The Make Your Own Website Blog

Should you build a blog or build a website? You may have already my article on websites and blogs in which I try to explain the differences between the two.  Sitesell.com on a recently launched site  titled Blog Or Build? think most of us should be building websites, not blogs, and I must say I agree with them.

They  go into detail as to why a blogging only solution is only for the
small minority,  and make some very valid points. What they don’t seem  to mention is that most use blogs as an add-on to a website, and not instead of a website.

At the end they go on to compare WordPress and SBI in a manner that reminded me of the Microsoft rants against Novell and then Linux, which seems to me that someone is worried about WordPress, and its time for a bit of FUD (Fear,uncertainty and doubt ).

WordPress can be used as a website, I use it and so do many others. Not only that but you not only get a website but a blog as well.

SBI is a totally different solution- It is not just a hosting package, its a complete website building process. I use it ,  it works just as they say it does, and I’m happy to recommend it, but it is not a universal solution, just as WordPress isn’t either.

If you’re unsure as what you should be building- A blog or a website, then
I’d recommend you read Ken’s article. If you want to see how easy it is to build a website with WordPress then I’m in the process of putting together a short 10 part course- Building websites with WordPress ( not finished yet).

HTL 4.01 was supposed to be the last release of HTML as HTML was to be replaced by XHTML. It now seems that there will be an HTML 5.

 You can find the story over at information week.

So if you were thinking of converting old HTML pages over to XHTML then  you probably shouldn’t bother.

If you’re just starting with HTML then you may want to take a look at my short starting HTML tutorial.

One of the most popular types of personal sites is the wedding website or “wedsite”. In this case study I am going to take you through the process of building a wedding website, and then at a later date converting it into a family website.

This will be an ongoing exercise but the main part should be complete after a few months. After that I will continue to add functionality to the site and rearrange as necessary.

You can follow the progress here on the blog and also ask questions, make suggestions and provide feedback.Because most potential builders of this type of site are non technical in nature I have decided to build the site using WordPress and in two parts.

WordPress is very flexible, free and requires no web authoring tools to use. It also allows for multiple authors and provides secure areas which will be important later as it transforms into a general family site.

Starting With A free Website

I’ve decided to start building the site with using a free WordPress hosted blog as it will give you a chance to follow along by building your own site at the same time.

Although you can develop the entire site using the free blog there are things that I want to include that are not possible using the free hosted blog. Therefore I will develop a basic site using the free hosted solution in part 1 and then in Part 2 I will switch over to a self hosted blog.

However by that time you will hopefully be feeling comfortable using WordPress. and will then be able to decide if you want to invest in a host and domain name or whether you will continue to develop your free hosted blog.

What we Will be Doing

Part 1

1. Wordpress Overview
2. Registering for a blog
3. Adding a Blog
4. Choosing the blog theme
5. Initial setup
6. Site Layout
7. Making a few blog posts to see how they work.
8. Putting content on Home page and linking in the blog posts
9. Adding A few more Content Pages.
10. Wrapping up.

Part 1 is online here. Please come back here to comment and make suggestions.

Part 2

1. Moving to a self hosted WordPress blog. ….coming soon

I almost forgot to tell you that Sitesell are having a spring special until 21-march 2008 (first day of spring). If you buy one you can get a second for $100. So if you’ve been considering SBI as your hosting provider then now is a good opportunity to get it.

If you’re new to SBI then take a look at my site build-it review.

Both WordPress and blogger.com provide a hosted option. If you use this option your blog is hosted on the WordPress/blogger server which means that you don’t need to get a hosting package.

In addition because the blog is hosted on their servers you don’t need to buy
or register a domain name as you use a subdomain of WordPress/blogger.

The hosted option I find good for learning how it works, and I often recommend beginners to get a free hosted blog ( I prefer WordPress) and see if they like it.

However the hosted option has its disadvantages. They are :

• You don’t control the domain Name
• You don’t control your data

Therefore if you are blogging as part of your business or are monetizing your blog via Google Adsense/or affiliate programs then I recommend that you use a self hosted blog.

I also think you should consider the self hosted option even for a personal blog, especially if you want to keep the blog over a number of years.

In this scenario you will need to get a hosting package and register your own
domain name. This isn’t as difficult or as expensive as it first sounds. It costs around $7 per month for a host and they usually include a domain name for free. (UK hosts are usually more expensive).

The ones I’m familiar with are:

Google have recently updated their terms and conditions ( see Adsense Blog) which you will need to accept to continue in the program.

From a publishers perspective the most important change is that you are now required to have a transparent privacy policy. Eric Giguerehas made available a plug-in for WordPress and also provides a good example of what the privacy policy should look like.

If you already have a policy you can you can use it to modify it so that it is compliant with the new Google terms and conditions.

There  is a  five-day grace period built into the domain registration process which gives a domain name registrant the chance to change his/her mind before paying for the domain name.

Some domain name registrants have been deliberately exploiting this loop hole,  and have been registering a domain, placing ads on it, and seeing if it was profitable. A  practice is known as domain tasting.

If it was they would keep it, if not they would release it, and it wouldn’t have cost them a penny to do it.

But for some one taste wasn’t enough they would simply repeat the process indefinitely in a process called kiting.

Now Google intends to remove the incentive by not displaying ads on sites that have been registered for 5  days or less. How it will do it remains to be seen but if it works it will probably free up some good domain names that can be used by legitimate websites.

You can find more on information week.

You may have noticed that flash is becoming very popular on the web and are tempted to use it. However before you do you should be aware that flash files are not capable of being properly indexed by search engines.
Therefore if you do use flash then it should be to contain content that you don’t want to be indexed in the first place.
You can treat it just as you would do a picture, in that there is no way a web page would  consist of just a picture, and so don’t construct a web page consisting of only flash.
If you want to start using flash a good place to start is using the CoffeeCup Firestarter application. It comes with a free trial period which is enough to get you familiar with it and decide if it is for you.

If you really get into it then there is always the Creative Suite 3 Design Premium
from Adobe.

I recommend that whenever possible you use keywords in your domain name. However it isn’t a hard and fast rule. I have a website that uses my company name and many of you will as well.

The reason for using keywords in the domain name is that when someone sees it he/she as an idea of what the site is about. In addition it also helps in your search engine rankings, but only marginally. 

Some people in an effort to follow this rule create incredibly long domain names like:

keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4.com

Other than being very difficult to remember and even more difficult to type they look very unprofessional. Therefore I would recommend that you limit your name to 2 and max three keywords.

If you can’t then go for a shorter but more generic name.

Rember your domain name is important and you should choose carefully.

Site build it are having a Valetines Special. So if you were thinking of building a website using sbi now you can build one and get a second one for $100.