Install & Go

{Under construction, December 2013. Don’t trust the details on this page.}

You want your site up and running right away; you don’t want to have to learn about all of the components that you might need and how they fit together. You don’t want to spend months learning about survival in web commerce, you just want to start making money via your web presence. The “Install & Go” product provides a platform that will support you while you’re getting going, and scale to support you as your business grows. This is the platform that we use for our “Done for You” customers, so there’s no change necessary when you’re making enough money to afford hiring us to take care of you.

The “Install & Go” product includes the following components:

  • We provide a hosting account that is free for the first 6 months.
  • We install WordPress, a popular, open-source web application.
  • We install Builder and your choice of Builder Child themes. Builder is a premium framework to which we have a developer license. You are not required to purchase your own copy of Builder or a child them.
  • We configure initial settings for your site based on your answers to business-level questions. You don’t have to learn what each configuration setting means, and how it might affect your business.
  • We provide introductory training on how to create content for your site.
  • We provide support.

You want details? Here they are…

Hosting

We are a reseller of HostGator services. HostGator is a great service provider. They have excellent products, prices, and support. You can shop around, and you’ll get lots of opinions about who you should host with and why. We’ve done that; we like HostGator. If you want to host with them and don’t want our help, we also have an affiliate link right here.

WordPress

WordPress is a free, open-source web application that supports thousands of sites world wide. It is often thought of as a blog application, and it is great for blogging. But many sites use WordPress to support their entire presence, not just the blog section. Again, you could shop around and evaluate competitive platforms. We’ve done that; we like WordPress. If you want to try it, and don’t want our help, here’s the link to the WordPress site. (That one is not an affiliate link; WordPress is free.)

Builder

Describe Builder. Add links.

Initial Configuration Settings

Even if you want to do most of the work yourself, wading through all of the choices, learning what they mean (and you don’t speak WordPress-ese), and then deciding which ones need what additional info… It can be overwhelming, even for technical people. You could read the documentation, or just guess at what each one means, and experiment. But you can spend way more time than you think doing it. You really should be working on your business, shouldn’t you? We have a pretty good idea about what most of you want for an initial configuration. We’ll set you up to start with that. You can modify those when you know a bit more about the platform.

Training

It would be nice if everything were so obvious that you didn’t need to learn anything. But if you want to create content for your site without opening your wallet every time you want to make a change, you need to learn how to create, edit, and manage your site. We’ll show you enough to get you started. You get the introductory training course as part of the product. And you have access to additional courses if you want more than the basics.

Support

“Install & Go” is a “Do it Yourself” product. But that doesn’t mean you’re left completely on your own. In addition to training, we provide a support forum. You can post questions on the forum and get answers from others who have solved your problem. The bad news is that this level of support is provided on a volunteer basis. The good news is that it’s free.

You can also purchase additional support on an a la carte basis. If you want look-and-feel customization, help migrating your existing site to this new platform, help with your marketing programs, help with search engine optimization, or many other services, you can purchase one of our standard products or ask for a quote on something completely custom for you.

When you can afford it, you can move up to our “Done For You” suite of services.