So, I am sitting at a DARA (Dalla Area Romance Writers Association) lunch, and the topic of websites comes up. Everyone at the table agrees that yes you need a website, and many of them start talking about how easy it is to make one. They start spouting their web addresses to one another, and I quietly start typing the addresses into my phone’s web browser.
I open one, it’s a picture of a woman with a quick byline. Not bad, kind of boring, but not entirely ridiculous or anything. Then I open up another, a black background with a dancing leprechaun next to some really great writing.
No joke.
You can make a great looking website for free. Don’t try to make it yourself. Download a pre-made template and just stick your information in the appropriate places. Easy as that.
How? By using simple blogging platforms. The two most common are blogger and wordpress. If you don’t want to settle for one of the boring premade themes, there are tons of free themes out there, all you have to do is download them and upload them in the appropriate box. (If you can attach a file to an email, then you have the basic concept down already.)
Here are a couple of really great blogger template websites I have found. A lot of web designers give away free templates in order to promote their business. Take advantage of these.)
So, just sign up, start a blog and use a cute theme and you’re set with a perfect little blog! Simple as that. There are many other costly solutions, but if you are just starting out, you don’t need those, and you can always import it later. 
Have fun!
![[del.icio.us]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[kirtsy]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/kirtsy.png)
![[MySpace]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Reddit]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/reddit.png)
![[Squidoo]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/squidoo.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Twitter]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Email]](http://giveagirlapen.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
Just as important as having a website is knowing exactly what search terms in Google and Yahoo will bring up your website first. Many times someone won’t have any way to write down your web address, so you should give them something easy to remember, maybe 2-4 words.
There are tons of hits for “rick osborne”, so I tell people to look for “rick osborne running” and that always gets them to the right place.
[Reply]
By Rick O on 03.26.09 12:45 pm | Permalink
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>