As discussed in many of the articles on the SmarterCash website, websites can be very profitable. They make a lot of money for a lot of people. Some people travel the world loving life and seriously enjoying themselves, all funded thanks to the money they make via their websites.
If you have not seen how profitable websites can be then you NEED to read the article below and watch the video…
Further Reading: How To Make Money Being A Digital Landlord Renting Out Online Property
We at SmarterCash want you to be able to do the same and so with that in mind, we are going to show you how to build your very own website which could make you money while you eat, sleep, rave and repeat.
The fantastic thing about a website is that they are so cheap and easy to build. They require very little technical skill to build using the method we are going to show you.
For less than £150 you can own your own protected website for 2 years.
That works out at under 20 pence a day…less than 20 PENCE A DAY to own a website. Depending on what hosting you have, you can have many websites on the same hosting package which can cost as little as 50 pence a day.
Only yesterday I earned £5.56 from a combination of 2 websites which I do very little with.
Today, as I write this I have earned £0.31 already, and it is only 6:04am. My daily running costs have nearly already been covered… and this is from a combination of 2 websites I do nothing with.
The return on investment of a website is far greater than any bank account and any offline rental property.
Getting Started: Finding The Perfect Domain Name
Firstly your website is going to need a name. This is called a domain name. Due to the nature of how the internet is built no 2 people can have the same domain name. Your website will need to have its own unique domain name.
To search and find a perfect domain name we recommend using GoDaddy’s domain name search. You can find it here: GoDaddy.co.uk
(Please note: GoDaddy is a domain registrar and hosting provider, but we do not use their services and are only using their domain search for quick and easy research purposes)
When you see the domain checker box type in the names you want to use to see if they are available as shown in the images below.
Top Tip: Before using GoDaddy to search for domains, spend some time with a pen and a sheet of paper making a list of domain names you would like to use. It is easier to work through a pre-made list than trying to think them up on the fly.
Type in each domain name one at a time and click on the search box to see if the domain name is available or not.
Once you have found a suitable domain name which is available and that you are happy with we now head over to SiteGround to register the hosting.
Registering Your Domain Name And Hosting For Your New Website
At Siteground you will see a homepage looking something like this:
From the 4 options on the home page, chose the WordPress Hosting. Click the Get Started button.
WordPress is an incredible easy to use system which allows people to build fantastic looking websites without the need of a web developer.
The reason we recommend SiteGround (as well as their incredible support and cheap hosting) is that they have made it even easier for first time website owners to build a WordPress website.
It is all very point and click as you will see in the screenshots below.
If you want to do more than one website then it is recommended that you purchase the GrowBig plan which will allow you to host unlimited domains. If you are planning on working on only one website then you should purchase the StartUp hosting.
For now, while you are new to blogging and website building it makes sense that you work on only the one website. You can always upgrade later once you have become acquainted with WordPress if you decide to build other profitable websites.
Click the Get Plan button to start the purchase process.
The next page will have a box asking you whether you want to register a new domain name or if you already have one.
Click the radio button saying Register a New Domain and then type in the domain name you want to register.
As you should have already done your domain name (website name) research earlier using GoDaddy you will have the name ready to type into the box.
Click the Proceed button to move on to the next part of the set up process. The payment page.
The payment page is quite a long one. This is where you will set up your hosting account and pay.
I have broken it up into several screenshots. When you come to this page you will need to scroll down and fill in the boxes until you hit the bottom.
It has the usual stuff which you expect to find on a payment page. You will need to register an email address and create a password for your account.
You will be asked for your credit/debit card details, name and address etc for payment. (Unfortunately you cannot pay using PayPal which is a real pain)
Unfortunately you cannot pay monthly, you have to pay for the year or two upfront.
You can do a 1 month trial period for £2.95 but there is a £9.60 setup fee. Plus there is VAT on that. You do not need to do a monthly trial.
If you are planning on building a profitable website then a month is just not enough time to get used to the idea.
If you feel that you need to do a monthly trial then I suggest that you are not ready to take the plunge. You should be thinking in years for this, this a long term project… and one that is worth the time and investment!
Paying for the year or two upfront is good because it means that you are all paid up for the duration and you can forget about it and focus on building your website.
Two year hosting on the StartUp package along with the domain registration means that your daily hosting cost will be around £0.15.
That is only fifteen pence a day!!
The last part of the payment process will ask if you want any extra services. As you will see we have already have Domain Registration ticked as we are having a new domain registered as part of our purchase.
You also have the option of having Domain Privacy and SG Site Scanner. Domain Privacy means that it is hard for people to find who the website is owned by and registered too.
Anyone can do a WHOIS search to try and find out who is the owner of a website, without having Domain Privacy your name and address will be available to anyone. You may receive phone calls and emails from people offering you services you don’t need.
It is up to you if you want to add Domain Privacy to your purchase, it is not a lot of money and will need renewing each year.
I do recommend that you have the SG Site Scanner thought. SG Site Scanner means that SiteGround scans your website daily for malicious activity like being hacked or injected with harmful code by outsiders.
It can happen and SiteGround will email you if they find anything harmful. If they do find anything and they inform you, you can act fast. It probably won’t happen, you are more likely to get an email each week saying that your website is clean but in my opinion, it is not a lot of expense for peace of mind.
It is only £15.60 + VAT for a year which adds roughly £18 to your total cost of the website.
Once you have set up your account details, added your payment card and chosen how long you want your hosting term for you will see a final cost at the bottom. The price for 2 years hosting on the StartUp package with SG Site Support and new Domain Registration comes to only £118.02.
The hosting and domain name are paid for 2 years but SG Site Scanner will need to be renewed after one year. That is a further cost of £18.72 to add on to your overall 2 year cost.
The overall cost to running your new website will come to £136.74. Over the 2 years that gives you the bare minimum daily running cost of £0.18!
EIGHTEEN PENCE A DAY!
18 pence to own a money making piece of online real estate. A virtual online profitable property. What else can you buy for 18 pence a day that can generate you money?
If you recall, earlier in this guide I mentioned that I had earned £0.31 before 6:30AM from 2 websites which I hardly use. Mainly from 1 website if I am completely honest. At 18 pence a day, that is my daily cost covered already. The rest is just profit.
How much can an active website earn you?
If you are happy with the price (and you should be) then tick the SiteGround T&C confirmation button then click the Pay Now button.
Next you will be shown a confirmation page telling you that your account was successfully created.
Click the button saying Proceed To Customer Area.
Check your inbox, you should receive emails from SiteGround asking you to verify your details. One will be a Domain Service Notice email for ICANN asking you to verify your domain registration.
It is important that you verify this email otherwise your website runs the risk of being temporarily suspended. ICANN basically manage the registration and regulations of domain names.
Their job is to keep website fraud down and so they do thorough checks and require all new domain name registrations to be verified.
After you have clicked the Proceed To Customer Area button you will be taken to a new page where you will see a login box like the one shown below.
To log in, add the email address you registered and the password that you created when setting up your account and click the Sign In button.
The first time you log into your new hosting account you will see the page shown in the screenshot below.
Siteground are asking you if you need to:
- Start a new website
- Transfer a website
- Don’t need help
For this instance you need to click the Start a new website radio button.
Once you click that button, 5 website software buttons/icons will appear. The first one being WordPress which you will see in the image below highlighted by the red box.
Click on that button.
Once you click the WordPress button more options will appear as seen in the image below.
You are now asked to create some WordPress login details. You will need to add your best email, create a username and a strong password.
Username has to be between 8 & 20 characters in length and contain only alphanumeric latin characters… only numbers and letters basically.
Make sure to make a note of your username and password. They will be emailed to you once you have completed the set up but it is always a good idea to make a copy yourself during the setting up process.
Once you have created your login details click the green Confirm button.
If you haven’t already chosen Domain Privacy or SG Site Scanner in the earlier part of the set up SiteGround will offer them again.
If you decide not to purchase any of the enhancements SiteGround offer, leave the radio buttons blank and click the Confirm button then click the green Complete Setup button at the bottom of the page.
In the screenshot above you will see the option for SG Site Scanner has been chosen. If you decide to choose one of those options here, click the green Confirm button.
As seen in the image above, the price details of the service you have chosen to add to your hosting package are shown. SiteGround will bill the service charge to the card you have already added to your account.
Click the Pay And Complete Setup button at the bottom of the page.
Your hosting account is now setup and ready to use. Click the green Proceed To Customer Area button.
Your SiteGround Hosting Account Client Area
Once inside the customer area you will be able to access your account details, your billing details, your WordPress website, cPanel and your important support tickets.
Please Note: You do not need to login into your SiteGround account to access your website all the time. There is a far easier and direct route to login into it, a link will be emailed to you which will look something like this.
http://www.YourDomainName.com/wp-admin
For quickness, simply type out your website URL and then add /wp-admin and you will be taken to your websites WordPress login.
To access your website WordPress dashboard and cPanel click the My Accounts tab at the top.
In this area of your SiteGround hosting account you will find your website link.
If you have a larger hosting with other websites they will all be listed in this area.
If you click on the website link, highlighted with the red box above, it will take you to your website home page.
If you click on the green Go To Admin Panel button, highlighted in the image above, you will be taken to your websites WordPress login page.
Add the login details which you created when setting up the account into the relevant fields and click the blue Log In button.
The first time you log into your new WordPress website which has been installed by SiteGround on your SiteGround hosting account, you will be greeted by a WordPress Starter screen. (Shown in the screenshot above)
You can either click the Start Now button and go through the 3 steps (you can exit at any time) or Exit.
This starter will help you set up your website by helping you to design the look of the website by choosing a theme
I am going to suggest that you Exit and go to the default WordPress dashboard.
The reason that I suggest that you do not use the SiteGround WordPress Starter set up is that we have a series of training videos (coming soon) which will show you how to use WordPress and get the best from your WordPress website.
That is something that the WordPress Starter system offered by SiteGround doesn’t really do. It leaves you high and dry to fend for yourself. We will show you how to really master WordPress and get the most out of your website.
Setting Up A Domain Specific Email Account Without Having To Pay For It
All websites in my opinion should have a domain specific email account.
A domain specific email address is something like info@yourdomain.com or andi@smartercash.com.
Why am I showing you this?
Because some companies offer you the chance to buy a domain specific email when registering a domain name and hosting even though you can make as many as you want for free.
That really annoys me, ok, so it isn’t a huge amount of money but the fact is, it takes only a few seconds to set up these email accounts.
When inside your SiteGround dashboard go to the accounts area by clicking on the My Accounts tab at the top of the page.
There is a red Go To cPanel button towards the top left hand corner.
Click the button and you will be taken to cPanel.
CPanel is the part of your hosting account that you will not use much. It is where you find the more technical stuff like the information of your hosting servers and how much disk space you are using up. It is the kind of place that you would send a technical person if you were having issues.
It is also a place where you can access a whole host of web tools and services. Again, this is the kind of stuff a more technical minded person would work with.
I generally only ever go into cPanel to make email accounts. That I expect, is all that you will do too.
Scroll down the page until you find the Mail section.
In the top left hand corner you will find an icon with the words Email Accounts as highlighted in the image above.
Click that icon.
A page will open up where you can create all the email accounts you need. Complete the small form with an email name and password then click on the Create Account button found under the form.
When an email account has been created it will be added to a list below the form. You can create as many emails as you need. To access the email accounts you simple add the word webmail after the end of your domain name.
For example: if your website was called ItsAllGoodFun.com you would access your email account by typing into your browser https://www.itsallgoodfun.com/webmail.
You will be directed to a page where you can log in to access your emails using the password you created when setting up the email account.
Click the blue Log In button and you will be in.
When you go into your webmail account for the first time you will be given the option of 3 email clients to open up your emails in. I always choose Roundcube as it is clean and easy to use. You can decide on which one you want to use.
Click the Set As Default link and you are all set to go.
The emails can be configured with your phone or you can set up a forwarder if you wish so that all emails you receive are forwarded to an email account you use more regularly.
And so that is it. You now know how to build your own money making website. It is sooooo flipping easy it is unreal.
In the next guide we are going to show you how to really get to grips with WordPress, publish posts and pages and how to start making money with your website.
