Creating your web presence tutorials

Web tutorial

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every regional Jane Austen (or Sherlock Holmes) society requires some sort of web presence, but that some are in want of the knowledge of how to go about it. If your organization is want of that knowledge, I hope the upcoming tutorials will give you some idea of your options and what you’ll need to know to get started. This first article is just a teaser of the topics that these tutorials will cover.

Web presence options: So what are your options for getting your group on the web? Well, I’ve listed them below with the more complex at the top.

Option		Description		Pros		Cons
Create and maintain your own website		With your own website you have complete control of what goes in it, but when something goes wrong, it’s up to you to fix it. It is the best option, however, if you want to corral all aspects of your web presence, including blogs, forums, online stores, RSS and twitter feeds, image galleries, etc.		A single consolidated web presence		You really need a webmaster, especially when adding blogs, forums, etc.
Power a domain using a blogging service		With this option, you’ll buy a domain name, but essentially that domain name is little more than a pointer back to the blogging service. This is probably a good solution for most groups.		Most maintenance, upgrades, features are managed by service		Not too many cons, although some options cost more than others
Create a blog		Don’t buy a domain and just use a free or paid blogging service.		Basically free		A unwieldy url; free services can have very limited customization
Create a facebook page		Create a facebook group page for your region		Free, grows quickly		Not everyone likes facebook; can be surprisingly complicated
Create a twitter account		It’s very easy to do but it hardly is a substitute for a website or blog		Free, easy, grows very quickly		Very limited

The very next tutorial will cover setting up a blog (the second and third options). We’ll explore services such as blogger, WordPress and Tumblr and how they differ. And because this is a Herculean task, I’d appreciate contributions to these tutorials and hear your experiences crafting your web presence. Other tutorials will include:

• Web hosting: Running a full-fledged website means you’ll need to find a web hosting service and you’ll need the tools to communicate with that service. This series of tutorials will cover picking a service based on cost/hosting pacakages and the features you need, such as e-commerce, mailing lists, forums and blogs.
• Statistics: You’ll want to know who’s reading your website and which one of the web presence decisions make that easy.
• Graphics: How to get artwork on your website and the ins and outs of the various file formats: gif, jpg, png and swf.
• HTML/CSS/PHP: The basics of what you need to know to tweak a template and get the look you want. Obviously these would be advanced tutorials.
• Widgets and doohickeys: Things to keep your website on the cutting edge without crossing over to the bleeding edge.
• Search engine optimization: What can you do to make it easy to find your website or blog found through search engines
• Promotions: How to get the word out about your website. I am not very good at this and would be very happy to learn from others
• Keeping up appearances: Ways to keep your site alive and relevant and avoid “last updated on Oct. 17, 2003.”
• Interviews: With luck, I can convince others to share their decisions on hosting, blogging and tweeting from those far more successful than me.

I’m unsure in what order these tutorials will appear and I hope to get ideas from readers, with feedback and support on the forums here.