WELCOME TO MY NEW WEBSITE!
So here I am, this time welcoming you to my own home, after the mishap I recently had when WordPress suspended my blog for a couple of days without prior notice. By the way, if you’re an author or a blogger (or both), you may want to check out the relevant post where I shared my scary experience as you may want to know what risks you’re running with a free blog.
So, as I promised to my readers back then, I am announcing here today my self-hosted site along with the details of the super-duper tutorial that made it all possible.
If you like the look of this site that is even customized to include a book table just for authors, all you need to do is follow the 11-video tutorial by Simon Whistler of Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast.
Simon is a great guy. Not only has he had the inclination to guide fellow authors, having invested his time in creating this FREE tutorial for everyone, but he’s also very friendly and helpful should you contact him directly. I had a question at some point and he was more than happy to point me in the right direction. If you follow this tutorial at any time, I kindly suggest that in order to buy the web hosting from Hostgator, that you get there from Simon’s site as he prompts you on the tutorial. This way he gets to have a little commission which in my eyes was the least I could have done to say thank you.
You will find the tutorial, as set out by Simon on his site, here.
Once you’ve watched the introductory video on his site and seen how the tutorial is set out, you may want to watch the other videos straight on Youtube where Simon has made them all available in his channel, here.
IMPORTANT NOTES ON THE TUTORIAL. KEEP HANDY!
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SPAMMERS/SECURITY: When you run a self-hosted site, keeping away spammers becomes a bit of a feat. In my free blog, I have the use of the plugin Akismet free of charge which keeps the spammers in check but here, it is a paid option. To protect my new site I chose the free plugin Wordfence. A friend recommended it and it’s great for security. You run an initial check after installation and you’re protected for life. The program notifies you by email whenever someone tries to hack you, if plugins need updating and in other situations that demand your attention. Spam messages still come to your comments for you to trash manually but, it’s a Free plugin, and I have peace of mind for the most important stuff. Highly recommended. On the subject of hackers, I can’t stress enough the importance of strong passwords. You can learn how to choose one here. Also, make sure your admin user name is not ‘admin’ as this is what the hackers use to get in.
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FADE OUT EFFECT ON IMAGES: There’s an extra video link which you won’t find in the above URLs but Simon has added it in a comment under one of his tutorial videos. For your convenience, you’ll find it here. This is optional, and only if you wish to get rid of the fade out effect on your book covers as they appear on the right sidebar. As you can see, I’ve taken this option too so that my covers are fully visible at all times; not only when the mouse pointer hovers over them.
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HOSTGATOR: If you’re planning to follow Simon’s tutorial, take your time first and check Hostgator’s site regularly (or simply their Twitter page) as they periodically do huge discounts. I did that and opted to buy the hosting service on a day when they had a 55% discount! The previous day, they had run a 75% discount that was valid only for an hour! You get the idea. It’s worth choosing the right time if you want to get an extra saving. If you do pick a day that has a big discount, use the coupon code that Hostgator prompts you for and not Simon’s as his would be only for 25% discount.
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RSS FEED: There’s one aspect that’s not covered in the tutorial, and this was actually a big surprise for me because it’s a rather tricky one that many people (including me) know nothing about. I refer to the dreaded ‘RSS feed’. Upon finishing the course, I felt rather lost because I knew I had to prompt people to follow my new blog somehow but I didn’t know how. WP doesn’t provide a ‘follow’ button here like it does on my free blog.
Thankfully, with a bit of surfing, I was lucky to come across some useful advice and so, I tried my hand at it and managed to set up two relevant widgets that you can see on the right sidebar now. One prompts the reader to subscribe to the blog on this site by email, while the other (the black one), prompts visitors to subscribe directly to the feed. Don’t worry if this sounds daunting! You couldn’t possibly know less than I did yesterday when I set this up and it was a lot easier than I’d thought. UPDATE: I have now blogged these instructions too. You can find them here.
SECOND UPDATE: This tutorial will leave you with two more problems, both minor, but they proved very annoying to me and I’ve now found adequate fixes which I’m happy to share: Check out the plugins ‘Postmatic’ and ‘Better Click to Tweet’. The former now allows my visitors to subscribe to follow up comments (before, they were never notified their comments had received replies). The latter plugin now allows me to set up scripts for people to share my posts on Twitter (like the one you see at the bottom of this post). If you follow the tutorial you will wind up with a set up that won’t allow custom scripts when sharing a post. With the ‘Better Click to Tweet’ plugin I can create the tweet of my choice so people can share it.
So, here it is. I’ve treaded the path and found it relatively easy. One can build the site as fast or as slowly as they want. I’m pleased with what I’ve managed to make single-handedly and hopefully you like it too; I hope you will let it be one of your favorite hangouts!
Are you an author needing help with promotion? Check out my FREE, cracking good tips and resources: http://effrosyniwrites.com/for-authors/
How to create your own website as if you were a pro! #IARTG #ASMSG Click To Tweet
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Your new home looks and feels great, Fros! Everything seems to work fine. Hope thousands of readers find their way here… And I love your final choice for the background. It’s a tie-in with your banner. Good luck!
Thanks a lot, Maria for your kind words and wishes 🙂 Yes, sorry about that, LOL. Wasn’t too happy with the previous choice for the background but then I got this from a sunrise in Corfu and thought it was perfect. Ties in well with the cover of The Flow too, I thought 🙂
Woot! Woot! Frossie! You did fabulous. Your page is super. Best to you and yours during the holidays. How do you spend the holidays in Greece? We would love to hear about it.
Jackie Weger
No Perfect Secret
Thank you for your kind wishes, Jackie. Wish you also a wonderful Holiday Season. Xmas in Greece is very low key compared to the rest of the world; not much different to what you know already really. It’s in Easter that we Greeks go crazy, LOL, with lots of unique customs and celebrations 🙂
Hi Fros,
The new website looks great! Congratulations. Now you don’t have to worry about the WordPress police looking over your shoulder.
That’s right Stephen, LOL. Thank you so much for your visit and kind wishes. Have a merry Xmas, my friend 🙂
Well done, I’m in awe !
You must be very pleased. I just think it’s a shame you had to go to so much time and trouble.
Best wishes for your new blog and Καλά Χριστούγεννα !
Yes, Yvonne, I am really pleased. Mainly because I can’t believe how easy it was to do in the end. I still can’t get over it and still thank my lucky stars for the free tutorial. I wish you also a wonderful Xmas time whatever you get up to, whether you’re in Crete or the UK these days 🙂 Thank you so much for your kind comment!
Frossie, congrats on your beautiful new “Web Home”! I pay a hosting site, but am no longer satisfied with the platform I use (iWeb). It sounds as if you’re paying a site, too…so I was unclear on what you meant by “self-hosting.”
When I have a chance, I’ll check out the tutorial. Maybe I can design a new website using my domain name and connecting through Network Solutions. I would lose all of my blog posts, but it would be a joy to have an interactive site!
Hi Linda, thank you for your wishes 🙂 Yes, I am with Hostgator. I meant that this option is self-hosted, in the sense that I own the site. It’s not a fully hosted option with the provider where they call the shots and limit my decisions, as it would be for example with a wordpress dot com site. My site is similar to a wordpress dot org site where you can do what you like. Hope this explains what I meant. This specific tutorial is for Hostgator only in the sense that it shows you how to set yourself up on this site, but if you’re knowledgable with this procedure with another provider, you could just skip those videos on the tutorial and do these yourself. I believe it was two videos; one for buying the Hostgator service, identifying your name servers and setting them up on the domain registrar, and another where you download WordPress from Hostgator. Again, thank you for stopping by, I appreciate it 🙂
This looks fantastic! Thank you for sharing all the info and I’ll definitely look into creating my own website with Simon’s help.
Thank you for your visit, Jenny! Wish you best of luck with building your own online ‘home’ too 🙂
Congratulations. I’ll be moving over to Hostgator after I’ve worked on Simon’s tutorials. I’m sure I’ll be better off with my own online “home” and can concentrate more on my writing than watching my back for the WordPress police. I’ll keep both sites for the moment as I have loyal followers.
Hi Matt, my thoughts exactly. I think it’s the best way to go, keeping both the blogs and referring one to the other and vice versa. Wish you all the best in setting up your own online home & thank you very much for your support 🙂
Your new site looks wonderful!
Thank you for your kind comment, Wodke 🙂
Hi Fros
You’ve done quite a lot more with your site than that outlined in the basic tutorial and it looks great. I’ve added some bits to mine too and I’m 90% there. I hope to have it completely bug-free and finished by 1 March.
I’m thinking of having two new pages. One for gossipy news about Thailand and one where I have authors give a brief précis of their work. I’m still thinking that one through. I believe in authors helping one another and don’t subscribe, as some do, that we are all in competition.
I agree with you Matt, I don’t see fellow authors as competitors and this is why I am never hesitant to share tips and information 🙂 I am so pleased you’re nearly there with setting up your site. Best of luck, my friend, and thank you for your visit 🙂
Very interesting. My site was built by a professional web designer, but I still get around 50 spam comments to my blog – despite having some Capcha code on it. It doesn’t take me long to check and delete them, but it’s a pain in the neck having to do it daily. I’d far rather know that the comment alerts were genuine.
Maybe for the next version I will follow your lead.
Yes, it’s the price we pay for having a blog and allowing comments! I’d never disable them so I guess it’s a necessary evil. It’s a mundane task to go through them, I full sympathise, Rosie! Thank you for your visit 🙂
Looks great! I’ve signed up for both your newsletter and this blog. I will definitely need your advice on blog building!! Much thanks for sharing…
BTW, your background is beautiful and goes so well with your book covers!
Dear Sarah, thank you so much for signing up! I really appreciate your support. You’ll be glad to hear the tips will keep coming on this blog 🙂
Fros, Your new site is fabulous. Thank you for sharing your process. You make it all sound so easy. You’re always so generous in sharing your knowledge about all aspects of marketing. Thank you!
Thank you for your kind words Pat, I appreciate it and your support to my blogs 🙂 Enjoy your day!
THANK YOU for cluing me in about how to build a website!
Thank you for commenting, Ellen! Glad I could point you in the right direction – good luck 🙂
hi there, very useful site. Can I ask how easy it would be to add & run paypal &/or donation links to any website?
best wishes,
Cat
Hi Catherine and thank you for your visit. It is easy to set up a donation button. Just search on your WordPress site for plugins such as ‘Paypal Donation Button’, install and activate it. The specific plugin I mentioned is very easy to set up – I’ve used it in the past.
Thank you for your visit, Catherine! It is easy to set up a
donation button. Just search on your WordPress site for plugins such as
‘Paypal Donation Button’, install and activate it. The specific plugin I
mentioned is very easy to set up – I’ve used it in the past.
Do you have any tips for people with a free WordPress dot com site? I got my domain name from GoDaddy (susan-hawthorne dot com) but it seems WP limits things like plug ins.
Hi Susan. I am not sure what you’re looking for, but yes, a free WP blog is very limited. It does not allow html on widgets, or to use affiliate links on images, for example, and my free blog got taken down once by WP as I didn’t know about the latter. I blogged about that scary experience later on that blog once I got reinstated. I still use that free blog and you will find many tips on that. Here’s the blogroll for all the tips: https://effrosinimoss.wordpress.com/category/tips-for-authors/ Thank you for commenting!