How to Make a Referral Website in WordPress in 5 Minutes
You can create a free WordPress website in five minutes. You’ll need a domain, and you’ll have to set up the WordPress app on your computer or mobile device. You can then build out your website with a clean and modern design. Once you’re done, you can click on the “Publish” button to make your site live online.
You can use a variety of free tools to quickly create a professional-looking website that will allow you to integrate with major business apps like Google Analytics, Mailchimp, and WordPress itself.
Step 1: Choose Your Domain
The first step is to choose your domain. You can find a number of great free domains at https://www.namecheap.com. When you’re choosing a domain, make sure that you focus on the following:
- Good branding
- Easy to spell
- Easy to remember
- Geographically correct
For example, if your company is named Zinc, then choosing zinc.com would be a great choice. Alternatively, if your company is named Uber and your domain name is uber.com, you could choose that domain.
Step 2: Install WordPress
Now that you have your domain, you can install WordPress to build out your website. You’ll need to log in to your WordPress dashboard and click on the “Install” button to initiate the download and installation of WordPress. Once that’s done, you’ll see a “Welcome to WordPress” screen in your browser. From here, you can click on the “Learn more” button to be taken to the WordPress documentation.
You can find a number of great tutorials online that can help you get up and running with WordPress in no time at all. Once you’re familiar with the basics, you can move onto Step 3.
Step 3: Login To Your WordPress Dashboard
To continue building out your website, you’ll need to log back in to your WordPress dashboard. From here, you can click on the “Users” button and add new users. You can do the same with the “Capabilities” button to give your website additional permission sets.
Once you’ve done that, you can navigate to the “Plugins” section in the dashboard and install a plugin that will assist you in making a referral website. Alternatively, you can visit the WordPress directory to find and install a plugin that is specifically designed for making a referral website. Once you’ve installed the plugin, you can click on the “Activate” button to make the plugin functional.
Step 4: Customize Your Site’s Appearance
Now that your site’s basic structure is setup, you can begin customizing its appearance in a number of ways. From here, you can click on the “Appearance” button and make changes to the following items:
- Header (logo)
- Display (site title)
- Navigation
- Footer (copyright)
- Site background
- Paragraph (editorial)
You can change the header, footer, and site background, and you can even add a new section with the Add New button. When you’re finished editing the page, click on the Publish button to make it live.
Once your site is live, you can check out the different sections of your website in a variety of ways. You can use the following shortcuts:
- Dashboard – From your dashboard, you can access the Settings menu and choose from the following options:
- Google Analytics (Free) – Google Analytics is a popular tool that lets you track the traffic to your website. By installing this plugin, you can access the Analytics menu and choose the option that works best for you.
- MailChimp (Free) – MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing services available, and it’s completely integrated with WordPress. By installing this plugin, you can access the Dashboard menu and choose from the following options:
- Basic (Free) – This option lets you create and send out mass emails to your subscribers.
- Advanced (Paid) – This option adds additional features like welcome emails and onboarding series to your basic free account.
- WordPress (Free) – WordPress is the open-source CMS that powers nearly 30% of all websites on the internet. If you go this route, you can edit the content and look of your site however you like with the Visual editor. If you’re looking for a content-heavy site with no interaction, then this is the option for you.
- WooCommerce (Free) – WooCommerce is a popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress that’s completely integrated and available in the Dashboard. You can use the shortcode [woo commerce] to link to the WooCommerce documentation from your site.
- Free trial
- Mass email marketing
- Tracking analytics
Step 5: Set Up Email Marketing
Now that your website is set up, you can begin using it as a digital marketing tool to attract customers to your business. The first step is to create a list of email addresses that you can use for marketing purposes. You can do this by accessing the Users menu in your WordPress dashboard and clicking on Addresses. You can then edit the list and add email addresses that you’ve collected.
The next step is to choose a marketing tool that you’ll find useful. The best option for this step is MailChimp. With MailChimp, you can integrate with one of the largest email marketing services on the planet, and it’s completely free. When you’re choosing a tool, make sure that you’re focusing on the following:
To get started with the free trial option, simply follow the directions on the screen. Once you’re in your trial phase, you can add all of the email addresses that you’ve collected from the previous step to your contact list and begin sending out mass emails. You can follow the prompts to get setup with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and more.
Step 6: Set Up Social Signals
If you want to grow your website, you’ll need to gain the attention of potential customers through various platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. One way of doing this is by integrating your website with social media channels. For example, you can have Twitter buttons on your website that, when clicked, will take the visitor to a special Twitter feed that only shows content related to your niche.
To get started with social media, simply log into your WordPress dashboard and click on the Social button. From here, you can choose from the following platforms: