The Creative's Guide to An Awesome Web Presence

The Creative’s Guide to Building
an Awesome Web Presence

Theory + Practice

Amanda McCormick | Twitter: @amandamccormick | amanda@jellybeanboom.com | www.jellybeanboom.com

Hi. I’m Amanda McCormick
I'm on a mission to change the way the way
creative people think about websites.

I've worked in media for over 15 years. I
graduated film school and worked in
production for a while and then migrated over
to writing (the climate was much more
hospitable).

About five or six years ago, just after
graduating with an MFA in Fiction from
Columbia and plying my trade as a web
copywriter, I found myself in the middle of a
major shift in the way digital media was
disrupting the dynamic between audiences
and companies, brands and icons.

The "little guy" had suddenly got a lot more
power. And this was a very exciting thing
indeed.

This booklet is about creating a website, but
it’s also about that shift.


Where are you now? A Self-Assessment
I have a blog
I have a blog that I update
regularly
I have a website that I run
myself
I have a website that someone
else runs
I use Twitter
I have a Facebook fan page
I send out an email newsletter
I know who the important
individuals and blogs in my
niche are


What are some reason
creatives don’t leverage the
“The rule the
web? internet broke is
that now,
• It seems expensive. everyone who has
• Not technically minded a receiver also has
• Overwhelmed by options a transmitter.” -
• Don't want to seem vain Seth Godin
• Don't think it has anything
to do with “art.”


The Artist as Entrepreneur
About a year ago, the comedian Louis CK had the
audacity to self-distribute his latest comedy show
”Live at the Beacon Theater” for $5 over the
internet and made a cool million in exactly 12 days.

Cue the lightbulb over numerous creative heads:
Ought the artist attempt to retain more control over
the distribution of his or her work – which is to say,
more of a financial stake?

When it comes to brand-building via low-cost web
tools, the answer is most unquestionably “yes.”

And so if you look beyond Louis CK’s million dollar
check, the much more seismic shift in the
consumption of entertainment equation is the
changing role of the audience.

A vocal audience can make an unknown – and
readership/participation is making a strong run at
pedigree.

How do you thrive in the age of the artist as
entrepreneur?

You roll up your sleeves and start engaging your
audience.


Traditional approach to
websites is design-driven
and static
•tchotchke approach
•well designed
•one off and static
•attempts to speak to the
user but doesn't interact


Best website is the one
YOU can maintain
•Content is dynamic rather
than design
•Social
•Aimed at engaging your
audience and getting you
surfaced


Where to Start

•Register your name at
WordPress.com
•Select a Template
•Focus on great content
•Evaluate and evolve


Getting more advanced
Websites, and how they are “hosted” is something HOW TO CHOOSE A HOST
that confuses a lot of people, especially when it
comes to WordPress. So in this edition, I want to go How I wish when I got started someone could
over a few things that will hopefully make the explain this to me succinctly and practically! It’s a
process a little simpler. needlessly complicated issue.

SO YOU WANT TO BUY A DOMAIN On the lowest end, there are shared hosting plans
which cost less than $10 per month. You can host as
Buying a domain is the first step to putting up your many websites as you want on these plans, and you
own website, but it’s definitely not the last step. A share space with hundreds of other sites. GoDaddy,
domain is just your website’s address, nothing Bluehost, Dreamhost, Hostgatorare all different
more. You can buy domains from a number of options at the same general price point. Despite
providers, and the task of choosing just the right one people’s passionate opinions, they are all kind of six
deserves a post of its own. .Co, .Org, .Net are just a and one half. I use and recommend Bluehost, but be
few of the “top level domains” you can choose from. forewarned that with all shared hosting you will
encounter some kinks like site outages that may
I HAVE A DOMAIN, SO I HAVE A WEBSITE… last a few hours, or slowdowns when your site
RIGHT? encounters tons of traffic (highly unlikely for most
newcomers).
In order to create your “own” website, you need
server space — a little slice of virtual real estate on So if your question is: how do I set up my own
which the files and folders that make up your website, the answer is you set up a hosting plan with
website will live. In order to have your very own one of the vendors above and buy a domain.
website, which you control completely, you need to
pay for the privilege of server space. You need a
hosting plan.


Building an Audience Baratunde’s Way
•Learn a lot about marketing (Seth
Godin)
•Ask questions of a tribe of
people, they become your
advocates.
•Hire a campaign manager
•Build a “street team” -
enthusiastic readers who will help
spread the word.
•Build a two way channel via social
media
•Exercise radical transparency: he
wrote via screenshare
How to be Black


Fun with RSS feeds
What is RSS? categorization capabilities, you can drill down even
further by topic. For instance, I used the tag "cycling" to
RSS stands for "really simple syndication.” It’s a great drill down on a specific subject in the New York Times'
way to make web text portable, to send it somewhere metropolitan-specific City Room blog
else.
Save time with a custom feed
All blogs and some other types of publishing operations
offer an RSS feed.
Instapaper is a brilliant utility that allows you to take an
web page you're interested in and designate it "read it
How to find an RSS feed
later." But what many people don't know is that when
they hit "read it later" they are adding another item to an
Easiest way I've ever found is to load the page in Firefox,
RSS feed that they have defined. You can create as many
navigate to the upper right, and click on "Subscribe to
Instapaper files as you would like, so by using this
this page" which will give you an address you can copy
lesser-known feature, you have a custom RSS feed that
to your clipboard.
could be comprised of many different publications. Use
it to populate your social feeds as above.
You may not be the biggest blogger in the world. That's
OK. You can still cultivate an engaged social media
following by "curating" feeds from people and Automatic email newsletters
publications you respect and using the feed from your
own blog to do more. Finally, perhaps the most powerful use of RSS: to pour in
content to your email newsletters. MailChimp offers
Populating your social feeds this powerful feature -- you customize a mail template
to look however you would like, and publish a new item
to your blog, the text gets put into your template and
Just copy a feed and use a utility like Feedburner or
sent out to your social media audience immediately. As
Hootsuite to automatically publish that feed to your above, you can leverage the power of tags to earmark
Twitter, for instance, every time a new item appears. By certain types of content for your newsletter.
taking advantage of certain blogs' tagging and


Get more help
Visit The One-Hour Website
(onehourwebsite.org)

This is a site that I made to help
nonprofits and artists figure out how to
make their own websites.

Subscribe to my newsletter

Visit www.jellybeanboom.com and enter
your name in the right hand column to
get a weekly tip in your email inbox.

Contact me

I’d love to chat. Just email me at
amanda@jellybeanboom.com


The Creative's Guide to An Awesome Web Presence

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