POST 15
Elaine
Louis Tigh, veteran of the United States Marine Corps and website designer, is the founder of Prometheus Design (www.prometheusdesign.com). Louis graciously donated his time to participate in the following Q&A about websites and blogging.
When I stepped into the world of writing after a thirty-year hiatus, little did I know what I was getting into. Words like blog, website, platform and platform-building intimidated
me. I struggled to write a coherent paragraph let alone create a
website, and I sure as heck didn't want to write a blog! What could I possibly write about: Learning to love my delete button? The joys of writing in pajamas until noon?
I fancied myself a fiction writer, but a 2013 trek in Nepal led me down a different trail. Combining my lifelong love of journaling with travel, I wrote and published a memoir about the trek entitled Footsteps of Gopal. Blogging about my adventures soon became second nature, and the concept of a website no longer seemed foreign to me.
Right around this time, I met Louis Tigh (pronounced tie) at a social gathering.
He informed me that he'd just launched his web design company,
Prometheus Design. Impressed by Louis' passion about web design, I hired him to create my website. Not only is my domain a place where I can blog and share my photos, but it's also the
perfect venue to advertise my memoir. Much to my delight over the past
couple of months, I've also been able to track and watch my audience grow.
Louis
graciously donated his time to participate in the following Q&A
about websites and blogging. I share this information hoping to inspire
future writers, bloggers, and website owners to reach for the stars!
1) For an aspiring writer, which is preferable: a website or a blog?
As
a writer, your goal is to get your work out there and a blog is a great
place to start. Once you develop permanent content you begin to attract
users, and that’s when a website comes in handy. Hosting a blog on a
website is a great way to keep the site fresh. As you add new content,
it gives your blog a more professional feel.
2) What features does a website offer that a blog cannot and vice versa?
In
my opinion, the key difference between a website and a blog is how the
information is organized. With a blog, you have a lot more leeway in
adding posts that are unrelated in sort of a ‘stream of consciousness’
manner. With a website, you're looking at how to take a lot of
information that will more or less remain static, and organize it into a
hierarchy that makes sense to you, your visitors, and the search
engines.
3) What is Search Engine Optimization and how does it work?
Search
Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is commonly referred to, is a
collective term for incorporating strategies into your website that will
allow your website to increase in rank on a web search. For example, if
you have a website about haiku,
you would optimize your website so it will rank high when someone
searches for “poetry” on Google. While there are many different ways
that you can optimize your website for search engines, the primary idea
is to add relevant content. The easiest way to increase your website's
search engine ranking is by writing unique content, or text, for the
pages on your website or blog.
(To be continued in Part II)
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