So, you want to start promoting your book, short story or poems to the world? Blogging can be a great vehicle for promotional marketing, especially if it is set up correctly the first time. Don’t make the same three major mistakes I did when setting up my blog!
As an author, with a book about to be published, I knew a website was required to promote the books (and me), and hopefully provide a vehicle to build a community around the concept.
I have just enough technical knowledge to get myself into trouble, and my marketing funds were limited, so off I went in search of my new website template. Site templates can be a cheap option to get started with limited knowledge of html, etc.
Mistake #1 – Choose your hosting provider BEFORE you choose a website template.
I did find my dream site template, and was amazed at how easy the wizard was to use in the online demo. They hooked me with a very smart wizard which let’s you build and save a virtually, functional site.
So, without doing any research on the company hosting the website, I signed up and paid for a month’s access to test it. From that point on, I was frustrated that every time I wanted a plug-in service turned on (like getting access to the website builder tool), they required a ‘ticket’ to be generated.
Tickets took 24-hours to process before the service was ‘activated’. No tickets were actually ever actioned because every time I submitted a request ticket, they emailed back, asking me to confirm who I was; despite having provided them with my admin log-in details in the requests.
Finally, after several interactions with tech support, I received an email telling me my account had not been set-up correct, and they wanted to charge my credit card again to reset it all up.
This amazed me, as I had been given an admin log-in and could build basic components within that admin site? I was less than impressed, and went in search of another solution.
Worse, I wasted $25 and an entire week! Now if you are a patient person with no real need to get your site up quickly, then this might not be a problem, but I was a man on a mission!
Fortunately, I received some advice from a website developer, who suggested a blog might be a quick and easy way to get a presence on the web. I did some investigations around available options, and noticed the hosting company, through whom I had already purchased several domains, had a WordPress blog option built into one of their hosting packages.
I’m hosting another website with them, so I felt confident in their hosting capacity, but more importantly, I knew they had a point and click system of turning on the various bits and bobs they offered (free email, free marketing, free blog account, etc) in their packages, which required no tickets to be generated. These plug-ins are accessible in minutes.
This was a big lesson in ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ (the first chapter of book #2) . You might find wonderful packaged solutions at seriously low prices, but do your homework! Ask for a demo log-in to the real hosting site, not a demo mock up, if you have no experience with them.
Look online for reviews of services, but make sure to read a few different reviews. Not everyone will have had the same experience, but you’ll probably find trends in good or bad experiences.
I’ve decided not to name the two providers mentioned in this post, but if you do want to know who they are, please email me or leave a post below with your confirmed email address, and I’ll reply with their names.
Mistakes 2 and 3 were big ones, so come back for the next post to save your self hours of time…
Write on!
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