Website and Logo Design

The work that StudioPress does is amazing. Sure, there are other pre-designed blog templates out there, but nothing compares to the professional design, detail, depth, and SEO-friendly Genesis Child themes. This blog would have never gotten started if I had to design the site myself. To invest only $75 for this look was a no-brainer. For reference, I use the Streamline Child Theme.

I’m pretty sure that I don’t have a creative bone in my body, so when it came to designing a logo I was completely lost. Logo Nerds did an amazing job on my logo. For $47, I was given 6 concepts to choose from. All 6 designs were great, and I was able to choose the design I liked most and have it revised any way I wanted (for free).

Domain Hosting

There are a number of domain/web hosting services out there. Prices are comparable between all of the companies, so you have to compare the details. Bluehost does an amazing job and I’ve had no issues with them. I did quite a bit of research and gathered information from various bloggers and Bluehost seems to be a popular choice. The starter package comes with unlimited file transfer, hosting space, and an easy WordPress setup.

Landing Pages & SEO

Landing Pages are the hidden sales secret for most bloggers. While I do not have my landing pages published as of this moment, I do own Premise and recommend them. Premise landing pages allow you to focus a specific page on a particular product or topic. There are very few links to click out of the landing page and they’re designed to basically trap the reader and force them to focus on whatever product you’re trying to sell.

While Search Engine Optimization (SEO) software isn’t necessary to get started, it is important for your site’s long-term growth. Depending on the vision you have for your blog, and depending on how you plan to generate traffic, will ultimately determine if you need a SEO tool. If you have a desire to generate substantial traffic from high rankings on search engines, then making sure your content is keyword friendly is imperative. Scribe has a few different competitive plans and prices, and the software does a terrific job.

Other Tools

Here are a couple of useful websites that helped me get started:

• WordPress – the two primary blogging platforms are Blogger and WordPress. Within WordPress you can choose .com or .org. Going with the .org involves more setup and design responsibilities – which is where StudioPress comes in. Going with wordpress.com limits what your website and blog is capable of. Choose wisely.

• Notepad++ – free code editor. This will help you to write your blog posts and save the files to your computer. It is also useful to help manipulate stylesheets.

• FileZilla – this free file transfer tool gives you a way to upload various files onto your website or blog. WordPress does allow other options and I really haven’t had to use this much (other than when I originally started)

• WordPress Plugins – plugins and widgets are the greatest secret for any newbie starting a website. The RSS window, archive page, social media tools on my site, and the “About the Writer” and “Contact Me” sections at the bottom of each page are all examples of widgets. You download the Plugin and they become a Widget you can insert into various spots of your site. This may sound confusing but you’ll understand what I’m talking about if you start a blog.

• CodeAcademy – writing words on a website is not as it appears: it’s not like writing in a Word document. If you don’t know code, then CodeAcademy will certainly be of help to you.

• Somacon – changing the colors of words, and on pages, is also a little different. There are various ways to “code” in the colors, but one option is using the actual color codes. This site should help you out with that. There are other sites out there that help with this, but this site will at least get you started.

Blogs

If you’re thinking about starting a blog there are a couple of steps that you really must take:

1. Decide whether or not you’re really willing to invest the time. Starting a blog isn’t some picnic. If you want to grow your site and be successful, then just like anything else, it takes work. If you’re not willing to make the sacrifices, then you should stop while you’re ahead.

2. Figure out what you’re going to blog about. Figuring out content is very important. Knowing whether or not you should focus on a one subject or on a multitude of things is a big step in the planning process.

Peoples’ opinions vary, and you’ll certainly get a different thought with each person you speak to. Here at WorkSaveLive, I decided to blog on a multitude of topics. My rules for what I would blog about simply entailed two things: (1) I must be passionate about it and (2) I must be willing to blog about it on a relatively consistant basis.

3. Develop a plan on how to grow and monetize your site.

While there are a myriad of blogs that will help you on that 3rd step, there are 2 that had significant influence on me:

• ProBlogger – Darren Rowse is brilliant. He’s been blogging for nearly a decade, and his ideas helped me come up with countless ways to grow my site and monetize it. Whether you’ve been blogging for a couple of years or just looking to get started, I’d highly recommend you read through as much of Darren’s work as possible.

• CopyBlogger – Brian Clark’s company, Copyblogger Media, created StudioPress, Premise, and Scribe. Brian’s style is quite a bit different from Darren’s, but they talk about similar things (just in very different ways). I’d highly recommend reading through his blog too.