Lesson 1.1) How to Make a Website or Blog WITHOUT CODING using WordPress

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If you are serious about making money online, the first thing you need to learn is how to make a website – if you don’t learn to do this, you’ll never be able to make any significant amount of money online, ever.

Today I’m going to show you how to make a website (or blog) on its own domain, without coding, using WordPress (it’s a surprisingly simple process). These are professional websites with any look that you want (and can incorporate anything that you want, including social media buttons, “buy now” buttons, mailing list forms, Google maps, etc.).

The point of today’s exercise is simply for you to get your feet wet and to get a website online that you can play and experiment with. Don’t worry too much about what this first website is going to be about; just get something online. After you complete this first project and feel comfortable with the process of putting together a professional looking website, then you can start developing your passive income website portfolio.

If you don’t know what to make your first website about, a fun first project could be building a website for your new side business: freelancing websites for others. After all, once you’re done with the first four lessons, you’ll be qualified to build fairly basic, but professional looking websites. Then you can start charging people $500 per website to make yourself some extra money! When I first learned how to make a website with WordPress, I used to post my services on Craigslist daily, and I would get at least two to three gigs per month. You can simply make your website YourName.com or YourNameWebsiteCreationServices.com. If you decide to go this route, here is some freelancing advice to help you get started. 😀

You can also make yourself a blog about your favorite hobby or one that follows your experiences with building an online business – personal blogs that develop a regular readership make A LOT of money.

Set aside one hour and make your first website TODAY!

Note: When I say we will be creating a website using WordPress, I don’t mean creating one through the WordPress website. Websites created through there are severely limited in what you can do with them and offer very little flexibility overall. The method I teach enables you to create truly professional websites by installing the WordPress software and you won’t be limited in any way.

Not only is WordPress very easy to use, it is 100% free and makes your website completely customizable. Over 15% of websites online have been created with WordPress; if you can use Microsoft Word, you can make a website using WordPress (this website was made using WordPress…and I don’t even know any code!).

You want to make sure you take action as you go through my video lessons or you will find yourself a month down the road without having accomplished anything! If you do have any trouble with building your first website today, simply send me an email through my contact page and I’ll be happy to help out.

Remember: Everyday you don’t start, money is being left on the table.

What will be the total cost of your website? About $15 / year for the domain and $10 / month for hosting (the hosting can be used for as many domains as you want, so the price never goes up).

You can watch the entire process of me creating a basic blog on its own domain on the video on this page all in less than 15 minutes.

This is the first of four video lessons where I will show you the entire completion of the website Mike Omar Photography ALL IN UNDER ONE HOUR TOTAL! Follow along in the video lessons and you’ll see just how easy it is to build a website. 😀

If you are reading this, it means you have finished watching the video above!

At this point you should have the basic WordPress installation on your domain and can now login to your website directly from your browser! We’ve gotten past the technical stuff and now the fun part can begin. Congratulations! 🙂

The rest of the videos are going to focus on the fun parts of building a website: changing themes, colors, and fonts, adding pages, posts, and pictures, and even more advanced things like adding contact forms, Google maps, PayPal payment buttons, and whatever else you want.

First click on the following links before proceeding to the remaining videos:

Elegant Themes Discount Link

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To watch the remaining video lessons, you’ll have to sign up for a free account on Udemy. Just click on the following link and press the “enroll now” button. Once you do, you’ll have access to the remaining three video lessons and can complete your website. After that, you’ll also have free access to all the remaining video lessons on building passive income websites. ?

The Passive Income Business Plan

Note: The reason I have you watch the video course on Udemy instead of hosting them directly on this page is because on Udemy there is a course questions and answers area (and a bunch of questions have already been asked and answered in the past). If you have any questions while building your business, it’s likely that question has already been asked and answered, so you can simply look up your question right in that section. If you have any questions that haven’t been asked, you can ask them right there on Udemy so I can answer them for you!
Also, if you like the video course on Udemy, please leave me a 4 or 5 star review for that course, that would really be helpful for me! See you on Udemy!

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70 Responses to “Lesson 1.1) How to Make a Website or Blog WITHOUT CODING using WordPress”

  1. on hostgator, I wasn’t able to find Fantisco De Lux to download WordPress. Is there another program or site?
    Thanks, Hal

    • Hi Hal,

      HostGator just made an update to their hosting plans, so now you do the exact same process, but with “QuickInstall” instead of “Fantastico de Luxe”. Unfortunately for me, this means I now have to update all my books and YouTube videos! :/

      Mike

  2. When you build websites for people or companies. Do you just design them or do you write all the content as well?

    • Hi Mike,

      When I build websites for people, I just build it for them and they fill in the content themselves. Please note that I’m talking about specific website projects that people hire me for (not passive income websites).

      I don’t build passive income websites for anyone except myself. This makes sense because a passive income website will always be more valuable in the long run than anything someone can pay me up front. The only circumstance I could see myself selling a passive income website is if I need a lot of money fast (although I don’t see that happening anytime soon!).

      Mike

    • How would you know how much to sell a website for? For example, if one of your sites made five grand a month, what would you ask for it?

      • Hi Shane,

        There are lots of different ways people decide what a website is worth (and people want websites for different purposes depending on what their goals are), but a general rule of thumb is a website is worth between 10-20 times monthly earnings (so in this case, somewhere between $50k-$100k).

        Best,

        Mike

  3. Its just as easy as it looks. I had a site up with word press in about 20 minutes of actual work time.(not including waiting for go daddy and hostgator) Thanks Mike.

  4. Kelly Ward says:

    Great video! Very easy to follow and I look forward to watching the rest of the videos you have done, along with receiving your newsletters.

    Thank you for the information

    Kelly, UK

  5. Hello Mike,

    great resource and information and resource. You are a hero to beginners like me. One question about the domain registration though – which type of domain works best? Can i use .info or .us instead of .com which is a bit cheaper? Or does it really matter? I am about to register a bunch of domains and would appreciate your feedback.

    Best regards!

    • Hi Daniel,

      Thanks for the nice words!

      As far as domain registration, I always recommend .com. If you can’t get the .com, go with .net or .org.

      I’m not 100% sure it makes a difference in ranking, but I suspect that it does, and at the very least those three will always be perceived as the most authoritative by most people.

      Mike

  6. Hi Mike,
    I am just starting the monetization lessons now, but came back as I’m setting up another website and wanted to refresh and ensure I was doing everything right (and I was). Just thought I’d let you know that I still have fantastico deluxe available on hostgator and that is how I set up the new website. Is there anything special, or better, about quick install? Cheers Linda

    • Hi Linda,

      I’m glad to hear that you’re still moving forward! HostGator recently updated all their new entry level hosting accounts with their own version of Fantastico De Luxe (which is QuickInstall), but they are essentially the same thing. Accounts that were purchased before that update will still have Fantastic De Luxe available to them though. In other words, either one will work just fine!

      Mike

  7. Michael Whitehead says:

    Hi Mike
    Just started reading/watching. Intending to watch all vids
    and then starting.
    I am in the UK so do you still recommend go daddy and hostgator or do I need to look for UK based ones (wife is using free one .. blogspot)at present for her blog

    • Hi Michael,

      I would definitely still recommend going with GoDaddy and HostGator. They are the best in the game and you won’t be affected by the fact that the companies exist outside of your country.

      Mike

  8. Hi, Mike

    I just started and I have finished lesson 1.1. My new (albeit bare) website is up.

    Thank you so much.

    Onward!

    • You’re very welcome Tshepo! Feel free to email me if you have any questions along the way!

  9. Hi Mike,

    Thanks for providing all of this info on how to make money online, while at the same time making it look easy to do!

    • Question: Is the link in my name considered a backlink?

      • It definitely is! Commenting on blogs is a great strategy for building some decent backlinks from related websites. It’s also powerful for getting direct traffic from people reading the discussion (so it’s in your best interest to make your comments good!).

        Mike

    • You’re very welcome!

  10. Hi Mike,

    I have changed my name servers about a day an a half ago, and have both HostGator and GoDaddy set as advised. However when I go to my website address it comes up with a foreign website still? It wasn’t as expected as video described, and it doesn’t look related to GoDaddy? The address is exactly how it is with GoDaddy?

    Should I continue to wait for the nameservers to switch over? Or is something wrong with what’s going on?

    • Hi Michael,

      A day and a half is way too long (and I just looked at your website and you’re right…it looks as if nothing has been done). If you’ve placed the new nameservers that you received from HostGator into your GoDaddy account, it should be working fine. If this is the case, try contacting HostGator directly through their livechat directly on their website (you’ll have someone livechatting with you in less than a couple of minutes). This is why I love HostGator.

      Ask them why this may not be working and let me know what they tell you! No worries, we will get this issue solved!

      Mike

  11. I need a little help cosmetically on my site .its not looking how I want it

    • Hi Aaron,

      Are you referring to aaronswebsitecreations.com? What is it that you aren’t happy with about the way it looks?

      If I’m not happy with the way a website looks, I usually try and find a theme that I like instead of trying to modify it through coding, etc. (to keep my life easy).

      Mike

  12. Hey Mike,

    Great website with loads of useful information. Was just wondering: When you set up websites for other people, do you also handle any updates and site maintenance they might require or do they usually want a way of handling that themselves? In which case, how would you go about that?

    Thanks for the help.

    • Hi David,

      Some people like to handle updates and site maintenance for a monthly fee, but in my opinion it isn’t worth it and can lead to problems (like clients calling all the time).

      What I eventually did that worked out best was buy the domain and hosting account with the client’s information, build their website, and then teach them how to use WordPress so they could maintain and update their website themselves. This way once I finished their website, I didn’t have to deal with clients calling me with questions or for updates, etc.: my part of the job was done.

      You can also refer them to my video lessons so they can learn to navigate WordPress or refresh their knowledge if they haven’t logged into their website in a while.

      Best,

      Mike

  13. You mentioned not to buy the email for your new domain. I was wondering how I set it up now so I have it for the contacts page, in addition to contact form 7. That way when I reply to their enquiries it’s coming from a site related email and not my personal email

    • Hi Chris,

      It’s been soooo long since I set up “[email protected]” as an email address, so I don’t remember the exacts of it, but I’ll point you in the right direction. First you can simply contact HostGator and have them set up an email address that ends in your domain, and then have that forward to your email account (they’ll do it). Then on your main email account (gmail, hotmail, etc.) you need to set it up so that you can reply to emails from that account, but it’s sent from your new email address. In other words, I send and reply to all my emails from my main gmail account and don’t have to login into several different email accounts. 🙂

      Mike

  14. Hi Mike –
    Do you have some actual examples of some of your common websites (not the Lions Club one)? I just would like to see some of your actual money generating websites to get an idea of what you write in them and how you make them work well. So, in essence, I want to see a few good money generator websites that you have set up of the 160 or so you have.

    Thanks Mike! Looking forward to it!

    — Dale

    • Hi Dale,

      Unfortunately I don’t share any of my Adsense websites with my readers because I don’t want to inadvertently get my Adsense account banned from people randomly clicking on ads or other things like that (I may be being overly paranoid but you never know).

      HOWEVER, later this year I’m releasing two websites that will be built and promoted entirely using the concepts I teach, and because I don’t plan to monetize them with Adsense, I’ll be sharing them publicly. Just make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter because that is where I will be announcing them!

      Mike

  15. Hello mike, please, am just starting of with blogging to make money. I do not know anything about creating a blog, even to register a domain name/host it and propagation is a bunch of work for me. I paid someone to build a blog for me, i want to be selling affiliate products on it and adsense denied me approval, but my real problems are just the articles and traffic to the website. How do i get to work please.
    Thanks for your great work here.

    Sanyiicrown from Nigeria

    • Hi Sanyiicrown,

      I would suggest watching my videos in chronological order and doing the work yourself! This is better than paying someone else to do it because it will force you to do these things on your own and that is the best way to learn. Just start at video lesson 1.1 and do the work as you go along, and keep working through the video lessons.

      Mike

  16. Hi Mike, Just wanted to get your opinion on setting up the second domain name with Hostgator? They mention subdomains and it’s a little confusing. Thanks for all your videos. They are brilliant.

    • Hi Nicki,

      Thank you for the kind words about my videos! 🙂

      I wouldn’t bother using subdomains (i.e. subdomain.example.com). I would just buy a new domain for a new website and put it on the same hosting account (you can put as many websites as you want on your HostGator account).

      Mike

      • Thanks Mike. I have the domain, but in Hostgator, they only offer you Addon Domain or Addon Subdomain. I presumed it was the Addon Domain, but wanted to check with you. Some of their explanations were a little confusing…Many thanks!

        • Hi Nicki,

          Actually, when you get new domains from GoDaddy and want to add them to your HostGator account, you have to insert that information in the Addon Domain section (in your cPanel backend). Then you install WordPress to your new domain just the same way as shown in the first video! 🙂

          Mike

  17. Hey Mike,

    Love your site!

    I read somewhere that if your hosting company is outside of the country in which your website is directed to, it will affect your Google rank.

    The argument was that a search engine would give higher rankings for a local search to a web site that it deems to be located in that area. Is this a possibility?

    Also, looking at some Google ranking, I have found keywords where the top 4 websites are ranked respectively 0,1,6,1. The ‘6’ looks suspiciously out of place and the keyword seems easy to attack. What are your thoughts on these?

    Thanks for your help.
    Tarik

    • Hi Tarik,

      I find it very unlikely that having your hosting company outside of your country will affect your rankings very much (if at all). The language of your website will have an impact, but I doubt where you host from will (although I’m not 100% sure). If it does have an effect, it’s minor (I get visitors to my websites from all around the world and they’re all in English).

      In cases like that, I like to go for it, because in my mind writing a post and a few backlinks articles will take less than a few hours. So if it works, more money! If it doesn’t work, I still have a bigger and more robust website with a few more backlinks pointing to it. That’s how I see it anyway. 🙂

      Best,

      Mike

  18. When I tried to find a domain ( after some studies with google about some good keywords) it appears as premium domain and the cost is very high.
    The options are: to change the domain name from .com ( as premium domain) to .net or my…….domain……com what do you think about that.
    Another question:
    with my 10 first blue keywords I have to write an article for each of one right? but in my main website I have to put my 10 blue keywords too.Right? where? as new windows ( as contact us or about) or inside the content text.

    Fer.

    • Hi Fer,

      Unless you’re really attached to a certain domain, I wouldn’t pay too much for the .com version (even though that is the best thing to get). If you can’t get a .com or a .net, then I’d go for a different domain name (don’t bother with a .org or anything else…stick to .com or .net).

      For the keywords, you need to write a POST for each one (the “contact” or “about” tabs are PAGES).

      Best,

      Mike

  19. Greetings?
    I used Fantastic de luxe to install my wordpress but the site has no picture like yours. Can I install with quickinstall again to see what happens? My site is plain.

    Thanks.

    • Hi Annette,

      That is most likely just the latest default basic WordPress installation. If you can login to the back end of WordPress, it means the installation was a success. Proceed as usual! 🙂

      Mike

  20. Hi Mike,

    The websites you built for $500.00, were they based on free themes only? Did you offer only specific layout designs based on those themes?
    I’ve been building my Talkinzebra blogsite with Portfolio press at first which is free then I added for a fee Portfolio Plus, made by the same designer. I am struggling with one, creating the features the theme is suppose to offer and two, an error code. WordPress support said it had something to do with a plugin.
    I’m feeling frustrated and wonder if this may not be as easy as I thought it would be.

    • Hi Julie,

      I used free themes to build people’s websites, and then if they wanted a premium theme, I would charge them the amount that it cost me to buy that premium theme on top of the original price.

      I know making websites can be frustrating, but like anything, practice makes perfect and you’ll get better over time (especially as you keep solving problems that you run into). Also remember to use Google when you run into problems; I can guarantee you aren’t the first person to run into these types of issues. Don’t give up!

      Mike

  21. I have set up my website and am working on editing it. Is there a way to get www. to appear in the website name? When I type http://www.sportinglifechic.com it get the HostGator getting started page. You need to type the address without the www to get my site. I would like for people to be able to find it both ways….THanks

    • Hi Heather,

      I just checked both versions and they both work fine. 🙂

      Mike

      • Mike, Thanks so much for your reply. And thank you for the great books and tutorials! I’m intrigued because I’m still getting the HostGator screen. I’ve been having all sorts of issues with my computer. It’s great to know it worked for you!

        • Hi Heather,

          Try clearing the cache on your web browser (look up how to do it in Google with your specific browser). That might fix your current website issues!

          Mike

  22. I have set up my website and editing it. on my widgets, I cannot find ” links” to add other websites such as amazon, google, etc,. I am with hostgator. Have they changed the name? if not, how can I add to my widget?

    • Hi Sujin,

      Unfortunately, the newest version of WordPress no longer has the “links” widget. To add links to your sidebar all you have to do is add the “text” widget and then insert the links manually using HTML code (just do a search for “HTML links” on Google, it’s very easy to do).

      Mike

    • Thank you so much for your reply. I will try that.
      Thank you again for helping us build websites.

  23. I just wanted to mention to others that might be reading these before they purchase a domain from GoDaddy… There are lots of promo codes (Google it) to get the domains from .99 to $7.95… This will help you save a little bit of money as you being.

    Miker – For the first website do you recommend an actual service? Or could it be a long about an interest?

    • Hi Mathew,

      Thank you for the tip for domain discounts! 🙂

      Regarding your question, either one is fine depending on what you want and what your goals are. One is a website designed to make money from a service you provide and the other one has the potential to make you money (and other opportunities) through blogging about an interest of yours. You’ll learn a lot from building either type of website.

      Best,

      Mike

      • I have a great idea for a blog type of website. So, maybe I’ll use that. When you make websites in WordPress do your clients ever complain that it’s a WordPress website?? Or want something WordPress can’t accomplish? I do a little bit of web design/programming, but I’d love to be able to spend my time working on my personal projects than spending time creating for a client.

        • Hi Mathew,

          If you know programming, WordPress can do almost anything. However, when I took clients, I was very specific in only taking clients that needed something fairly simple and straight forward and weren’t going to be too demanding about specifics (as long as the website as a whole looked good).

          Best,

          Mike

  24. Hi Mike,

    I would appreciate it if you could give some feed back on it.

    Thanx
    alex

    • Hi Alex,

      I think it looks great! I’d probably change the theme to something that isn’t the default WordPress theme. Also, I’d have individual posts listed on the sidebar for navigation purposes. Just keep growing the website and start focusing on traffic generation.

      Best,

      Mike

  25. Hey Mike,

    Having a bit of trouble with my site. Whenever I log onto my site directly, it shows the Hostgator screen, but I CAN log into my wordpress dashboard AND see my direct page from my phone. What gives? Did I not set up the main page correctly? How do I make it to my homepage of my site?

    • Hi Jesse,

      Most likely it’s a caching issue (which means your browser is still displaying what used to be at that URL). All you need to do is clear your cache and the problem should resolve (look up how to do this in Google for your specific browser). This also means that if you visit your website from another computer, it will already be working. 🙂

      Best,

      Mike

  26. Damn, double post. Sorry.

  27. Hey Mike – If you are designing a website to sell a product (versus a service), do you recommend going the WordPress route or using an ecommerce site (such as Big Cartel, Shopify, etc.)?

    • Hi Shawn,

      I would still use WordPress. If you plan on selling A LOT of products, then I might start looking into more robust solutions.

      Best,

      Mike

  28. Hi Mike,

    I have seen a number of bloggers that like to use Blue Host and are very supportive of this entity. Would you recommend Host Gator over Blue Host? Just wondering what your thoughts are on this.

    Best Regards,

    Steve

    • Hi Steve,

      I absolutely love HostGator and have been working with them for years. Excellent service and 24 / 7 customer support. They’re one of the biggest hosting providers out there (although BlueHost is big too). That’s why I recommend HostGator though. Hope this helps and let me know if you have any further questions. 🙂

      Best,

      Mike

  29. I’ve been working on custom wordpress sites for awhile now (like custom CSS and plugin stuff); but it was frustrating because the initial back end setup was done for me by other programmers with personal servers and hosting services. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this video so I can set up the back end stuff for myself!!

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