If you are in business, you need a Web presence. Web sites are actually somewhat difficult to build and manage; however, blogs are relatively easy after the initial learning curve. You might find it worthwhile to hire a professional (or trade) to have it set up, but most people can take it from there and add new content every week or two to increase your Internet visibility.

Overview of Setting up a WordPress Blog

WordPress gets the public vote for being easiest to use and currently it is the most popular

Fortunately, you will not need new software, which is necessary to build a Websites. Blogs are a perfect example of “cloud computing,” which simply means using the internet to access software running on someone else’s hardware.

WordPress.com vs wordpress.org:

WordPress.com is free. However, you end up with a clumsy url, i.e. yourname.wordpress.com. If future employees (or your family/friends) forget the wordpress portion of the name, they will not find you.

WordPress.org requires that you have your own url and hosted web site (here is a link to my favorite . . . www.GoDaddy.com . . . 
 At GoDaddy.com, for $10-$14 per year you can register your name (or if your own name is gone, a clear and memorable name). YourName.com is the best name as most people automatically type in .com; however if .com is gone for you, consider the newest .co.

Hosting at GoDaddy.com runs around $5 per month . . . Initially you will not need add-ons, so don’t worry about them. BIG TIP: No “dots,” “dashes,” or “underscores” in your chosen name. Absolutely no one remembers them.

Setting Up WordPress

Instructions follow, and I’m on the other end of eMail, but it might be easier for you to go to one of the following:

Online textual Instructions: www.wordpress.org or www.wordpress.com

How-to Video: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/08/21/how-to-set-up-wordpress-step-by-step-video-tutorial/

Or: If you do use GoDaddy:

1. Go to Hosting Control Center
2. Setup your account: GoDaddy is in Arizona, always there, and can help with this if you get confused (which is easy to do initially): 480 505 8877.
3. Click on “Manage Account” to the right of your new account
4. Click Your Applications on top.
5. Click on Blogs on the Left.
6. Click on WordPress.
7. Click the INSTALL NOW orange button.
8. You will have to unzip this file: If you do not have Unzip software, there is a free 30-day trial from WinZip: http://www.winzip.com/index.htm. Download that and then unzip the file.

Your Blog

There is a lot of information to wade through.

Once that is done, go to http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons where you will find WordPress for Beginners. Again, it looks overwhelming, but you won’t need to read all of it, you don’t need to know any of the complicated coding, etc.

Mainly you will need to go to: http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress for an overview of setting up your site. This page has everything you will need starting with a free Theme which you will download from: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ Then to: http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Posts for information on writing posts and to write your first post.

As soon as you “open your doors,” you will need business cards to hand to everyone you come across to direct them to your blog and your services. The best value we know of in business cards are through VistaPrint, which offers 500 Premium Business Cards for $10 . We’ve been using them for years, have never been disappointed, and notice a spike in our Web page views after attending functions and handing them out to everyone. Of course, we’ve also gotten new clients from the cards.

REFERENCES

Blogs/Webs

• www.WordPress.com
• www.w3.org: World Wide Web Consortium, the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web
• www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/report.html: Overview of Social Networking
• www.eZine.com: Articles re the Web: www.Ezine.com

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected include:

1. The term of copyright for the work has expired;
2. The author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright or
3. The work is a work of the U.S. Government, which is free because the Government is supported by the people. (This includes CIA world maps, which I freely use on The Maritime Heritage Project

site without issue.)

Works in the Public Domain

The Original Public Domain Treasure Hunter’s Kit!. There are over 85 million books (and artwork, photographs, films and music) in the public domain that you can legally use to create your own profit-generating products.

Well-known book publishing companies are now using free resources to develop their own collections of works in the public domain. That traditional publishing houses recognize the value of works in the public domain and takes time/money to reprint them, then there is money to be made. They would NOT otherwise take the time to offer them.

The treasure hunter’s kit includes “Profiteering in the Public Domain,” the “Copyright Navigator,” “Public Domain Success Formula,” and the “Public Domain Treasure Map,” “Masters of the Public Domain,” and more. The author positions this as “pirating,” but it is not pirating. The books, magazines, newspapers, etc., offered ARE free for you to use and provide a completely legitimate business once you understand the “can dos” and “cannot dos” of public domain works.

Promote Anything You Have with the help of the Directory of eZines!

First, PLEASE don’t use “free accounts” from companies offering you a “free Website.”

Sites offered free have to cover costs somehow, which may mean they drop ads on your site and those ads could be competitive, which I ‘ve seen often in the real estate industry.

“Free” comes with a high price if your goal is to draw clients for your company; the host site gets the traffic, not your site. If it’s an all-Flash site such as Wix.com offers, search engines have trouble reading Flash, meaning you build the site and no one knows where you are. I’ve just rebuilt a client’s site that had been on Wix for one year getting nowhere. It was rebuilt/switched a few weeks ago and it is already climbing the Google and Alexa.com charts!

Sites built correctly with your own solid content may get you into Google’s top ten. 90% of the sites I build show up in Google’s page ranking system. One of my sites is ABOVE the Marin Independent Journal’s online publication; the newspaper has a team of people working on that site. I’m a one-person operation and I’m right there with them, so it can be done!

In case you’re curious about my stats: Content IS King

That said, if you’ve decided to “do it yourself,” then do yourself a favor and pick up any of the following Peachpit Press books by Elizabeth Castro. I learned just about everything I know about Web design, Illustrator, PhotoShop, etc. from Peachpit Press’ books, especially from Castro’s books.

Many of us at the outset are tempted to sign up for a low-cost or free Web package that proposes to have an “easy point-and-click” setup. Unless you are simply setting up a family album, “point-and-clicks” just don’t work that well, you give up lots of control, you may give up value such as Web site positioning and, again, competitors ads may be dropped on your site. Also, it isn’t only or necessarily the Web site that draws your clients; it is the content, which has nothing to do with point-and-click site building.

If you decide to go point-and-click anyway, at least pick up one book that will help you Create a Web Page with HTML: Visual QuickProject Guide so that you have a sense of what it’s all about.

These books help you create beautifully coded HTML Web pages that perform predictably and consistently across all browsers and platforms. If you decide you want to change a font color or size, you just go to that page. It can be, and probably will be daunting initially, but Elizabeth Castro, who is a best-selling author in this realm, knows that most readers don’t need an encyclopedic reference, just simple instructions for creating their first Web page. This compact guide gives just that: Rather than explaining every tag and option, she demonstrates the quickest, easiest, smartest route to creating that first Web page.

An earlier version of this particular book is LITERALLY how I learned to build Web sites. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the lingua franca of the Web, and like any language, it’s constantly evolving. So Elizabeth Castro has written HTML 4 for the World Wide Web, Fourth Edition: Visual QuickStart Guide, an update to her blockbuster guide to HTML 4. She also includes links to her site so you can check updates to the book as you go/grow.

IF you are just starting out, consider a blog. They are much much easier to set up and manage, in part because of all of the exceptional templates offered through WordPress and other blogging sites. Castro has written Publishing a Blog with Blogger: Visual QuickProject Guide for this. Because I learned so much about HTML, CSS, etc. from her earlier works, when I got around to blogs it was easy . . . and, again, blogs are easier in general.

Lastly, and this is SO important: Select your Web/Blog hosting company carefully. Your friendly neighborhood host company may not have the services necessary to your success as you grow. You NEED a company that has a solid track record, is available 24/7, charges reasonable fees, has a friendly/knowledgable staff, can fix things within minutes NOT days and has all the latest widgets should you need more widgets! I know all this first-hand ’cause that is the type of service I have gotten from GoDaddy.com for many years.

Google employes a “User Experience Team” that creates designs that are useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable. The following is excerpted from Google’s Corporate Site. Their rules are excellent guidelines for anyone planning their Web presence.

They suggest that a Flexible Web Designproduct that gets the following principles right is “Googley” – and will satisfy and delight people all over the world. The following is excerpted from their site and, if you haven’t already done so, their site IS worth a visit for anyone in business; they are the world’s top search engine and they make many of the rules.

1. Focus on people lives, work, dreams. (Some of the more successful on-line entrepreneurs focus on people’s dreams and how to turn your deepest wishes into reality, i.e. Jack Canfield and Dr. Wayne Dyer.) Google’s User Experience Team works to discover needs and creates products that solve real-world problems and spark creativity of all kinds.
2. Simplicity is powerful. Simplicity starts with the design of a product‘s fundamental functions. Avoid adding baubles and bling that you don’t need.
3. Don’t waste people’s time: In the work world, NOTHING is more valuable than people‘s time. Google pages load quickly, thanks to slim code and carefully selected image files. The most essential features and text are placed in the easiest-to-find locations. Eliminate unnecessary clicks, typing, and steps. Speed is a boon to users. No one has time to figure out your site or your services/products.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts. The best Google designs appear quite simple on the surface but include powerful features that are easily accessible to those users who want them. Our intent is to invite beginners with a great initial experience while also attracting power users whose excitement and expertise will draw others to the product.
5. Dare to innovate. Design consistency builds a trusted foundation for Google products, makes users comfortable, and speeds their work. Google encourages innovative, risk-taking designs whenever they serve the needs of users.
6. Design for the world. The World Wide Web has opened all the resources of the Internet to people everywhere. Currently, many users explore Google products while strolling with a Global Mobile Device, not sitting at a desk with a personal computer, so you may need to learn to design for that market. Google’s goal is to design products that are contextually relevant and available through the medium and methods that make sense to users. Google‘s mission (and our mission) is to make the world‘s information universally accessible and provide a useful and enjoyable experience for everyone, including those with physical and cognitive limitations.
   

   Liquid or fluid layoutschange width based on the user’s unique device viewing size. These types of layouts have always been possible with tables but offer new design challenges as well as opportunities when built with CSS. This book, for experienced Web designers with some CSS experience, outlines how to do this successfully.

7. Plan for today‘s and tomorrow‘s business. (I spend much of my time redesigning Web sites that did not take growth into consideration. A well-designed site can last for years . . . and should . . . but it has to be considered in the initial plan.)
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind. Work towards a clutter-free design A positive first impression makes users comfortable, assures them that the product is reliable and professional, and encourages people to make the product their own. Ensure that pages load quickly and doesn‘t distract visitors (or the business owners) from their goals. Visually appealing images, color, and fonts are balanced against the needs for speed, scannable text, and easy navigation. Audience and cultural context matter.
9. Trust: Good design can go a long way to earn the trust of your audience. Establishing reliability starts with the basics – for example, making sure the interface is efficient and professional, actions are easily reversed, ads are clearly identified, terminology is consistent, and users are never unhappily surprised. Be transparent about how information is used and/or shared (if at all).
10. Add a human touch. Text and design elements are friendly, quirky, and smart – and not boring, close-minded, or arrogant. Google text talks directly to people and offers the same practical, informal assistance that anyone would offer to a neighbor who asked a question. No design is perfect.

Google Analytics validates that “content is king.”

The Internet has more than 1 billion Websites, yet fewer than 20% are visible; most receive a dozen or so visitors each month.

Many of the Web sites you are up against have teams of writers, editors, photographers, artists, and programmers feeding their sites (i.e. SFGate.com is owned by Hearst Corporation and fed by San Francisco Chronicle media professionals).

You CAN play with the Big Boys and keep your service/company on top of searches by adding frequent content relevant to your business. That is what feeds search engines.

Check your site by visiting Google Analytics:

• Sites developed by D.A. Levy, MarinEStudios

Report as of May 17, 2011

What should it cost?

$300? $500? $1500? $10,000? We know of a $45,000 site; it’s beautiful but it didn’t do its job, which was to sell high-end real estate in Mexico. Yes, the development was partly poor timing given the world’s real estate ills; in that case, perhaps a more modest beginning would have sufficed.

Each website project is unique and each should, of course, reflect your business and goals specifically. Think of your Web site as your storefront or office and think of it as though you were opening a physical location. Your Web is extremely important to your growth in today’s marketing arena; it should reflect you and entice people to “walk into” all areas of your service(s).

Your site should ideally give a sense of you as a business owner and of your participation in your community. “Slick” sites do not impart that feeling. They look “manufactured.” A warm site with appropriate content (Content is King) for your and your wares will also utilize the power of search engine placement. If your site is visually stunning but can’t be found through searches, it is useless. Or if it is found through search engines and people find you but are not drawn in, then your business will suffer. (My preference does lean towards beautiful sites, so if you share that predeliction and don’t really know how to build sites, consider StudioPress Themes for WordPress. If you have never built a Web site, and if you need an online presence for the lowest possible cost, a blog is definitely the way to go! Blogs are far easier to build/maintain than are Web sites.)

Considerations:

• Focus on your area of expertise; don’t try to be all things to all people.
• Keep crucial information ”above the fold,” which is a newspaper strategy. Papers were designed so that the first paragraph had the basic information needed; the rest of the story was detail. This is more important now that people are viewing sites on handhelds. Not much shows up on little screens.
• Find sites you like to show to your designer; save the urls (Web address) so you can review what you do/don’t like about given sites.
• Are you going to have to update your site with new offerings? We advise against this unless you add a Blog component as Blogs are easier to maintain than are traditional Web sites. Note that you can have a site that is completely a Blog; it depends on your needs.
• Avoid too many bells and whistles; they do not necessarily display on all computers and some do not display at all on handheld devices, which, again, is a growing market. Some designers will try to convince you to try to latest whatever; that isn’t always the best way to go.
• Add a social networking component, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn at a minimum. Announce additions to your shop/services at least once a month.
• Consider an eMail marketing component so that flyers are sent to your growing audience each month . . . eMarketing is far less expensive than mail marketing.
• If you offer visual services, i.e. interior designer, be sure that the images on your site are quality and optimized properly. A poorly lit photo will harm more than help.
• This is SO important: Select your Web/Blog hosting company carefully. Your associate with his/her own host company down the street from your business probably won’t have the services necessary to your success, especially as you grow. You NEED a company that has a solid track record, is available 24/7, is reasonably priced, has a friendly and knowledgable staff, can fix things quickly and has all the latest features should you need more bells and whistles! This is first-hand knowledge from years of working with GoDaddy.com for many years.
  

Case Study

We built a small site (eight pages) for Steve Hewett, a local landscape contractor. He wasn’t sure about whether or not he needed a Web presence and, not surprisingly, didn’t really know what he wanted.

He gave the project over to Denny Creative and MarinEStudios. Hewett is a friendly church-going outdoors man, so we built a friendly site, including images of his dog Cali who is the official site inspector — that’s her below checking out a new patio to ensure that the bricks are level.

We also included images of some of his fishing outings with his daughter and his buddies. This, too, was a strategic move; fly fishermen have some of the highest demographics in the country; people want to feel comfortable when they work with you, especially if you are coming into their home as do  contractors.

Hewett has gotten jobs because of Cali and has made life-long friends through contracting jobs because of similar interests. If he rode mountain bikes — another high demographic, we would have included images of him on, say, Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County.

A new set of free videos are now available from Adam Short, creator of Niche Profit Classroom; they outline a simple formula for generating 5 figures per month (on autopilot) using a very powerful form of affiliate marketing.

With these videos, you can keep your costs down while learning if affiliate marketing is for you and how much income might be generated. All in all, they provide GREAT education on how to create a money-making affiliate site; an increasing number of my clients are adding affiliate marketing programs to their existing business sites in order to increase income during these tight times in our country.

You can access the 5 free videos HERE and following are ideas of what you’ll learn:

• How to create simple 5-10 page content websites that each generate between $500 and $1500 a month on complete autopilot.
• A secret search engine shortcut that will propel your sites to the top of the search engines in as little as 2 days.
• How to convert all of that free traffic into money at 5-10% conversion rates on complete autopilot.
• How to setup everything on complete autopilot so that each site is a true set-it and forget-it profit generating machine that requires no extra work or time investment and generates income for years into the future

Sounds good doesn’t it? It’s amazing! Click here to get your 5 free videos.

I’m not sure when Adam is planning on taking the videos down, so it’s best to check them out soon.

A few basic tips to save you money:

1. A domain name. An example of a domain name is: myaffiliatesite.com. Domain names are less than $20 per year and can be purchased through www.goDaddy.com. Never sign up with a service that says they are $30, $40 or $50. Some premium domain names such as wine.com do cost, oh, $2.5 million, but that’s very rare.
2. If you do not have a web hosting service, one costs around $4 – $10 a month. Don’t pay more than that to start. Plans can be upgraded if needed, and upgrades are often NOT needed. My oldest site The Maritime Heritage Project is huge and I’m still paying less than $5/month . . . also through www.goDaddy.com
3. Authoring software to create the site. If you do not have website authoring software, goDaddy.com also has that on their site with “Web Site Tonight.” Note: Although I love goDaddy and have been using them for years for registering names and hosting sites, I think it’s best to have your own software as it will make your life easier in the long run.
4. If you are creating a blog, try using WordPress. It is also freeware; that IS available also from goDaddy.com and Blogs are far easier to build/maintain than are Web sites. You can use goDaddy for one-stop shopping in this case: register your domain name, pay for an inexpensive hosting package (the aforementioned “less-than-$5/month”, and download the Blog free from their site.
5. FTP software to get your pages to your web account. With a blog, you may not need FTP software. I use ws.FTP.pro, but sophisticated Web design packages such as DreamWeaver have FTP built in.
6. Joining an affiliate program like Google Affiliates, Amazon.com and Commission Junction is free. If there are costs involved, do not sign up for that program.
7. Creating a PayPal or similar account is free. If there are costs involved, do not sign up for that account.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of implementing tactics and strategies that will increase your website’s position in organic search results . . . “organic” meaning an unpaid position, which is important as organic results are more trusted than are paid-for positions. 

A “search engine friendly” website is one that has been built on elements appealing to the search engines including, but not limited to, quality content, generous and diverse external links, page rank, optimized on-page HTML code like title tags, meta descriptions, redirects, etc. and in the end, a site that is worthwhile to users. While many “experts” profess to be able to position you on top of the charts, this doesn’t always prove true.

The process itself isn’t as easy as changing a few elements and waiting for the search engines to notice. Most search engines, and most importantly Google (ranked first in search engine use in America with a 64% market share according to 2009 Nielsen ratings) use web crawlers to track potential growth in traffic, unique content, as well as a multitude of other factors to position page rankings. SEO is a way for businesses to promote their brand as well as increase exposure through online, industry specific content.

Optimizing for search engines – the most direct way for consumers to find you online – is a growing practice for established businesses, as well as start-ups and entrepreneurs to meet the demands for instant access to information.

Web sites I have built that are on top of organic searches are on top specifically because of content; the text is relevant to readers, easily searchable, and delivers.

There are quite a few considerations, but the following are most important — in my opinion — and will get you started with positioning your Website:

SEO: Search engine optimization	“Science” of publishing information and marketing in a manner that helps search engines to determine if your site is relevant to specific search queries; this should include copyrighting in a manner that provides relevant information to anyone who reaches your site. (Note: In my opinion, they only reason someone labelled this a “science” is ’cause they could then charge more money for it. Good and relevant content on your Web site will bring your audience.)
Link Building	Provide only quality links to your readers, meaning keep links to a minimum and deliver at the end of each link. You will have 2-3 clicks and 2-5 seconds at most to “deliver the goods” before you lose your readers
Google	Google is the world’s leading search engine in terms of reach. They started search ranking by analyzing linkage data via page rank. It’s worthwhile to keep up on what Google is doing; for example, they have been changing their methods of ranking sites; make a few searches, check out the layout and watch it change through the months.
Home Page, Landing Page(s)	This is your main page on your Web site. If someone types in your url (your Web page name), say from a business card, this is where they will land. This page will establish your professionalism (or lack thereof) to your visitors. Keep in mind though, that because of search engines such as Google, it is quite possible that people will come into your site on a totally different page and THAT speaks to the importance of a strong navigation on every page of your site.
Spider (Web Crawler)	Spiders, such as those from Google — which is called a Google Bot — crawl through your site to find relevant content for their index. Example, if you type “maritime heritage ports” into Google, odds are good that you will find the following listings, each of which goes to a different page on The Maritime Heritage Project (a site I have been building for 14 years): Ships in the Port of San Francisco 1849: The Maritime Heritage …The Maritime Heritage Project is a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax exempt … www.maritimeheritage.org/inport.htm  Sandwich Island Ports 1800s: The Maritime Heritage Project with …Atlas of World Ports · CIA World Factbook. The Maritime Heritage Project … www.maritimeheritage.org/ports/usHawaii.html World Ports in the 1800s: The Maritime Heritage Project with News …Atlas of World Ports · CIA World Factbook. The Maritime Heritage Project … www.maritimeheritage.org/ports/england.html
	If you don’t have your site name(s) registered already, you definitely will need to do so. I maintain that if you don’t have a Web site, you are not in business. Prequalification by shoppers via Internet research has been growing dramatically through the years. Additionally 85% of net surfers are also Internet shoppers (ecommercetimes.com). Reserve every version of your name and your company name. I didn’t do that when I started MaritimeHeritage.org and I regret it just about every day. Now, when I register a site, it includes .com (of course — this is the main choice and if you can’t get that, rethink your business name as people automatically type in .com), .net, .org, .us, .co, (the newest), .me (it’s an ego thing).
Fresh Content	This is the key to keeping your site on top of the charts. For a nominal fee, through the addition of a simple “helpful hint” each month, I have kept www.WeClean123.com on the top of search pages for local window cleaning companies for a couple of years. If you don’t want to hire someone to do this for you, consider having your site built as a WordPress Blog (we recommend GoDaddy.com)or having a Blog added to your site so that you can maintain it; Blogs are much easier to manage than are Web sites.

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected include:

1. The term of copyright for the work has expired;
2. The author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright or
3. The work is a work of the U.S. Government.

In the U.S., any work that is published before 1923 is automatically in the Public Domain. Also, and most people do not know this, thousands of works published as recently as 1963 are in the Public Domain because the copyrights that protected them were not renewed and, so, are expired. Following are guides I have used to develop my own publications from works in the public domain.

Here’s my standard apology for how ugly most sites are at the end of these links. Sorry! I feature these offerings anyway when the information is valuable and generally inexpensive. Working with any of these publications can change your life for the better.

Public Domain Information Toolbar

PUBLIC DOMAIN TREASURE HUNTER’S KIT

More than 85 million books (and artwork, photographs, films and music) are in the public domain that you can legally use to create your own profit-generating products.

Well-known book publishing companies are now using free resources to develop their own collections of works in the public domain. That traditional publishing houses now recognize the value of works in the public domain and invest time and money into reprinting them is proof there is money to be made.

The PUBLIC DOMAIN TREASURE HUNTER’S KIT includes “Profiteering in the Public Domain,” the “Copyright Navigator,” “Public Domain Success Formula,” and the “Public Domain Treasure Map,” “Masters of the Public Domain,” and more. The author positions this as “pirating,” but it is not pirating. The books, magazines, newspapers, etc., offered ARE free for you to use and provide a completely legitimate business once you understand the “can dos” and “cannot dos” of public domain works.

Promote Anything.
Learn how from the Directory of eZines!

If you are in business, you need a Web presence. Web sites are actually somewhat difficult to build and manage; however, blogs are quite accessible. Perhaps you will need someone to initially set it up, but you should be able to take it from there and add new content every week or two to increase your visibility on the Internet.

Overview of Setting up a WordPress Blog
WordPress is purportedly the easiest to use and currently it is the most popular

You do not need new software. Blogs are a perfect example of “cloud computing,” which simply means using the internet to access software running on someone else’s hardware.

Differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org:

WordPress.com is free. However, you end up with a clumsy url, i.e. yourname.wordpress.com. If future employees (or your family/friends) forget the wordpress portion of the name, they will not find you.

WordPress.org requires that you have your own url and hosted web site (here is a link to my favorite . . . GoDaddy.com . . .

At GoDaddy.com, for $10 per year you can register your name (or if your own name is gone, a clear and memorable name). YourName.com is the best name as most people automatically type in .com; however if .com is gone for you, consider the newest .co.

Hosting at GoDaddy runs around $5 per month . . . Initially you will not need add-ons, so don’t worry about them. BIG TIP: No “dots,” “dashes,” or “underscores” in your chosen name. Absolutely no one remembers them.

Setting Up WordPress

Instructions follow, and I’m on the other end of eMail, but it might be easier for you to go to one of the following: 

Online textual Instructions: www.wordpress.org or www.wordpress.com 

How-to Video: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/08/21/how-to-set-up-wordpress-step-by-step-video-tutorial/

Or:
If you do use GoDaddy:   

1. Go to Hosting Control Center
2. Setup your account: GoDaddy is in Arizona, always there, and can help with this if you get confused (which is easy to do initially): 480 505 8877.
3. Click on “Manage Account” to the right of your new account
4. Click Your Applications on top.
5. Click on Blogs on the Left.
6. Click on WordPress.
7. Click the INSTALL NOW orange button.
8. You will have to unzip this file: If you do not have Unzip software, there is a free 30-day trial from WinZip: http://www.winzip.com/index.htm. Download that and then unzip the file.

Your Blog
There is a lot of information to wade through. Once that is done, go to
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons  where you will find WordPress for Beginners. Again, it looks overwhelming, but you won’t need to read all of it, you don’t need to know any of the complicated coding, etc.

Mainly you will need to go to: http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress for an overview of setting up your site. This page has everything you will need starting with a free Theme which you will download from: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
Then to:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Posts for information on writing posts and to write your first post.

REFERENCES

Blogs/Webs

• www.WordPress.com
• www.w3.org: World Wide Web Consortium, the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web
• www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/report.html: Overview of Social Networking
• www.eZine.com: Articles re the Web: www.Ezine.com

As soon as you “open your doors,” you will need business cards to hand to everyone you come across that will direct them to your blog and your services. The best value we know of in business cards are through VistaPrint. We’ve been using them for years and have never been disappointed.