Developing your Web Presence #1 - Being Everywhere and in One Place all at the same time!

This is my first post in what I hope will become a series, designed to offer ideas on how to have a good online presence for yourself or your small business.

Do you have business cards?  Advertise in different places?  In that case you've probably realised that what you need is one web address to direct potential clients to.

How do you acheive this when you've got what seems like a gazillion different places on the web that belong to you?  For example, I have - my blog, which is also my website (where you are now), my Etsy shop, my Beader's Showcase, my Flickr account, my Ottawa Glass Bead Artists' group, Facebook and probably a few others!  I'm all over the place - which for once is a good thing!



How are people supposed to find you in so many places, or how are people supposed to find you in one of those places in particular i.e. Etsy?

You need to have one address on the web that you can use on your business cards, at the bottom of emails, and in forums etc.

This single address can be any number of things providing it allows you to have links to all the other addresses.  It might be your blog, or maybe a website, or perhaps just a single page that acts as the sum of your presence on the web.

[caption id="attachment_627" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="With one central page clients can find all your other items"][/caption]

When you are planning something like this, it's important to think ahead, and also to understand your skills and limitations.  This way you can set something up once that will serve you well into the future.

Which one are you -

1. Little or no knowlege of how to build/upload/maintain websites - (you've probably got much better things to do with your time!)


2. Know some .html, can make basic changes, understand how to resize pictures and how to upload or ftp files and images to a site.


3. Have a greater understanding of .html, can create websites, graphics, can ftp, understand c-panel and how to install programs etc. with your hosting company.


4. Are a whiz, completely up-to-date on everything new as it comes out, code your own sites in 20 different languages and probably make good money doing it!

I think I'm a number 3, I know for sure I'm not a number 4!!  If you are a number 3 or 4 you don't need to read any further because you've probably done all this already.

If you are a number 1 or 2 you've got options!

Things to Consider

You can use your blog or website to link to all the other things, I'm sure many of you already do this.  If you haven't got a website or don't want one you can have a simple one page presence that links to all your other places.

A blog is a good tool as it helps you to get noticed in search engines and can be a central place for viewers to find you.  You can add images / videos / slideshows to you blog so it's also a good place to showcase your art, work, product - whatever it is you want to tell people about.

A quick word on the www's

As far as I'm aware if you have a blog that is hosted online - Wordpress, Blogger etc. you are stuck with their url -- i.e. fireseed.wordpress.com I've found out that you can have your own domain name with Blogger see here and also WordPress see here.  If you have a different blog - check and see if they offer this feature!  If you have your own server space with a hosting company you can install a blog and then the url will be what you choose to register.  That's how my site runs.  It's a Wordpress blog, but my url is simply www.fireseed.ca

I'm not a guru -- yes, I know, you already knew that ;o)  so feel free to comment, tell me if you know something different to what I've posted here, or if you have an idea to share.

That's it for now, next time I'll write a bit about having your own domain name and what you need in order to do that.

CLICK HERE FOR #2 - The WWW's and YOU