I am on the web!

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It’s not all too uncommon these days to start with a blog and never get around to creating a website - especially if you are an independent consultant like I am. Still, I decided that a blog didn’t offer me all the advantages of a website so I needed both.

I am pleased to say that I am finally on the web. You can visit The Marketing Survivalist for a look. But, before you get all excited (or critical) let me say that this is a project that is still in its infancy.

I’ve worked with webmasters for years, so it’s been kind of interesting to play at being one. I thought I’d share my experiences with you as I hope it might motivate some of you who have been thinking about creating a website. Plus, as I continue to improve my site, I’ll share those things that have had the greatest impact.

First, I decided to host my domain with GoDaddy and use their Website Tonight product. Chalk one up for gross (IMHO) advertising. It is memorable. It helped that I decided to work on my site while watching this year’s Tour de France and their ads are all over VS. (Along with some even grosser ads.)

I’m not an HTML coder so it’s nice to use a website building tool that is designed for someone who understands the theory behind building a successful site, if not the coding that goes into it. For me, the Website Tonight product was a little quirky, but not that bad. My 8 pages were more like Website [tomorrow] Night but it was close enough.

I will say that the support I received when I called in was really good. I had accidentally purchased more than I needed and they were the ones who pointed it out to me. They very promptly refunded the extra, which I very promptly spent on some more services from them. (It was the thought that counts.)

Even Google will tell you that content is king, so instead of focusing on creating title tags, meta tags, page descriptions, backlinks and the like, I just focused on the content. In other words, if you try to find me using a search engine right now, I am probably invisible.

I thought I’d have some fun and have Hubspot’s website grader look at my raw product and see how it ranked. It’s still having problems finding it so I’ll probably come back as a 2. (Which means that 98% of websites out there are better built than mine.) Actually a 2 might be too optimistic.

This weekend, I’ll start optimizing the site for the search engines. I’m eager to put the things I recommend into actual practice and see what kind of impact I can have on my site. They say “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” I’m looking forward to sharing my journey with you.

All the best!

Melissa