I've never tackled setting up a WordPress blog myself, I always pay someone to do it because I don't have any spare time and I'm not that technical. But everyone says it's pretty easy.
This is just one more way to look at it, but I think most folks, newbies especially, would be best to focus on content, traffic and sales, and steer clear of technology as much as they can.
Messing around with installs and servers and other technical issues is a big distraction from being a sales person. Being a sales person is hard enough all by itself, eh?
So hiring someone to do a WordPress install makes sense. A better solution perhaps is to hire someone who will both set everything up AND then be fully responsible for how the website/sitebuilder operates thereafter. In other words, the sales person is now out of the technology end altogether, once and for all.
Newbies will often shy from this because of the small expense, but that's a false savings, imho. This decision perhaps shows a lack of faith in their project, an assumption that it won't make money. And also, perhaps they just never meet anyone who advises them to steer clear of technology, and focus fully on making money. There's LOTS of info out there, it's easy to get confused.
Imho, the only people who should spend much time learning technology are those who plan on learning enough that they can then sell that skill. And that's a lot of learning.
Sorry to ramble on, I've spent a lot of time thinking about these kind of issues.
Linda is right - the best way is to start with a free WordPress.com blog template, editing which is not harder than editing an MS Word document. You will never have to worry about hosting, bandwidth, or any related matters, and you will be able to easily point it to any domain name you own.
__________________ Qui querit - reperit (the Latin for "Who looks - finds")
Well,deciding on a niche that I wanted to sink all my time and effort into has thus far been the hardest part.I am now the proud owner of 3 domain names and 2 years worth of hosting as of last night.I just finished building my header and am ready to start amassing content.Now I'm just waiting for my host to finish processing my account and some free time from work so I can get to work on my site.Very exciting.Thanks for all the input everyone.
Well,deciding on a niche that I wanted to sink all my time and effort into has thus far been the hardest part.
Amen to that. I know I work REALLY hard on things I'm interested in, and I'm a lazy BUM on things I don't care about. So picking a niche was tough for me too. Why? Most of the things I'm really interested in don't have a lot to do with stuff you can sell.
I resolved the issue by creating my own stuff to sell, and then the power of ego pride ownership kicked in, and nobody has invented a better motivator than that. :-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by RIFF-RAFF
I just finished building my header and am ready to start amassing content.
I'm ready to start amassing content too, and I mean a MASS of content. :-) My current goal is to have a 100,000 page site that makes $1 per page per year.
Where will 100,000 pages come from? Even somebody who loves writing as much as I do can't type that much.
We might discuss the process of promoting ourselves from writers, to publishers. This is a conceptual leap that many of us can make, even newbies.
That is, instead of working ourselves in to exhaustion writing our own content page by page by page, work smarter by learning how to grow and manage the writings of others. This is an especially promising idea for those who just aren't naturally comfortable with writing, as many people aren't.
Being a people manager is a whole different ball game than being a word manager, and for those with the gift, it's a ball game that might have much bigger horizons.
Anybody here thinking along these lines? If so, please share your thoughts.
Loads of free good html editors available online. NVU as mentioned above is good. So is Mozilla suite. You can opt to build a blog using wordpress or blogger. Problem is the options are so many, it's difficult to choose
You can opt to build a blog using wordpress or blogger. Problem is the options are so many, it's difficult to choose
Very true.The selection is overwhelming and all the differing opinions makes it that much harder to make a choice.I want to be certain that I choose whats best for me.
Hi Frank,
Yes I agree, choose what is best for you!
In terms of all the plugins, what you could do is sit down and plan out the plugins you will require (like a wishlist) before you start looking online for them!
The reason why I say this is because you can easily get overwhelmed by all the plugins available. For example, Word Press is a fantastic blogging tool, and it has over 2500 plugins available!!
if you are not sure what plugins you require, you can literally spend hours on end on the site searching for 'cool' plugins which will in the end serve you no purpose at all. Believe me I have done this before, and wasted precious hours when I could have been using them to write content or put my site together.
The moral of the story.. Make a PLAN!
Hope that helps and doesnt confuse you at all!
Cheers
Frank, here's another perspective, I hope it might be helpful.
Back in 1995 the only way to make a website was with a plain text editor and an FTP program. This was very primitive compared to today, but....
It did force the webmaster to focus on what really matters, the content of the site. There was nothing else one could work on.
You know how your VCR has 17,000 features, and it's all very confusing, and gets in the way of the one or two things you do want to do with your VCR? Everything in our culture is way over designed these days.
The web is like that too. 17 billion features, few of which really matter when you get right down to it.
What matters is creating content that is so good that your visitors will naturally talk about it, and link to it. Content that will inspire your visitors to remember you, like you, trust you, and listen to your purchase recommendations.
It's the nature of webmaster culture to get all wrapped up in gizmos and plugins etc, because that's easy, and fun.
It's quite challenging to create a site that jaded net users will actually be enthusiastic about. We don't see this discussed so much, because it's hard.
If you don't have web technology skills, consider getting the simplest page builder you can find. Sweep 98% of all the options off the table, for now. Focus on your content, worry about that, it's a big enough job to keep you busy for some time.
If you don't have web technology skills, consider getting the simplest page builder you can find. Sweep 98% of all the options off the table, for now. Focus on your content, worry about that, it's a big enough job to keep you busy for some time.
Best of luck!
I really have no web tech skills so its important for me to use an easy to use html editor.I did find one that works well for me and it was free (NVU) ,unfortunately though,I'm having trouble trying to figure out why it won't publish my items to my site.I do find that the more I learn, the further I get and the more hurdles I get over,the more addictive this becomes.Thanks.
I recently came across a new site builder called synthasite and can be found under the same URL. I typically hire out my site building, but this one is so easy even I can put up a basic site in less than 30 mins. It has a decent video tutorial as well.
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