I just setup WordPress MU with sub domains in my shared hosting account on GoDaddy and it wasn’t as straight forward as I would’ve hoped… so now that I got it down to a science I figured I’d write out a quick tutorial in case someone else is attempting to do the same thing.

OK, WordPress MU isn’t what it used to be, it’s no longer a stand alone product, it comes packaged (albeit hidden by default) starting with WordPress 3.0. It might also be called a WordPress Network or WordPress Multisite. Essentially it allows you to run multiple blogs under one domain. There are a ton of reasons why you might want to do that, limited to your imagination.

The straight forward steps to follow to setup MU on most hosts can be found here. However, GoDaddy of course is another animal.

GoDaddy offers a brief tutorial for enabling WordPress 3.0 Multisites here, which may be helpful if you want to setup your WP network using sub-directories. This is the part that I didn’t like…

I personally don’t like the idea of using sub-directories to install new blogs to because then you are limited on what you can name your posts on your main (root) blog when you are using /%postname%/ for permalinks, among other things… so I was bound and determined to get this working with sub-domains and I finally did.

Note: For these instructions I started from a fresh install of WordPress 3.1. Also, I am using the GoDaddy Deluxe Shared Hosting package on Linux, which offers unlimited domains attached to your account and unlimited bandwidth…

…although at the moment the Ultimate Plan is almost half off making it very close to the same price. The Ultimate Plan allows unlimited storage and databases as well, plus it includes an SSL certificate.

These instructions will work for both of the above mentioned packages.

Also worth mentioning… this work around might only be feasible if the admin (or assistant) will personally be adding the new blogs to the network. If you plan to allow auto-creation of accounts and blogs (like is done at WordPress.com) this method may not be ideal.

Setup WordPress Multisite on GoDaddy

1. Be sure you have the latest version of WP installed in the root of your domain (not in a subfolder or subdomain)
2. Edit the wp-config.php file and just above the line that reads:
   /* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
   add this line:
   define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);
3. We won’t be installing wildcard subdomains so you can ignore any warnings that you may get.
4. Login or re-login to the WP Admin and under Tools, click Network. Fill in all the info (be sure to choose subdomains), and click Install.
5. Follow the instructions for creating the blogs.dir directory under /wp-content/, and pasting in the code for .htaccess and wp-config.php. Permissions should be setup properly by default so don’t worry about that.
6. Remove the following line of code from wp-config.php that you created earlier:
   define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);
7. Now after re-logging into WP you should see a “Super Admin” panel to allow to add/edit sites in your network.
8. Here’s the kicker. For every site that you create you have to manually add a subdomain in the GoDaddy Control Panel. Had wildcard subdomains worked on GoDaddy this extra step wouldn’t be necessary. Read below for the steps.

Adding Subdomains on GoDaddy

1. Login to GoDaddy.
2. From the left side click Hosting, then click the green “Launch” button.
3. Go to Settings, then Domain Management.
4. Under Subdomains next to your domain click “Add” or “Manage”.
5. Name your subdomain exactly the same as you named it in WP.

Choose the option to “Create or select a folder” and type in the path to your site.

If the site you are working with is an add-on domain and you followed my steps for setting up multiple sites in your GoDaddy account then the path would be:

/_sites/domain.com/

And if the domain is not an add-on domain (i.e. it is the main domain attached to your hosting account), then just leave the / in there.

Semi-technical note: Now what happens is… when someone visits the subdomain it redirects back to your main site… and the rules that you pasted in .htaccess earlier will forward the user to the proper site in the network. Basically after GoDaddy shoves them off to the main WP install.. WP handles the rest.

MU-Plugins

On the same level as the “plugins” folder you can create a folder called “mu-plugins” if you like. It stands for “must use”. Basically, any plugin in there will already be ready to go for the new sites. However, not all plugins work with MU, so you should read the readme.txt file that comes with plugin to be sure. Some plugins have to have files in different spots in order to work.

I haven’t played around much with the mu-plugins but I did find a couple that I like so far.

There’s a cool plugin that allows you setup defaults for each new site added to the network. It’s called “New Blog Defaults”. You can download it here.

Akismet is another good one to throw in there. You can hard-code the API Key in the akismet.php file. Then upload the folder to the mu-plugins folder. Then drag the akismet.php out of it’s folder into mu-plugins.

That’s it for now… I’ll post more as I play around with my WordPress network more. Hope this post has been helpful for you.

More info: Setting Up WordPress MU (Multisite) with Subdomains on GoDaddy Shared Hosting

A lot of bloggers suggest premium themes because less people have them and there usually coded very well, have SEO value and sometimes have functions built in that eliminate the need for extra plugins. Also, they usually have an admin control panel making it easy to customize. Woo Themes are a great choice.. I’ve used many from that collection… and Elegant Themes aren’t too bad either <-- just $20 for them all... however.. I came across a site today that offers premium-style themes but for free!

I haven't tried them just yet.. but I will be adding one to my new blog shortly. I read that the admin panels are great and they are coded very well. One thing is for sure, most of them look really really good. There are currently close to 200 available, and these themes offer live demos so you can see them in action. It’s easy, once in demo mode, to switch to new themes to demo. The selector tool is similar to Woo’s if you are familiar with it.

More info: WordPress Themes Free Collection

Create Some Quick Feeder Blogs

First what I did, which might change the way you look at it, is I created 2 extra blogs to add to the sale. But, truthfully, I put both of the extra blogs together in just a couple of hours. I didn’t do any extras to them like I do on the main blog. They were used solely as feeder blogs to the main money blog. I dressed them up with a nice theme from WooThemes…and why not? It takes just as much time to add a premium theme as it does a free one. Actually, it’s usually much quicker to configure a WooTheme using the built-in administration area, but you would only know what I mean if you ever used one.

Anyway… I added a block of AdSense to the feeder blogs although I’m thinking now it might have best to leave it out. Also, I added the RSS feed of the main blog to a widget in the sidebar of the feeder blogs. Other than that I just created some basic red, white, black and blue text banners and linked them to the main money blog. I added one to the sidebar, 1 floating to the right of each post and one below the featured post. Really, using a WooTheme can dictate the placement of the banners, I just fill in the gaps. It’s very simple. Oh, and for content, I used Syndicate Kahuna (or Article Marketing Automation) to get free, unique, niche specific content. Get the max allowed articles per day until you reach 10 or 15, then change it to 1 a day and your blogs are ready to go.

Install Geo Targeting So That Your Money Blog Is Monetized For Practically Any Country

The first thing I do to maximize the monetization to as many countries as possible is add a one page eBay store to the main blog using the phpBay pro WP plugin. Almost every niche has products being sold on eBay. Typically when I build a blog using phpBay, I break things down into categories and create one “post” per category. I use posts so that when I submit my RSS feed to the RSS directories, the auctions may be included in the listings. But for the niche blogs that I intend to sell, I simply add a one page listing using one generic keyword. Sometimes I have to add some negative keywords to filter my results. For the most part, this “upgrade” takes about 10 minutes.

Geo Targeting For CPA Offer Ad Placement

Ok, this simple addition to the blog is very powerful and adds quite a bit of value.

As an example of how I used this in the past… I was promoting a certain offer on my main blog which paid $35 but was only for U.S. traffic. The same product, but on a different CPA network paid $30 but catered to both U.S. and Canadian traffic. Then I found another similar offer paying $29 which catered to U.S., Canada and the U.K.

I could have simply chose the $29 offer which allowed me to promote to all 3 countries but instead I chose all 3 offers and used a custom geo targeting script so I knew which offer to show based on the customers country.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell. I added one line of code to the very top of the “header” file in my theme. This line of code triggered a script (and since it is in the header, it is triggered on ALL pages) that looked at the IP Address of the visitor, compared it to a database of IP Addresses to determine the visitors country. The script stores the 2 letter country code in a variable. Now, if I want to place an ad in the sidebar for example, I run a simple if-test to say something like… if the country is “US” show the HTML for the US ad, if it is “CA” then show the HTML for the Canadian ad…and so on. It’s actually very very simple to implement. I will be giving away my custom script (with instructions) later today or tomorrow to the readers of my newsletter, but you can get everything that you need for it to create your own from the MaxMind web site, specifically this page here.

MaxMind GeoLite Country Free IP Address to Country DB

Regardless of whether you use my script or create your own, if you use the MaxMind approach, you may want to keep your IP address DB up-to-date. It gets updated monthly. Personally, I don’t sweat it too much. I might update it every few months if that. There is a DB that they offer for sale, as well as a free one. The free open source database that MaxMind provides offers 99.5% accuracy which is good enough for me :) I guess it returns “US” for all AOL users, but for my purposes that’s fine.

Customizing The Ad For Each Country

A cool easy thing to do for your ads is to customize them for each country. For example, you might put something like “Now available in Canada…” and/or display a small Canadian flag on the ad for Canadian users.

What To Do When You Don’t Have An Offer For A Specific Country

Obviously with the example above I am only able to present my offer to 3 different countries. What do I do with the rest of the traffic to squeeze out the money making potential? I do one of two things. Sometimes I display an ad promoting the auctions. Since the auctions are on a page and generally there is just one small link in the navigation bar pointing to it, it doesn’t hurt to display an ad promoting the auctions to all of the “extra” countries. eBay allows you to promote to several major countries and with the geo-trageting in place in your phpBay plugin it will automatically show auctions specific to the country of the visitor. Incidentally, the free geo-trageting upgrade to phpBay uses the same MaxMind database discussed above.

Now, if you don’t want to promote the auctions for whatever reason or your niche doesn’t have any products available on eBay you can just display AdSense ads to all of the extra countries.

There you have it…those 2 things, I believe, increased the value of the blog(s) to the point where I could command a much higher amount. Hope this post helps you and gives you a bit of interest in blog flipping. Best of luck.

More info: 2 Great Ways To Increase The Value Of A New Blog That You Want To Flip

You Need Version 2.7 For This Convenience

In the past, doing WP upgrades wasn’t as simple. It wasn’t too bad but you needed to download, unzip and upload via FTP. Or you could have downloaded, uploaded, deleted all folders except wp-content, unzipped, then moved all the folders and files except for wp-content. The latter has more steps but was much quicker.

In order to have the convenience of the 2-click WordPress upgrade you need at least version 2.7. Are you there yet?

Affordable WP Upgrade Service

Anyone should feel comfortable doing the WP upgrade the new way, but I understand completely if you are nervous about doing the upgrade to 2.7. If that’s you and you want it done, get a hold of me and I (or someone I work with) will help you with the upgrade. Here’s what I will do…

1) Upgrade WP
2) Upgrade all plugins
3) Add a DB backup plugin
4) Explain how to quickly run a DB backup and have it sent to your email

That’s it…you’ll have everything you need to do the 2-click upgrades in the future. Also, plugin upgrades will be a snap. The quick plugin upgrade feature was around prior to 2.7 so you may already have it.

If you are interested in the upgrade service, go ahead and send me a quick email using the contact form. The fee is just $15. I will need FTP access at least, but CPanel access will make things quicker for me. I’ll do it either way for $15. Any questions, let me know.

Update-> We’ve already taken on more than we can handle with the upgrades. I apologize but at this time we won’t be doing anymore. The steps found in this post may help get you through the upgrade.

More info: Upgrading WordPress Is Easier Than Ever – Plus WP Upgrade Service

1. Create a new MySQL database. The steps to create a database may be different depending on your host but 9 times out of 10 you will likely be using CPanel and the process is simple. GoDaddy steps are a bit different but still pretty straightforward. Check your servers docs to find out how to create one. After creating the database make note of the database name, username, password and host.
2. Unzip the db zip file and import the unzipped sql file into your new database. See your servers help files for these easy steps.
3. Unzip the web site files onto your computer. Open up the wp-config.php file in a text editor. Notepad in Windows sometimes jumbles up this file. If it doesn’t seem orderly, try using a different text editor to open it. TextPad is a good one. Now fill in the details you gathered from step 1. (database name, username, password and host)
4. At this point you can upload the files to your server via FTP but there is a quicker way. If you decide to use FTP, switch the upload mode to Binary because in most of my blogs I sell there is a file that needs to be uploaded in Binary mode (the file is for Syndicate Kahuna). The rest of the files are fine to be uploaded in binary mode as well. A quicker way than FTP’ing all the files unzipped is to rezip them and upload the zip to the server. Most Control Panels, if not all, allow you to unzip files from the server which saves a bunch of upload time. Go that route if you can.
5. You should be ready to go at this point. There might be another zip file included which is just a text file that contains all the accounts usernames and passwords that were created for your site. Your WordPress login ID will be in there.

Let me know if you need any further help.

More info: Setting Up A Newly Acquired Blog Overview