Do you have your own website?

1. 57

   sid_candidposted 13 years ago

   I am seriously thinking of starting my own website especially after the recent Google belly dance. I think finding a good niche would be a challenge but more intimidating is designing an attractive layout for the website as I have never been good with tech things. Any advice or help would be appreciated. You can even contact me through my profile if you want to help me. I know its a challenge but with this wonderful hub community to support me nothing is impossible.

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   1. 64

      warchild75posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      i have my own and have always been told not to worry about appearance until your getting a hundred views a day otherwise its kind of like you decorating a shop window and then plonking it in the middle of the dessert where no one will see it.My advice find your niche,build a keyword list and do your website,worry about the design when you have traffic and the links to it.

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2. 0

   zampanoposted 13 years ago

   Hi.
   Do a google search on flash or html templates.
   Maybe you could take a look at WordPress too.
   
   Good luck.

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3. 57

   sid_candidposted 13 years ago

   Thanks Zampano but I would also like to know about some other aspects like niche, hosting and domains.

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4. 78

   MyWebsposted 13 years ago

   I highly suggest avoiding a flash layout. It is difficult to impossible for Googlebot to index Flash content. I'm not saying it can't be done, but that it's a lot of trouble. Best to avoid it if you care about search engine traffic.

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5. 77

   Penteposted 13 years ago

   Learn HTML and practice coding in it. It doesn't hurt to learn a little bit of PHP also. Here are two good (and free) websites.
   
   http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
   
   http://www.tizag.com/

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6. 60

   asiemensposted 13 years ago

   I have my own site, and because I'm just starting into the whole coding thing I tried one of the website design sites. Check out something like webs.com (my fav) or weebly.com. You can try it out for free and upgrade to premium if you like it and want more features. I find that it works really well and is practically idiot proof, which is awesome for me.

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7. 69

   thisisoliposted 13 years ago

   Don't search for web templates.  You will get a huge amount of useless junk.  Get wordpress installed, many hosts will auto install it for you, from there you can easily install new themes straight from your WP dashboard.

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8. 57

   sid_candidposted 13 years ago

   Can I pay for domain registration and use blogger for hosting? If yes can I change my web hosting to something like hostgator etc later.

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   1. 69

      thisisoliposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You can buy a domain and link it to blogger I think, but that would give you a blogger blog on your own domain not wordpress.
      
      Check out what it says on blogger regarding that, it might be a good way for you to go!

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      1. 57

         sid_candidposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         This is the link which explain how to host your domain on blogger:
         http://www.google.com/support/blogger/b … swer=55373
         
         Can I change my hosting to other web hosting companies like hostgator later.

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         1. 61

            SiddSinghposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Yes you can.
            
            But then, you will be left with the thankless task of migrating the posts on blogger to WP - which will become more of pain if your website gains traffic on blogger. You will lose all traffic and SE traction - you will have to start from scratch - effectively a new website.
            
            As sunforged said above, if you are serious about this business, you have to consider own hosting. You can get REALLY cheap hosting for a single website - at Rs 45 a month - and whats more - you can pay monthly!

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9. 71

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   a blogger blog can be associated with a domain and many wordpress template styles have been ported to blogger.
   
   I dont see any reason to not get your own hosting for $5-$10 a month.
   
   Its really a requirement for long term success online and its hard to believe anyone trying to make a business out of online writing and marketing cant scrape together that little!
   
   Yes, you can switch between hosts quite easily. But switching from blogger to wordpress and keeping your same URL's from any backlinks you receive may be a headache
   
   Probably best avoided unless you enjoy that type of stuff

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10. 69

    Tomygunposted 13 years ago

    I suggest first finding your niche, then after you have decided what domain name you want, you may register that domain and then you can already install Wordpress content management system. Registration could be done using godaddy.com or maybe just using the Wordpress site. Just be sure, you don't end up with yoursite.wordpress.com; Using wordpress you will gain in several important aspects:
    
    1. You will get loads of free high quality themes.
    
    2. You will be able to use countless number of plugins which is quite necessary if you will be tweaking your site in the future.
    
    3. Wordpress platform is updated quite frequently - less problems with security and bug issues.
    
    4. Easy SEO optimization.
    
    5. Good support forum and online help.
    
    6. Your site layout or theme can easily be changed anytime and anyway you like - less problems with design migration.
    
    That's all, I guess.

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