Google has revamped quite a bit about how they rank websites and the different ways a website can be ranked.  Google seems to be putting more emphasis on local listings and if  you have a local business then this can be a great thing.  You can now use Google’s own tools to get to the top of Google’s local listings.

You may be forgiven for thinking that if you have a mainly international business that being listed locally isn’t really what you want to be doing.  However, if you are listed on even page 10 of Google for your main keyword, chances are you won’t be getting much traffic, if any.  Now by making sure that your website is listed in Google’s local listings, you can jump up a few pages and even land on page 1 for any local searches relating to your website.

This is a HUGE benefit for any business and the fact that it’s a free resource provided by Google, every business owner who has a website should get listed.  Also, by checking out who else is listed on here, you can find out who your local competitors are and if you want to get more involved in your local business community, you can easily check them out.

How do you get listed?  I’ve compiled a step by step guide that you get here:  Google Local Business Results

For those of you just starting off with WordPress, perhaps this is the first WordPress installation you’ve ever done, one of things that is often missed out is that the WordPress default privacy settings are set to allow visitors to view your website but not for search engines to find you.  This can be a major problem if you don’t change these settings, however it’s very easy to change.

I’ve fallen foul of this new default setting before.  I’d completed a new WordPress website, submitted it to several directories and search engines, used some high ranked social media sites to create some backlinks, submitted my sitemap to Google, as well as installing Google Analytics, yet even after a week it still wasn’t showing up even although I was searching for the domain name.

Knowing it was something simple, I tried everything I could think of and spent way longer than I should have trying to solve it.  I’m hoping that this blog post will save you hours of frustration and allow you to get listed on the search engines quickly – using the techniques you will find here on this site!

If you think you know how to do it yourself then I would encourage you to try that first (it should take you no longer than 60 seconds to do it).  The best way to learn is by doing, as well as through trial and error.  If you have no idea and just want the answer so that you can get on with other things, then here goes:

Go to the Settings menu and scroll down to Privacy.  It’s in this setting that you can simply change the settings from “show only visitors” to “show everybody”.  Told you it was simple but not exactly obvious for those installing WordPress for the first time.

GoDaddy is probably the largest domain registrar on the internet.  It’s where I get most of my domains from.  I’ve had many clients ask me how to change the name servers at GoDaddy and that’s why I’ve created this blog post as a reference for all those who ask the same question in the future!

Just incase you don’t know what name servers are and why you would want to change them, I’ll explain.

Imagine you sell icecream.  Without a domain or hosting you are standing in a dark room on your own and nobody can see you, with your icecream melting!  Now you go and buy a domain and a domain is like an icecream van, it’s somewhere to sell your icecream from and tell people about your fantastic icecream.  However the problem is, nobody can buy your icecream or know about you yet because you keep moving and never stop driving around.

That’s where hosting comes in.  Getting a hosting account means that you have effectively bought a permanent pitch for your icecream van.  You can tell people where you are now.  You can put some chairs and a few tables infront of your icecream van for your customers to sit and enjoy your icecream.

You need both a domain which will also be classed as your url, and hosting so that you can effectively start your online business.

To change your name servers on GoDaddy you need to log into your GoDaddy account and choose the first menu option “Domains” and then “My Domains” just like in the image on the left.

You will then be presented with a list of your domains, or you may just have one if you are just starting out!

Each domain is hyperlinked, which means when you click on it, it will take you to that particular domains settings and from here you can change the name servers that you will be given from your hosting account.  They will more than likely appear something like ns1.domain.com and ns2.domain.com.  The ns part stands for name server, and most hosting companies use that prefix to make it easy for you to know your name servers.

Choose the name servers option which appears along the top menu of your new screen and the screen below will appear.

From here you will see the different options you have available and it’s the bottom option you are interested in.  Here is where you enter the name servers that your host has provided for you.

Click ok and then that’s it changed – simple!  It can take anything from a few minutes to a few hours for you to see the changes take effect.  I use GoDaddy and Hostgator combination and it usually just takes a few minutes to change.

Once it’s changed you want to go into your control panel (cpanel) on your domain and install WordPress or whatever program you want, as soon as possible, as not doing so can leave your hosting account open to spammers.

Don’t get pulled into the misconception that when you are starting off online that you must pay a professional web designer to create your website for you at a cost of several hundreds, even thousands of dollars.  There are other ways to create your own website cheaply, so you can keep your budget for other expenses.

One thing you will need to keep in mind is that if you don’t have any technical skills then this journey to create your own website will take you longer, but you will learn lots of skills along the way that you can put into good use while you grow your online business.

This website was set up using a $7 domain from GoDaddy.  Always search for promo codes to get your domain as cheap as you can.  I used GoDaddy promo code PROMO749 which is still probably available as I’ve used it a few times, and hosting that starts at $4.95 from Hostgator.  WordPress is free to install and if you get your hosting from Hostgator they have a program within their control panel (cpanel) called Fantastico which will allow you to install WordPress with just a few clicks.

Creating your first website with WordPress is the cheapest and simplest way to get you started online.  Now some may say that you can also get a free WordPress website from WordPress.com, this is called a hosted account opposed to a self-hosted (using your own hosting account).  If you get a website that is hosted on WordPress.com, although it is free, it comes with some complications in that you can’t change the colors of the template you choose, you can’t get access to your hosted files, also it doesn’t look very professional having a domain that looks like:   mydomain.wordpress.com.

So for the price of a few dollars each month, it is much better to get a self-hosted WordPress site.  This way you can also set up your own email address such as myname@mydomain.com which does look very professional!

There are thousands of free WordPress themes or templates that you can install on your website, again keeping your costs down!  You can always upgrade your website template to a paid one when your business starts to turn a profit.  It’s better to start off looking after your budget and focus on earning a profit asap.  Start cheaply, focus on the important tasks at hand and watch for your online profits to come in.

Look out for more posts in this series to show you how to set up your WordPress website and other great tips on growing your online business.