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Showing posts from October, 2010

Designing an Author Website: Website Basics

So, you have a blog and you're wondering why you also need a website. The biggest difference between a blog and a website is that blogs are generally about current, up-to-date information. The most current of that information always comes up immediately when visitors log in. Websites are generally more static, offering semi-permanent landing points for visitors who want to learn more about you and your work. Traditionally, the homepage is the only page that frequently changes. And for people like me who have a blog and a website, it's easy to use the blog as the homepage to the website, then use the website itself for the semi-static information. More about this later. First off, here are the top ten reasons why you need a website — 1) Compartmentalization - By setting up dedicated areas for specific things, visitors to your site can click into that section and find everything they're looking for in that topic in the one place, such as all of your books or to learn more ab

20 Reasons Why You Should Blog

Blogging is the 'in' thing at the moment. Everyone seems to be doing it. But why? What makes it so popular? Before we can go into the reasons why one should blog, let's look at what a blog is. The word blog is the combination of the words web and log. A web log is essentially an online diary. The forerunner of the blog was the online journal or online diary. Claudio Pinhanez's "Open Diary" is thought to be the first web page in an online diary format. He published his diary at the MIT Media Lab at Cambridge, Massachusetts's website from 14 November 1994 to sometime in 1996. In 1994, "Carolyn's Diary" was published by Carolyn Burke. In subsequent years, several other online diaries were started, and by 1998, the word blog first appeared on the scene. Since that time, the word blog has been entered into most English dictionaries and has also become part of our everyday language — "Are you going to blog today?" or "Are you working