Many of us would like to create a website with good content, a faithful following, and who knows, maybe make some money. Yet in the face of millions of blogs, how can we ever hope to attract and keep loyal listeners?
Excellent and frequently updated posts are probably the most important ingredients. But it’s not a case of “if you build it, they will come”. No way. What makes your site noteworthy? Why would anyone want to see what you have to say more than once?
I’ve already mentioned content. Write as well and as interestingly as possible then advertise what you’ve said and where you said it.
To do this, I propose that you create a web presence. What is a web presence?
Let me set the stage. Here’s what I did. Details of many of the tasks are somewhat ‘techie’ so I’ve purposely been a bit vague. I’ll be glad to provide more details via email or future articles.
The first thing I did was register a domain name – synonymous with URL or web address. You can do this at GoDaddy.com or at NameCheap.com. A ‘dot com’ domain name will cost you about $10 per year. Try to choose a name that is indicative of what you are writing about. For instance, I chose the name ‘exploringnewmedia’ as the name of a project that I am currently working on to promote and present information on blogging, podcasting, videocasts, and social media. The domain name is ‘exploringnewmedia.com’. You are there.
Concurrent with registering the name, at my hosting company (HostDime) I created a WordPress site whose address was to become http://exploringnewmedia.com. I then configured my registered domain account at the GoDaddy site to point to the location on my host where I had placed the WordPress site. At this point, before I got serious about blogging, a user could have typed the http://exploringnewmedia.com address into his/her favorite browser and seen…nothing but the boring blue default screen that is the basic WordPress theme. (I think it is necessary to create your notification system before you are ready to crow to the world, “Look what I did!”)
Before I began blogging, I created a Facebook account at http://facebook.com/exploringnewmedia. Actually, I had done some homework to see if that account name was available and acceptable. It was. Great. Move on.
Next, I created a Twitter account but was faked out. I requested http://twitter.com/exploringnewmedia and did not realize that Twitter was only allowing the first 15 characters instead of all 17 characters of the name so I ended up with ‘exploringnewmed’ which some might confuse with drug experimentation. Once I saw what had happened, I changed the name to ‘xplorenewmedia’ to more closely approximate my domain name. In hind sight, I should have changed it to ‘explorenewmedia’ to give a closer approximation. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. It’s all good. Mistakes are for learning. So, http://twitter.com/xplorenewmedia it is.
Now I was ready to begin. I created a post at http://exploringnewmedia.com/but-what-can-i-blog-about/ listing 50 things that I could blog about. Then I ‘tweeted’ about it. And added it to my Facebook. By doing this, I was/am building a brand name – Exploring New Media.
But just to be safe, I wanted to give my viewers one more way of following me. Using my existing Google account, I created a feedburner account to create an RSS feed that will also notify my followers when I’ve posted some new pearls of wisdom.
So, for me, a web presence equates to a blog, Twitter, Facebook, RSS feed, and soon, podcasts for Exploring New Media.
Oh, by the way, somewhere in there I changed from the default Wordpress them and began “rolling my own” with the Thesis Theme.
Comment on this article or send email to lindsey@exploringnewmedia.com
