Creating an Online Presence - Should You Self-Host?

This post is part of a series on creating an online presence.

If you have been following this series, and asking yourself the questions I posed, then by now you should have a pretty clear idea about:

• What an online presence is (from post #1 in this series)
• Some ideas of what you can do  (from post #1 in this series)
• What resources you are willing to bring to bear (from post #1 in this series)
• Your goals (from post #1 in this series)
• Whether or not you want a domain name (from post #2 in this series)
• The type of content you want to create (from post #3 in this series)

You have a pretty good idea of what you want to accomplish.  The next important question is whether or not you want to self-host.

Creating an Online Presence - Content Considerations

Image credit: fiveminutemarketing.com

Note: this post is part of a series on creating an online presence.

You may not think of your presence as content creation and some marketers might dismiss it as such, but it is content.  If you are creating an online presence you are definitely creating content.  The question is, what type of content will you create through your online presence?

Some common choices are:

• Static pages (i.e., the content is not changed often)
• Feeds from my other content, e.g., a Twitter feed that shows a stream of posts
• Frequent posting to the online presence site, e.g., blog, journal, photo journal

Now, let's discuss some simple examples.  Your site can easily be a mixture of these (mine certainly is).

Creating an Online Presence - Domain Names and Branding

Image credit: brandgy.com.

Note: this post is part of a series on creating an online presence.

In our previous post, we thought about:

• What an online presence is
• Why we would want to create one
• Our goals
• The resources we will bring to bear
• Our options

But an early consideration should be whether or not you want a website with a specific name, i.e., do you need a domain name?

Creating an Online Presence

This is the first in a series of articles on creating an online presence.  Let's start by pondering what an online presence is, how we might go about creating one, and what main concepts we should consider.

Third-Party Software Products and Components

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.

- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac [well, at least this version of the proverb]

There are a lot of great software products out there and a lot of companies and developers do a great job of giving their customers what they need.  But sometimes you need a capability that isn't there and that's where the a "third-party" comes into the picture.

Communicating the Right Message - How Much Should You Exercise, Really?

"Coming up, the reason less exercise could be good for you."

That was the teaser from the news anchor as we were getting ready, accompanied by the screen graphic reading "LESS EXERCISE".  Before that, he was explaining that not going to the gym because of the bad weather today could be a good thing.

Fitness is a hobby of mine, so I started trying to guess what it would be.

Executive Summary - Getting Fit Without Equipment, aka Bodyweight Training

Bodyweight training in 500 words or less.