and where it is today as you read this now. So - to finish off the course, Mark shows you what happened to get this site completed to the standard it's at right now. Details, like the site logo, the sliders on the home page and this course page itself are all discussed so that you have everything you need to build a replica of this site should you wish to. Realistically, we hope you'll take what we've taught and put your own personality onto your site, coupled with your reasons for building it in the first place. Inevitably it will end up quite different from this one.