From time to time I’m asked about how someone can create a web presence. While you can hire a web developer to build you a highly customized website, you might not want to write the check for one or track down the developer to make simple changes here and there. So, I’ll attempt to provide you with a few tips to build an online presence quick, easy, and free!
First, it’s not a bad idea to secure your very own domain name, i.e. www.yourname.com. You can buy your own domain name at www.godaddy.com for about $10 per year. This step isn’t required.
Now, you should probably create a Gmail account at www.gmail.com from Google. Google has a whole suite of tools that you can use to build an online presence. Once you login to your Gmail account, the menu on the upper left side of the screen has links to Documents, Sites, Photos, etc. Your Gmail account will become your gateway into all your other apps.
Your Blog or Site
For starters, you should use your Gmail account to sign up for a blog at www.blogger.com. My blog, the one you’re reading now, was created with Google’s blogger. Simply put, a blog is like an online journal, and because it’s integrated with Google, you can use YouTube.com to add video, picasa.google.com to add pictures, and the Documents app to link to documents from your blog. By the way, you need to be using Google’s Documents app for online word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. They also have a new document type called a Form, which is a online form that you can use to collect information from people. I currently use Google Forms for online surveys.
If you don’t want to go the blog route, you can use Google Sites by selecting Sites from your Gmail account to create your very own website. Google Sites is a content management system (CMS), which means you can create and update your own website without tacking down your web developer.
Marketing Your Site
The fast, easy, and cheap way to market your website is through social networking sites like facebook.com. For example, I have a Facebook Page for my website GunDogForum.com:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gun-Dog-Forum/162970454176
Once your friends on Facebook become fans, they will automatically see any updates you post on your Facebook Page. So, you’ll be using Facebook to drive traffic to your blog or Google Site and vice-versa. It’s a nifty trick. For more information on creating a Facebook Page, go here:
http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages
Another way to market your site is with Google’s AdWords:
http://adwords.google.com
When you Google something, you get results in white, organic results, and colored ads, which are sponsored results at the very top and right side of your screen. The organic results are the hard earned placements that are achieved through various search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. The sponsored results are the ones that you can pay for. For example, you can pay $0.25 per click when someone searches for a term you specify. But don’t worry, you can also place a monthly limit on the amount you spend.
Anyway, this is just a start, but hopefully it’s enough to get you started off on the right foot.
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