Category Archives: Business

How to Create a WordPress Website – First Steps

Business, Internet, Money, Technology

WordPress

I started using WordPress websites a few years ago and to be honest to start off with I did not get on well with them. I guess it was just the fact that I was not familiar with how they worked and I didn’t find them to be that user friendly. After some time of using other people’s wordpress websites and now setting up my own I have really started to get to grips with them and find that you can make a quick and easy website with very little effort and no need for design skills.

I by no means profess to being an expert at WordPress websites (although I thought I had a good foundation, having worked as a Sharepoint website expert previously and having a lot of experience in HTML, Javascript and ASP) but I wanted to show you what I had learnt about setting up a WordPress website and what I do each time I set a website up so that firstly, any beginners might get a few tips that they didn’t know and secondly, anyone who is an expert can correct me and tell me if I am doing something wrong or missing something!

WordPress – Blog or Website?

Although WordPress was really set up as a blogging platform, it is also great to use for setting up a standard websites as you don’t have to design the whole site from scratch, there are lots of plugins that can do whatever you want them to do which saves you a whole lot of time if you want to start a website.

I currently have around a dozen WordPress websites set up with more in the pipeline and am using them for earning extra online income, primarily with adsense and Amazon. I don’t generally set them up as blogs, but more as standard websites using the blogging function to add news articles.

WordPress Hosting

I have all of my WordPress sites hosted by Hostgator which has a great plan for unlimited hosting so that you can have as many wordpress sites as you want to hosted on one account. I checked out a lot of hosting providers before choosing Hostgator and it seemed like they were not only the most recommended but also the ones with the best pricing structure. You can choose a plan that allows you to set up as many websites as you like so the more you build the less the cost per website. You can check them out here and if you want any more incentive then I have a discount code which will give you 25% off any plan you choose. use the code AZURE25OFF for this discount. Other hosting providers can also set up WordPress hosting for you but this seems to be the best one that I have found and was also recommended to me by an SEO expert.

WordPress Website – Step 1 – Choose Theme

So, let’s say that you have your website set up and have installed WordPress on it, so if you are using Hostgator then you will have the theme Twenty Fourteen used on your website.

The first thing that I will do with my website is to choose a suitable theme. If you go into the WordPress admin console and select themes then you will get a choice of a lot of free themes that you can choose to use for your website. Choice of a WordPress theme may depend on the layout – how many columns do you want and in which position? Or it may depend on the look of the website – you can search the themes by colour, description and layout amongst other things. if you google free wordpress themes for your category you can often find one that will suit your website.

If you don’t like any of the free themes that you see then you can buy custom themes or get someone to build one for you. once you have installed a theme you can also customise the style sheet and hence the appearance yourself.

WordPress Step 2 – Install Plugins

Plugins are the things that make WordPress sites do what you want them to do – there is pretty much a plugin for anything and most of them are free. There are many different plugins for each type of thing that I am trying to do but these are the ones that I have found suit my needs best. The plugins that I will install as soon as I set up my WordPress website are as follows:

  • WordPress SEO – this is a key plugin if you want to get more traffic to your website. This plugin ensures you maximise the SEO and create all the correct metadata for each of your pages.
  • AGoogle Adsense Plugin – there are quite a few to choose from and most of them will do a similar thing by enabling you to add Google Adsense blocks to your site. You can choose where to add them and whether you want to add them to pages, posts or just anywhere. This is a great way to monetise your site.
  • Easy Privacy Policy – this adds a privacy Policy page to your website which you will need if you are displaying adsense or selling affiliate products. Quick and easy as it says!
  • WP Amazon associate – again there are a few Amazon plugins that you can use. This one can customise the item you display to the location of the viewer (providing that product is available in their location) so is pretty useful.
  • Google XML Sitemaps – creates a sitemap that Google recognises and that can be added to the Webmaster tools.
  • Simple 301 Redirects – used so that affiliate links are not shown on each page but are instead on a 301 redirect from a web page (apparently Google recognises affiliate links and does not like them).
  • YouTube Embed – allows you to embed YouTube videos in your website if required.
  • WP Spam Free WordPress – you will find that you will get many spam comments and trackbacks on your website unless you ahve an anti-spam plugin so make sure you install one!

Plugins are constantly changing and becoming unavailable so if a particular one mentioned here is not shown then there are bound to be others that do the same thing.

In addition to these I may use other plugins that are specific to each site but these are my staple ones that I will pretty much always use.

Step 3 – Create Content and Set Home Page

One thing that I usually do is to change the WordPress website so that it looks less like a blog. I prefer to have a static home page with the ‘blog’ entries on another page so to do this I first add two new pages to the site – one called ‘Home’ and one called ‘news’ (or something similar). Then I go to Settings, Reading and change the home page to be a static one (Home) and the ‘posts’ page to be ‘news’ – in this way I can have plain text on the home page.

Once I have done this will create all of my pages (bearing in mind I will have already done the research on my keywords and so I will know what I want to call the pages) and will already have the content created that I can just insert into the pages. Whilst creating all the pages I will also fill in all the SEO information on them.

WordPress Websites – A Few Extras

Some of the extra steps I will take when creating my WordPress site are:

  • Install Google Analytics
  • Change the admin password that was automatically generated
  • Make sure in settings the site is set with the www in the site URL
  • Add the site to Google webmaster tools and register the XML file
  • Submit the site to Google and Bing

So Far So Good

So far I am happy with the way my WordPress websites are going. Within 2 months one of my sites has reached page 1 of Google (positions 3 and 4) and is getting some good traffic. I have a number of other sites that are on the first page of Google. The others have increasing traffic and a bit more competition to overcome! One thing I think is key is to get the right URL – in particular a .com if you can – and I focus on the URL as the first thing before I set up a site.

Cheap Property Inventory

Business, Home & Garden, Real Estate

Renting Property in the UK

If you are renting out property in the UK then there are quite a number of things that you need to do and rules that you need to comply with before you can rent out your house or your buy to let property.

Although you do not actually have to have a property inventory carried out, it is a good idea to do so to protect not only yourself but also the tenant.

If you have a letting agent managing your property then they will likely either have a company that will carry out the property inventory for you or be able to do it themselves. However, this can be quite expensive and can cost in the region of around £100 or more to carry out a property inventory when the tenant moves in.

If you are looking to maximise your profit then it is possible to carry out your owncheap property inventory.

Why Do You Need A Property Inventory?

Under the current rules you must place the tenants deposit in a registered deposit scheme. Under the rules of this scheme, if you want to claim back any money from the tenant after they have vacated the property, for example if they have caused any damage or removed any of your property, then you must have proof of why you want to claim the money from them.

The best way to do this is to have a fully completed property inventory that is signed off by both the landlord and the tenant when the tenant moves in.

Not only should the property inventory include any property, fixtures and fittings etc that are left in the property, it should also include a condition report stating (preferably with pictures) the condition of the property in the event of any dispute about damage.

Cheap Property Inventory

So, if you want to save some money then you can do the property inventory yourself. However, it is good to go through a standard format to make sure that you cover everything that you need to and make the property inventory thorough and one that will stand up to any queries that may arise when the tenant vacates.

So you can find a cheap property inventory at shops like WH Smith. They have them available for around £20 together with other forms for landlords. Or you can find them for less than £10 on Amazon. There are currently a couple on offer so check out this cheap property inventory for starters. It includes templates for the property inventory plus guidance notes for the correct way of completing that and the statement of condition of the property.

Giant Advertising Inflatable

Business, Fun Stuff,


So my theory is that you can pretty much buy anything you want on Amazon and as I was searching the other day for a pool inflatable I came across this which really does seem to prove my theory!

If you are looking to buy a giant advertising inflatable then this is surely the place for you. In fact I was passing by a carpet shop the other day and I wouldn’t have noticed it that much except that it had a giant inflatable in front of it advertising a sale they had on. These things really do catch your eye so maybe they are worth the investment. They don’t come cheap – this King Kong giant inflatable has a $2,199 price tag (although prices can change quickly on Amazon but that is the price at going to print). But then if you think about any increase in revenue it might provide then it could well be a good investment. Ok it seems crazy to say that a giant inflatable can be a good investment but I know that I wouldn’t have looked twice at that carpet shop if it hadn’t had the inflatable monster in front of it.

Check out this inflatable on Amazon and you will see they also have a few other designs to offer. This one come with a custom banner so you can either have your own business name on it or maybe you could share it with another business and just have it advertising sale prices or something generic.

After all it may not effectively cost so much if it is a business investment that has some kind of tax write off!

How Do I Find Out If a Company Has Gone into Administration?

Business, Finance & Insurance, , ,

So I recently had this problem where a company I was dealing with (and who had taken my money) stopped providing me with the service and seemed to disappear. They were not answering any of their phones and no-one could get hold of them. Chances are that they had gone belly up but how do I find out if they had gone bust?

My first search led me to check the UK Companies House register. They were indeed listed on here as a limited company (you can check here) but they were still registered as an active company. My next search advised me to phone Trading Standards so I googled for a phone number for the local branch of where the company was based. It came up with a general number for Citizens advice but apparently Trading Standards farm out their calls to them. They said that I would have to phone Companies House. So I called them and they said they had not been notified of the company going into administration and that they would only be notified or take action if the company failed to file any returns or else had lodged with the Insolvency service.

So next stop was to phone the Insolvency Service. I asked them again, what would happen if a company has gone bust but hasn’t notified anyone? They didn’t really have an answer. All anyone kept saying was that they would take action once the company notified them. Somehow I don’t think the first thing on the director’s list was to call the Insolvency Service… Anyway, they mentioned the Official Receiver as being the person who would investigate, so I googled them. They are pretty much part of the Insolvency service but what I did find there was a form to report people who are acting incorrectly. This answered my question really about companies who do not notify anyone that they have stopped trading. Other people can report them and hopefully the Official Receiver will investigate. You just need to fill out a form with all the details. You will need to get the Company Registration number from the Companies House website as well as the address, phone etc.

So if you think that a company has gone bust and you can’t find out any information about whether or not they have gone into administration then you can report them yourself. The place to report them is here and you can do it online or by post.

And don’t forget that if you paid by credit card then you may be entitled to get your money back from your credit card provider under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

Finding a Wholesaler

General

If you are thinking of selling products on eBay then one way to make some money is to get your products from a wholesaler. Or perhaps you know what you want to sell but you don’t know where to get those products from. If this is the case then there is a great way to get access to a whole lot of wholesalers. Obviously buying at wholesale prices gives you much more scope to make a profit on eBay and also selling in bulk will get you a larger turnover and hence income.

There is a website where you can get instant and unlimited access to 8,000 pre-screened legitimate wholesalers. There are suppliers of every shape and size, including a large portion who are happy to ship overseas and many with no or very low minimum order requirements.
Salehoo is one of the largest communities of online traders with over 75,000 members with community forums and smart seller training.

To learn more about this online community and gain access to these wholesalers check out the SaleHoo website.