Today, everyone is online. There are a vast number of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, but there are also many blog sites as well Blogspot, Wordpress, etc.). So what are ways that you can save money getting online. Let’s review.
1. Purchase your own domain name. –While this does cost money, the price for a domain name is fairly cheap and will last for a year. Most people renew annually or sign up for 2 or more years (which does give you a cheaper price most of the time depending on where you buy it from.) I personally use GoDaddy for my domain services.
2. FREE HOSTING- The KEY point of having a domain name of your own (www.yourname.com) is that you will forward it to a free hosting site to save money. Nowadays, you can find places like www.wix.com or www.webs.com to host your site and contain all of your information and instead of giving out your generic site name from the free hosting sites, you forward everyone from your own domain name that leads them straight there. Plus it looks more professional this way. I would rather go to www.yourname.com than www.wix.com/yourname or any other generic site name that most free hosting plans give out.
If you blog, the same theory applies. Go find a free hosting plan such as Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, sign up for a blog and then forward your domain to the blog. Simple as pie.
3. Uploading files, videos and pictures- instead of finding a web hosting plan to upload your media files, use YOUTUBE for uploading your vids (FREE) as well as other places like FLICKR.com (FREE) for pictures. You can always get the html code or url address to your photos when you are creating your webpages on a free hosting plan.
Most free hosting plans do not give you upload power for tons of stuff, so to skip that part, upload your media files to places online that are free and link them back to your site. Another simple and free way to save money online.
4. Generating Traffic to your website- No website is really a website in my book unless it has visitors. Free ways of getting visitors is to join social networks and let people know you are online and have content that they want to know about. You do not need to be annoying to do this and most sites will not let you mass post for fear of spam, but you can promote and market yourself in simple ways such as:
- posting to twitter and facebook status feeds whenever you post an article or upload a new picture or video
- email friends and family letting them know about your new website
- join other social networks that are in the same topic or interest as your website and discuss your work
- keep fresh content flowing- which tells the search engines that your site is not just sitting there.
These 4 simple things can save you hundreds of dollars each year if you want to get online and get heard. For more professional tips for people on a budget, visit my website at http://www.trendyhippiemom.wordpress.com for more tips!
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