Good CMS software runs from free to very
expensive. I use WordPress for my CMS, but
have played with others. In general, you
want something that has the features you
want/need and the flexibility to grow with
your future. Before you dismiss WordPress,
take a poll on your favourite websites to see
what they are using. You will be surprised to
see how many of them use WordPress. How
can you tell? Go to their home page and put
“WP-admin” after the URL tag. If it goes to a
log in, they are using WordPress. Here are a
number of sites that use WordPress:
So you decide on a CMS. You can use their standard template or get one of your own. If you
like dealing with CSS and PHP, you can build
one, or use the services of a professional. When I
need something, I go to Fivver.com. Good prices
and fast service. They will even help you set up
the CMS of your choice, but usually, your host
company has a back end that does all that.
• http://www.indiesunlimited.com/
•
Facebook
• http://www.mp3.com/
•
Twitter
• http://blog.ups.com/
•
LinkedIn
• http://mashable.com/
•
Tumblr
So, you have that done, now what?
Now it is time to build your social media. Get
accounts with:
And these are just a few. As you can see, •
they look different and can really stand
out.
•
Each of these social media sites can have a
special page for you to build your online presence. Don’t use your personal page; create a
public page. That way, if one of your friends
leaves a comment, it is not seen by all your followers. This is really important, especially if you
get popular. How would you like a horde of
people showing up at your next dinner date? I
wouldn’t like it. Once you have the pages set up,
link them to your blog. WordPress uses a plug-in
called JetPack to do a number of things and it
has a “Sharing” section to push content to the
media sites.
Path
Now that you have everything set up, you can
start building your profile with all your followers. They can see you on the media sites and
follow your blog. This is important, for your blog
or public website is how you get more followers,
readers, and fans. As more people visit your site,
search engines start to raise your site’s ranking.
Once that happens, you’ll get people finding
you through search engines.
Google+
Thus the snowball grows. It is never-ending.
SELF PUBLISHER MAGAZINE 2015
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