How Long Does it Take You To Setup a New Site?
Over the past several years, I have talked with many of you both on and off the site. One of the most common challenges I hear people talk about is staying focused and structured in order to get things accomplished. I can definitely relate, since it’s my own biggest weakness also!
Repetition Creates A Habit
How many of you wear your seat belt EVERY time you get into your car? For me, its literally the FIRST thing I do, before I even start the car, and I really don’t even have to think about it anymore, it’s just become a habit.
How about capitalizing the first word in a sentence? Sure, it’s proper grammar, but how many of you think about it being a grammar thing? Few at best! The rest of us just reach over and pinky-hit the shift key… because it’s become a habit!
I could go on and on about other habits in life that we rarely think about, but what if you could turn your niche site building from tasks to habits?
I don’t mean automated software installations – we all know that won’t last, but what about the rest of the process? What if you could go from research to launch in under 8 hours and be 100% SURE you had every base covered?
Kim and I actually started doing just that a few weeks ago, and I think we have it down to habit already!
How Long Does it Take You to Build a Website?
Assume that I asked you to build a complete WordPress powered fully-researched and qualified site that included the following pages, how long would it take you to finish it?
- A Custom & Optimized Home Page that included a site overview, images, video, and general niche information.
- An About-Us page with a Contact form, Privacy Policy and Affiliation Disclosure information. (4 pages in one)
- Article Categories and Descriptions for the most popular topics surrounding the niche.
- Link categories for related authority sites
- At least 5 video posts.
- At least 5 100% Unique Articles, with images, in and outbound links, and related videos included on most.
- Sidebar with a custom search widget, ads section, and links to other authority sites in the niche.
- Footer section that included the 2 highest rated products or services for the specific niche.
Along with what the public sees on the frontside, don’t forget to consider the time it takes to:
- Research a Niche and its content
- Develop a starter keyphrase list
- Find and buy a great domain name
- Add the site to your hosting panel and create a contact email address
- Install WordPress & update to latest version
- Install and configure all plugins
- Search Optimize your home page
- Add and configure your theme pages
- Create a custom header graphic
- Create a 90-360 day site-business plan so you have a roadmap of growth
In reality – it ends up being about 10-20 pages at launch… but you have a few different ways to monetize already built in and can simply walk away for 30-45 days.
How Long Does the Entire Process Take You?
Is it:
- 6 Hours or less
- 6-10 hours
- 10-20 hours
- 20 hours or more?
There is NO wrong answer… I am just trying to get a feel for how it works for everyone else.
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- When to Turn a Weak Affiliate Site into an Authority Site
- Niche Site Directory – Get your site listed Today!
- Awesome New Plugin to Build a Niche Site
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
You can put me in the 20+ hour category. I do not do this fulltime either, but do spend a lot of time on my sites daily. I am also fairly new to niche site building, so i think that plays its part as well.
On the plus side, I have already developed my own habits in how i build a site such as the processes and orders of doing things. I have to make sure everything “fits” my criteria before I jump into the new site. I hear a lot of people throwing sites up(spam) to see what sticks and go from there but i haven’t been able to force myself to do that yet. I tend to want the site “completed” before it goes live so in addition to making sure all aspects (keyword comp, domain availability, products, etc) “fit” I also want the site to be “completed” but still have room to grow. Understand??
Maybe with time it will go faster but right now I tend to slow down and try to do things “right”…. but hey… I’m still new to this.
Yup…I’m a 20 hourer too. If you’re getting all this done in 8 hours, my hat is off to you.
I’d be interested to know how tasks are divvyed up between you and Kim. I’m assuming you both play to your strengths.
I’d love to have a partner. Alas…its just me.
@ Junior and Olivia –
- Tasks and Checklists, with each focused on their individual strengths.
We do everything in steps… and work off of a checklist. Most of the items are now second nature…
I will share more on this as the weeks progress. :-)
I’d say 6 hours or less is completely do-able.
I research the niche, buy the domain, create the categories around the research draft the post titles into the dashboard and then wait for my friendly outsourcer to come along and input the content.
I built custom pages for privacy policy and contact etc along time ago so that is just as easy as publishing a page, it’s setup to pull the site specific info from the dbase.
6 hours seems do-able, pretty easily.
I would say 20+ but I am also in the part time boat too.
If you outsource the content then it will bring the time down quite a bit.
To be completely satisfied with the site, 20+.
I will enjoy the sharing of your steps and checklists. :-) I kind of have a system when setting up sites, but I’m sure there are things I’m missing and would love to see how a seasoned pro like yourself goes about the process.
It really depends on how much content I want to put on a site, but I can get a site similar to what you are asking about in a few hours.
Rochelle
20+ for sure to do the fine setup that you describe in this article. My mindset has been to get the basics done and keep adding until it gets to the point of completeness with content, monetizing, and outbound links to authority.
I’ve come a long way and I can set up the basics for a site much more quickly now. Writing the unique content (I haven’t started outsourcing…BAD ME!) can hold things up, but once I have that done and some good images, I’m good to go setup my site.
So, if I don’t count the writing or the initial keyword research,
The domain purchase, name server pointing, WP install, settings, plugins, and putting up home page, other necessary site pages and sidebar widgets can be done in less than 2 hours now. My problem is endless tweaking or seeing improvements that I need to do. There is always a post or page to add and another link to build. If I would stick to one theme and a more limited set of plugins, it would certainly be quicker. I also think that all the time consuming, tweaky work that I could do, could be more standardized with more dedication to time management. I want to avoid doing time consuming things that help little and concentrate on what helps the most.
Everybody’s checklist will be essentially the same, but each of us will have individual differences according to our theme, plugins, and type of site. Still, I would love to see your checklists. You never fail to help learn me and improve. That’s why I am always hanging around.
Mark, thanks for all you give us! You continue to fan the flames of individual creativity, small business development and free enterprise in an age that is becoming more and more government regulated. Keep it up, my friend.
Julie
I’m in the 20+ as well. I still am not that fast at working my checklist.
This would seem to be an excellent (wink) product opportunity for you. I’m sure most of your readers would be willing to pay to know your system.
Just a thought (wink).
Thanks Mark for this nugg in a better direction.
I find it easy to get stuck in anyone of the steps along the way to completion and then I’m off on a tangent that may add min. to days to my projected finish.
I did see a few steps that I would like to know more about, so I too am looking forward to up-coming articles.
w.
@Jeff – Already in the works Jeff… But I don’t want to put out a simple checklist, without detailed – VERY detailed – direction on how to do things. The HARDEST part are those with variables (like niche research) because I can see something in a site that you might not, or vice-versa.
This is the basic starter type site I am talking about also.
Research > Build > Content > Launch > Market.
I’d say 20+, 2-3 days and site is live. I’ve prebuilt templates so all I have to do is change some keywords, rewrite the contact, about and some other pages to focus on the keyword/site. Then add some other pages/reviews/produts.
But I don’t throw any PPC money into it until the pages are indexed.
Check out DrupalGardens.com. You can build rediculously complex social web sites in just a few clicks. Plus there’s an integrated themebuilder.
I’d be in the 10-20 hrs. time frame Of course, it always depends on the client and the content.
Yeah 20 hours+ for me, just because I feel that you have to really work on themes hard so that your end code is both efficient, and beautiful. Otherwise you could easily miss something.
memoricity.com + embargolink.com : both took 12 hours including domain name registration. Tracked time with loggingit.com.
They are super simple; but starting is always the hardest! After that you can concentrate on one change at a time.
Stephan
Should the article not be titled “how long does it take you to install and customise wordpress?”, as that seems to be what its about, not designing, building, optimising and launching a bespoke designed website, just regurgitating templates with alternate header images.
If that’s the case, its probably about 8 hours.
If your talking about real web design, it can taken weeks, depending on the client, brief and functionality.
If you ask me, I’ve designed website templates in 2 – 3 hours to around 12 hours too. And setup an entire website from 5 hours to 30 days as well.
Hey Mark,
Do you have a sample of this?:
“Sidebar with a custom search widget, ads section, and links to other authority sites in the niche.”
and/or
“Link categories for related authority sites”
Was this your explanation of letting google know you link one way to other sites? Where was that?
@Ben – Good point for sure. My question was definitely geared more toward a “Starter” type site, powered by WP…
I built one very indepth web application in 2004-05 that took a full year to get completed from concept to sign off.
@jeff – Jeff, I still havent jumped into drupal (or Joomla). I have installed it a few times and I always seem to walk away to what I am more familiar with.
20+
Maybe no so much the design and coding but doing the research and writing the content……
Hey Mark!
Good to hear from you about this topic. Love reading your stuff. I started a new site recently and am now looking forward to filling it up with content. A few hours and a few interviews later, I should have a good website up and running. Take a look at how it is so far. :D
Respectfully,
Tony Tovar
P.S. Its the site I’m interviewing you for! :D
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