Create the directory structure
First set up the directory to hold the files, I call my directory public_beta in my home folder. I normally create a new directory in my home directory for each virtual host, but you could create sub directories under a main web folder.
$ mkdir ~/public_beta
Next give the folder and contents permissions of 755 so Apache can read the contents.
$ chmod -R 755 public_beta
Change the permissions of $HOME
Also make sure you home directory has permissions set to 711 so Apache can access your home directory, replace user_name with your login username.
$ cd /home
$ chmod 711 user_name