The Website: A Promotional Tool
Don't have your own website yet? What are you waiting for?
There are a number of important tools on the internet today to help promote a writer's works online. The internet is not the sole solution to acquiring exposure in the writing community and general public and should never be used exclusively but the potential for reaching a large audience in real time cannot be overlooked.
The creation of a personal website has been highly lauded as one of several effective ways to gain an audience. There is a large number of website hosting services available on the internet today that offer a diverse range of plans to suit the budget of each new member with price ranges from free to various levels of periodic payments.
Most paid website hosts require member payments of two to three months at a time. While free websites offer a modest level of services and features they do have their limitations. Many provide a limited number of free webpage templates to select from and is a great help to the novice webmaster who is not familiar with the more technical side of manual text editing and page creation.
Free websites also provide a limited number of pages per site and many also allow for a limited amount of picture uploading. Because the websites are free the hosting company requires in most cases that members agree to allow the host to display graphic and/or text advertising on each webpage on their site. This is the host's only way to make money in return for their free hosting services.
As stated there are paid websites to suit every budget. Starting even as low as $5 or less per month provides enough webspace to satisfy the new webmaster's promotional objectives. The beauty of these website hosting services is that you don't have to be a techno-wizzard in order to set up even your first website. As your need for additional webspace arises more space can be purchased at a reasonable cost.
You can expect some trial and error at the start as you discover the flexibility of these websites and what they can do for you. Most website hosts recognize the complexity of webhosting and have minimized the challenges to the novice webmaster by designing programs that are formatted to allow for easy website creation. These sites normally provide FAQ and help pages that will answer most questions as they arise and frequently provide customer support services for the more difficult problems that may arise.
Why create a website? For starters, websites are a great way to publish one's product on the internet whether it be goods or services and in the case of writers what better and cheaper way to gain exposure to your work than to showcase your talents by posting feature articles, book excerpts, and links to your other website/blog locations than to create an attractive and professional looking website at a very modest cost.
Keep in mind that with websites on the internet once you have created a website you have only taken the first step toward promoting your product. The followup to that website creation that is critical to selling your product or maximizing your potential online exposure is to bring traffic to your website.
There any many ways to drive traffic to your website. Careful research should be undertaken before creating a website and discover the many recognized ways to enhance your website's importance. Review any website devoted to website resources and you will see the predominent phrase "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO".
One of the most critical tools in a website aresenal is the use of "keywords" which are individual words or phrases repeated throughout your webpages that will help any search engine crawling your site to identify what your website is all about.
It is generally recognized that successful websites today are text rich with minimal graphics. A website can be attractive visually but if it lacks useful and interesting text content that will compel a visitor to return again and again you will not achieve the desired results from your website.
There is no clear fast track to stardom when it comes to writing. The internet provides the potential for considerable exposure to the webmaster but getting repeat visitors is the key. This will likely also involve numerous methods of advertising, free and paid. Stay within your budget but advertise for sure.
The idea of promoting or advertising your website is to bring "relevant" traffic to your site. That means selecting a target audience. Promote your work to those on the internet who share an interest in what it is that you are promoting. I promote my poetry works and books and therefore don't advertise to people registered on gardening and landscape websites.
Website creation and hosting takes time and careful planning in advance in order to achieve a winning formula that will generate interest and repeat visits. Even the opening sentence on a website can play a key role on whether each visitor lingers to check out what you have to offer or quickly hits the backspace key to browse elsewhere.
Keeping abreast of the internet website world through online articles, newsletters, website resource reviews etc. will help you create and maintain a place on the internet that is rich with relevant content and attract that highly desired and repeated visitor traffic.
How to find the right website host for you? Many newsletters and website hosting directories will provide a large resource of hosting services to review and choose from. A simple search engine query for "website hosts" or "free website hosts" will return thousands of website links in the search results pages that follow.
For a modest cost I now host my own website that provides ample webspace to display my writing and provide a large number of relevant links to my own websites and other websites with related content. My website can be viewed at http://www.apoetsview.org . Remember to always link back to your various websites (as I have just done). This helps a search engine or web crawler to pick up on related links that they capture within the content of your websites.
Set up your own website today!
Don MacIver
author, Journeys In Verse
There are a number of important tools on the internet today to help promote a writer's works online. The internet is not the sole solution to acquiring exposure in the writing community and general public and should never be used exclusively but the potential for reaching a large audience in real time cannot be overlooked.
The creation of a personal website has been highly lauded as one of several effective ways to gain an audience. There is a large number of website hosting services available on the internet today that offer a diverse range of plans to suit the budget of each new member with price ranges from free to various levels of periodic payments.
Most paid website hosts require member payments of two to three months at a time. While free websites offer a modest level of services and features they do have their limitations. Many provide a limited number of free webpage templates to select from and is a great help to the novice webmaster who is not familiar with the more technical side of manual text editing and page creation.
Free websites also provide a limited number of pages per site and many also allow for a limited amount of picture uploading. Because the websites are free the hosting company requires in most cases that members agree to allow the host to display graphic and/or text advertising on each webpage on their site. This is the host's only way to make money in return for their free hosting services.
As stated there are paid websites to suit every budget. Starting even as low as $5 or less per month provides enough webspace to satisfy the new webmaster's promotional objectives. The beauty of these website hosting services is that you don't have to be a techno-wizzard in order to set up even your first website. As your need for additional webspace arises more space can be purchased at a reasonable cost.
You can expect some trial and error at the start as you discover the flexibility of these websites and what they can do for you. Most website hosts recognize the complexity of webhosting and have minimized the challenges to the novice webmaster by designing programs that are formatted to allow for easy website creation. These sites normally provide FAQ and help pages that will answer most questions as they arise and frequently provide customer support services for the more difficult problems that may arise.
Why create a website? For starters, websites are a great way to publish one's product on the internet whether it be goods or services and in the case of writers what better and cheaper way to gain exposure to your work than to showcase your talents by posting feature articles, book excerpts, and links to your other website/blog locations than to create an attractive and professional looking website at a very modest cost.
Keep in mind that with websites on the internet once you have created a website you have only taken the first step toward promoting your product. The followup to that website creation that is critical to selling your product or maximizing your potential online exposure is to bring traffic to your website.
There any many ways to drive traffic to your website. Careful research should be undertaken before creating a website and discover the many recognized ways to enhance your website's importance. Review any website devoted to website resources and you will see the predominent phrase "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO".
One of the most critical tools in a website aresenal is the use of "keywords" which are individual words or phrases repeated throughout your webpages that will help any search engine crawling your site to identify what your website is all about.
It is generally recognized that successful websites today are text rich with minimal graphics. A website can be attractive visually but if it lacks useful and interesting text content that will compel a visitor to return again and again you will not achieve the desired results from your website.
There is no clear fast track to stardom when it comes to writing. The internet provides the potential for considerable exposure to the webmaster but getting repeat visitors is the key. This will likely also involve numerous methods of advertising, free and paid. Stay within your budget but advertise for sure.
The idea of promoting or advertising your website is to bring "relevant" traffic to your site. That means selecting a target audience. Promote your work to those on the internet who share an interest in what it is that you are promoting. I promote my poetry works and books and therefore don't advertise to people registered on gardening and landscape websites.
Website creation and hosting takes time and careful planning in advance in order to achieve a winning formula that will generate interest and repeat visits. Even the opening sentence on a website can play a key role on whether each visitor lingers to check out what you have to offer or quickly hits the backspace key to browse elsewhere.
Keeping abreast of the internet website world through online articles, newsletters, website resource reviews etc. will help you create and maintain a place on the internet that is rich with relevant content and attract that highly desired and repeated visitor traffic.
How to find the right website host for you? Many newsletters and website hosting directories will provide a large resource of hosting services to review and choose from. A simple search engine query for "website hosts" or "free website hosts" will return thousands of website links in the search results pages that follow.
For a modest cost I now host my own website that provides ample webspace to display my writing and provide a large number of relevant links to my own websites and other websites with related content. My website can be viewed at http://www.apoetsview.org . Remember to always link back to your various websites (as I have just done). This helps a search engine or web crawler to pick up on related links that they capture within the content of your websites.
Set up your own website today!
Don MacIver
author, Journeys In Verse
posted by Don MacIver at
12:08 p.m.
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