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Hi folks. You may or may not know, but this website gets a decent amount of page views every month- somewhere in the 100,000 range, give or take. The blog here on the front page is certainly a huge chunk of that. Therefore, I’m inviting you to benefit from my traffic just a wee bit this week. How? Simply leave your website or blog in the comments section for your fellow writers to visit.
But wait, there IS a catch.
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One of the questions I get most often is How do I start a website? This question is a doozy for me, because I feel that it’s important for a writer to have an online portfolio, but I also know there are about a million ways to do so. Some people use their blogs to house their clips, others use an online portfolio service, and still others use a bona fide site. But how do they build it? Do they code it themselves? Do they hire a website service? Or do they use
I have experience building web sites so I bought a very inexpensive domain through Godaddy.com. I think it costs me something like $50 a year. I used Dreamweaver to put up a basic site.
blogging, blogger,blogspot,make money from blog
But… if I didn’t know how to build a site I would just build a Wordpress blog on my own domain and use the pages to put on the writer information.
Building a blog is still complicated, but there’s a lot of help on the web and it doesn’t add to the cost. Just the yearly domain cost is all you’ll pay.
Aileen
blogging, blogger,blogspot,make money from blog
October 19, 2008 at 7:16 pm
(2) Samar says:
Hi Allena,
I’ve been following your blog ever since I started out freelancing just a couple of months ago. No jobs in my kitty yet but I’m building my portfolio steadily by writing for market places.
The questions you’ve stated are ones I asked myself. Some of the answers I’ve worked out. For now, since I’m starting out and haven’t a gig to my name, I have decided to use blogspot for my writing blog and portfolio which are in seperate blogs. But I gave them uniformity by using the same template for both blogs so that when someone clicks on either, they’ll know it is an extension of the site they were just at.
I chose blogspot because you can tweak the template easily. And also because I know a bit of html and nothing about CSS which is why I didn’t choose wordpress. There are plenty of websites that have blog templates for free.
Setting up my blog and portfolio cost me nothing except time which I see as an investment in my business. I have decided not spend anything on my freelance business that I haven’t earned from it. For now, I am happy and satisfied with my writing blog and portfolio.
I hope this helps fellow writers who are just starting out.
October 19, 2008 at 9:21 pm
(3) B J Keltz says:
I was lucky enough to have a son that is into “all things web” and a very good friend with talent for building sites. If not for them, I’d have gone with a godaddy domain (I did) and their website tonight program, which is inflexible, but pretty much point and click. Our wymj website 2.0 will be up in a week or two and it looks so much better than the current!
October 19, 2008 at 9:26 pm
(4) Jessie says:
While I could build a fairly complex website, I chose vista print to easily match my business cards and have something customizable but easy to update quickly. For $20 a month I can put paypal buttons everywhere! I would advise looking into it for the busy writer, or the writer with no website building experience.
October 19, 2008 at 9:31 pm
(5) Rhetta Peoples says:
I think a great way to get some web presence is to join a site like Associated Content. Check it out! Visit me while you’re at it!
Choosing A Right Blogging Service
Choosing a blog hosting service is a crucial decision for the success of the blog. It is essential for the blogger to choose a right platform for blogging based on his requirements. Each blogging service has its own uniqueness. However, it is only when they are chosen properly, that they can be used efficiently.Choosing a right blogging serviceThere are two choices for people looking for a suitable blogging service. One of them is self-hosted blogging service. The other one is free-hosted blogging service. The main advantage of self-hosted blogging service over free-hosted blogging service is that it enables blogger to select domain name. Here are some additional details of each platform to help in selecting the right blogging service.Self-hosted Blog Platform: This platform is suitable for the bloggers who are willing to create a professional or commercial blog. This facilitates the blogger to choose a genuine domain name and build their blog on it. Besides a selective domain name, self-hosted blogging enables the blogger to have full control over the design and appearance of the blog. Other advantages of self-hosted blogging platform are free plug-ins that makes the environment of blogging, more flexible. The current popular self-hosted blogging services are Movable Type, Serendipity, and Wordpress.org. Self-hosted blog platforms are rather complicated and require high technical knowledge to host blogs from them.Free-hosted Blog Platform: The free-hosted blogging service enables the blogger to host his blog free of cost. Thus, the blogger can concentrate on his posts and content, rather than, on bandwidth and storage. Creating and publishing a blog in free-hosted blog platform is easy and less time consuming. Also, blogs from free-hosted service are easily picked up and indexed in search engines quickly compared to self-hosted blogs. Most popular services are Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, MSN Spaces, and TypePad (Paid and hosted). Free-hosted blog platforms give less or moderate control over the blogs and often cannot acquire higher page ranks when compared to self-hosted blogs.The blogger needs to have a clear understanding about his purpose and goals of blogging, in order to choose a right blogging service. It is essential for him to clearly understand the pros and cons of blogging services before choosing either of the two.
Start A Blog
Blogging has become a central pillar in the online world. Internet technologies come and go with increasing frequency but blogging has staked a claim and is here to stay. A variety of platforms allow people to start a blog in minutes and without a penny changing hands. In addition, countless other service providers have developed widgets that can enhance a blog with additional functionality and style. This article will look at a few of the basics so you can get off to a running start.
There are two decisions you need to make right at the beginning. The first is which platform you’ll be using to build your blog and the second is whether you’ll host it on the provider’s servers or your own. Let’s look at both decisions in a bit more detail.
The two primary platforms out there are Blogger and WordPress. Blogger is owned by Google and is probably the easiest platform to get started on. It’s really designed for the novice. Functionality features are easy to use and the interface is simple and intuitive. WordPress is an open source platform. That means it’s developed by individual programmers all over the world and is available for anyone to use, free of charge.
Open source software is a fascinating phenomenon. People with all kinds of different business objectives end up developing extensions to facilitate their needs and those extensions then become available to the entire community. As a result, you can search for just about any extension you can imagine and build your own custom blog with precisely the features you want. WordPress is designed for a more sophisticated user but the advantages for the final product are substantial.
The next decision revolves around where you host your new blog. You can host it on the Blogger platform or the WordPress platform. In both cases, you would end up with a URL something like YourBlog.Blogger.com rather than your own custom URL. The upside is that it’s easier and your blog will then be part of a HUGE website. That may improve your search engine ranking. The downside is that the ultimate control is out of your hands and your branding isn’t complete. In other words, you will never have your own free-standing web address.
Once you have created your new blog, you’re well advised to register it with all the free blog directories. Not surprisingly, there are dozens of them and they can help you drive traffic. You can also cross reference other people’s comments, leaving them with a free banklink. That will help you get established in the community and encourage others to reference your comments on their blog. Depending on the blog, you could easily get the majority of your traffic from such a link.
A number of companies have developed platforms that add functionality or aggregate information and their widgets can easily be added to a blog, simply by adding a small piece of java script to your platform. This has become so common that Blogger, WordPress and others have designed specific modules to easily accept such scripts. Done properly, these widgets can make a simple blog look impressive and professional.
Tactical Execution is devoted to helping people and companies position themselves for tomorrow’s opportunities. Learning the mechanics of blogging can contribute directly to your ability to capitalize on those opportunities. Visit the website to learn countless other strategies as well.
