Let’s face it, the blogosphere is a big and intimidating place when you’re just starting out. The internet provides us access to so much information. It can be overwhelming.
The best way I deal with overwhelm is to break my steps down into ever smaller steps. This helps to keep me in action, versus panicking about all the stuff I get to read and learn before actually doing something.
I’ve prepared this post to help you do just that… get it back to simple and easy. And give you three easy places to start and grow from. Because your web presence will grow. It’s the nature of everything.
Must-Have #1: Domain Name
If you are the type that needs it explained for you before you can move forward, I get that. I’m kinda like that too sometimes. It’s like my questions or non-understanding of something prohibit me from moving forward, no matter how much I try. So if you need a full explanation of what a Domain Name is, please check out this post in my Tech Savvy 101 series or click the big banner that says Web Presence Essentials.
A Domain Name is going to help you feel like your web presence is more real & legitimate. Even though you can get a sub domain name for free when you create a web presence on a free service like Blogger (which I recommend for new new newbies who think they’ll never be able to do anything more than email). Many people simply can’t hang with the http://yourwebsitename.blogspot.com.
Your free sub domain works just like a regular domain name except there is no way around the required …blogspot.com part. That’s why it’s free. Because Blogger is doing advertising. For some people, this feels not as legit or real or professional than if it just simply said http://www.yourwebsite.com.
A Domain Name is one of the most inexpensive parts of creating a web presence. For as little as $10 a year, you can have that professional, more legitimate feeling for your web presence by purchasing a domain name. I recommend and use GoDaddy (here’s my affiliate link). You can purchase as many domain names as you like and point them all at a single web presence.
Once you have purchased your domain name, you can apply it over the top of your Blogger web presence or use when you set up your self-hosted WordPress blog.
Luckily for you, I have already outlined how to use your GoDaddy domain name with your Blogger blog. And, if you are ready jump into WordPress, using GoDaddy’s WordPress Hosting Package (here’s my affiliate link) is the easiest way I’ve found to use a custom domain with WordPress. As part of the set-up process (which I’m happy to help with), you’ll be required to select which domain name to attach your hosting to.
So must-have numero uno is a domain name!
Must-Have #2: About/Contact Page
The next most vital part, when you are just starting out, is an About page. Typically the about page might contain some biographical information about you, the web presence owner. Some like to include their credentials or education and on the less formal side, just a short write up of who they are, in their own writing voice.
If you’re not sure where to begin and what exactly to put on your About page, start with simply providing your contact information. Think about the ways in which you’d prefer to be contacted by people on the web visiting your website or blog. Do you prefer email over phone calls? Tell them! Outline it. It’s best to help your visitors do that thing you want them to do.
We have a rule in the designing/usability world… it goes “Don’t make’m think!” You know what happens when we have to think too hard to figure something out? Yep, we end up bailing on the process altogether or telling ourselves, I’ll do this later.
So make it super easy for people to know how to be in touch with you by using an About or Contact page. Combining them into one page is a really great start for beginners.
Must-have number two is an About/Contact page.
Must-Have #3: Email Subscription
Last and oh-so-not least is an email subscription feature (or link). Email subscription is a way that readers of your blog can receive your posts by email. This way, readers don’t have to remind themselves to go check out what you’ve been up to because every time you write something new, it appears in their email box.
Now by default, your blog will come with another type of subscription service called RSS. I will try not to go all scary on you here. But this is good information to know.
RSS is typically for intermediate to advanced web users. It’s for people who don’t want to increase the noise in their email box (the amount of emails they receive). Instead, they use a free online service called an RSS Reader (Google has one, and Bloglines is another one).
When you sign on to your RSS Reader account, BINGO, all the blogs you’ve ever subscribed to show up in reading panes, making it easier to digest the information you’re interested in.
The good news here is all blog platforms by nature include this link invitation to have your readers subscribe by RSS. So there is nothing you really need to do. However, not all blog readers (including your blog readers) may be as technically advanced and may prefer receiving an email from you instead. So providing the email subscription link in addition to the already provided RSS link helps you cover your blogosphere booty for more of the web-reading population: the tech savvy and the getting their tech savvy on.
So how to you get email subscription added to your blog? The service you’ll want here is called Feedburner and it’s free. You set up the account, it provides you HTML code and you install it as a widget on your blog.
Don’t worry though, I’ve already written about RSS Feeds and Feedburner and the post includes a short 5-minute video tutorial on using Feedburner.
So that’s it! The 3 must-have items for any beginning blog/blogger. Now that wasn’t too painful was it?
If you’re interested in getting your web presence started, I have packages starting as low as $99 that include all 3 must-haves (naturally).
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