Use a Blog For Your First Website

I haven’t posted for a few days. Part of the reason for this is that I have been trying to get to grips with placing RSS Feeds to “How To Design Your First Website”. Thanks go to Dawud Miracle for his encouragement to do so (it was really easy but I made it far more difficult than it really was… but then it is okay to make mistakes)

The reason for writing today is to say out loud that starting a web log has been the easiest thing I’ve done. I can’t understand why I hadn’t figured it out before. It is far simpler than I imagined, with the online help available.

And, if you have taken the time to look, both Biana Babinsky’s www.avocadoconsulting.com and Dawud Miracle’s www.healthywebdesign.com sites have a blog. Each of their sites has massive content rich elements that go far beyond a simple diary of thoughts but each site has the extra added interest that a blog gives…

“Direct contact with their website visitors”

Okay, you’ve realized that I know my website is rubbish compared with Biana’s. It is definitely light years behind the professional look of Dawud’s.

But, do you know…

“I am happy with the results so far”

Why am I happy with the results?

I’m happy because www.your-first-website.com was targeted towards people who were new to thinking about creating their own first website. It wasn’t trying to be clever. It wasn’t trying to confuse people with fancy programming tricks. The aim was to try to make things simple and basic.

As a professional designer, I like to achieve simplicity. When I have achieved simplicity, I know that everything will work well.

It is one of the reasons I suggest sticking to the ‘minisite’ approach of a small compact website with as few gimmicks as possible. Keep to this and you can keep better control.

What you see with www.your-first-website.com is what you can easily produce with Mozilla Composer. The draft for the web pages was mainly written using Microsoft Works Word Processor, as supplied with my computer. So, nothing fancy here and very little money spent.

The website is so very, very simple. You could easily produce and launch a simple website like this…

“I’ve given you a start with some free stuff already to get you started” (see earlier postings)

However, the only trouble is that this blog site “How To Design Your First Website” in many ways makes a far better website. It is far easier to build and manage than www.your-first-website.com and it is far more fun.

Although I had been considering starting a blog for some time, with the main aim of promoting Your First Website I hadn‘t understood the additional benefits. It is so much easier to talk with a blog. Personally, I would much prefer to talk with you about “How To Design Your First Website” than try to sell you something you don’t want.

I hate pressure selling at the best of times and respond badly to anybody trying to force me into buying something I don’t want. Worst is when I would normally be interested in buying. If someone tries to force the issue, I will immediately lose interest and walk away.

I reckon most of the world is like this, with more sales lost through clumsy, ignorant salesmanship. The arrogance and stupidity of bad selling is a crime. It‘s like my dear old mother used to say…

“You can’t persuade with your fists. Try to talk instead”

This is why I like blogs. It’s why I like to see people blogging. This is where people can talk about what it is that interests them… GREAT!

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have found Jonathan Street’s “Blog IT!” course. This course has been my first guide to setting up and starting “How To Design Your First Website”
Importantly, I fully support his recommendation of using Blogger. It makes it easy to create a dynamic blog site using their online design tools (which definitely impress me).

With limited web design skills, it is simple to create a blog… And it’s FREE.

Also, I’m impressed by using Blogger. Why don’t you take a look for yourself? They give you a quick tour to let you find out more and it is only a 3-stage process to get your blog started.

It’s your choice…

“I’m not saying don’t have a website but I am suggesting that you can learn from having your own blog site"

Whatever you do, try to create a dynamic interesting website that will be a joy to come back to rather than a boring static website that doesn’t have a chance to progress. You want your website to be enjoyed by plenty of visitors and you surely deserve a website that you enjoy creating and living with.