You picked a domain, chose your hosting and installed Wodrpress and now have a sterile looking page that says “Hello World”! Now what? Let’s take a look under the hood, some things we won’t discuss until later, but let’s get familiar with the dashboard.
In the next few weeks we will go over each item and how they are used, the next one will focus on the settings. In the meantime, there are few things you can do.
Accounts
Jetpack is a great feature that will come in handy. It was first developed for the free version of WordPress, and is now available to self hosted WordPress sites. So I know this will sound wacky, but you need to sign up for a WordPress.com account, just trust me!
Then head over to Gravatar and get an account there.
Do you use GMail? If not now is the time to start, or at least set up a separate email account to keep all the site related stuff out of your business account. It is much easier now to start out that way than have the unavoidable spam and junk that comes with this type of project.
If you already have Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or other Social Media accounts, starting a Google Doc or Spreadsheet is a great place to collect them all, and add the new ones you create.
Content
Once we get the bones set up, you are going to need some meat! Let’s start with some text and pictures. We don’t need to worry about Blogging yet, in fact we can set this up to look just like a web page and then add blogging.
Home Page- You should have the basic information that lets readers know what services you offer.
About Us Page-This should be devoted to sharing your company culture and employees.
Services Page- You could have one for every type of service offered.
Contact Us Page- nuff said!
Just start writing some drafts in Google Docs, and put some pictures in a folder on your desktop.
Now those were just a few suggestions, you can go look at other websites, research content, maybe we can even get Heidi to post some examples. In this series, we will just focus on the nuts and bolts of setting up a site. Content is a whole other discussion. For some great tips, look to Tess Wittler and Darren Slaughter, they both offer great content advice for contractors.
So set up those accounts, do some reading and writing, and subscribe to Blogging Painters to make sure you don’t miss the next one! Feel free to leave any questions in the comment section.
It really takes someone with time and dedication to do this. I attempted at first but my patience ran out…needless to say, I outsourced!
So true Darrell, it is something I really enjoy doing, I outsource other things! You were smart to realize your time can be better used!
Chris is amazing like that Darrell. 🙂 This should be a great starting point for future bloggers who want to do it themselves.
Thanks Tommy! I hope some members find it useful!