Category: Cape Town

You need a website

Brian Currin

People need to Find You and Talk To You.

Finding you is called Marketing and talking to you is called Sales.

I have now just saved you 3 years of study at University.

Yes, it is that simple.

For this you need not just a website, but a web presence … but a website is a very good place to start.

I love building websites and have been doing it since 1997.

Let me help you with yours.

See more at: http://blog.briancurrin.com/portfolio/

These people say ... Brian is My Web Guy

Brian, My Web Guy

Brian CurrinLeave a comment

Brian Currin is known to many of his friends and clients as “My Web Guy” and to a number of people all over the world as “a guy who knows a bit about music“.

These people say ... Brian is My Web Guy
These people say … Brian is My Web Guy

A few of his recent and current projects include:

These people say ... Brian Currin is My Web Guy

A WordPress.com Website is the perfect solution for Musicians

Brian CurrinLeave a comment
These people say ... Brian Currin is My Web Guy
These people all say … Brian Currin is My Web Guy

WordPress.com is the perfect website solution for people who want to:

  • promote their music
  • connect with their fans
  • do their own updates
  • showcase their videos
  • showcase their photos
  • showcase their music
  • save money

Some Questions People Ask

Q. What are the benefits of WordPress.com?

A. There are many benefits, here are some of the main ones:

  • Free web hosting
  • Free web themes
  • Free Content Management System
  • Ability to include own header and background on most themes
  • Google-friendly
  • Mobile-friendly
  • YouTube, Soundcloud, Google Maps, etc can be embedded
  • Contact Form – helps reduce spam
  • Social Media feeds can be embedded
  • Blog can update Social Media platforms automatically
  • Analytical Information
  • Premium themes and upgrades available at reasonable prices

 

Q. Aren’t websites expensive?

A. They don’t have to be. Depending on your requirements, you really don’t need to break the bank. A WordPress.com website can be set up without incurring costs for web hosting, graphic design and web development. Read more.

Q. What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

A. Basically a WordPress.com website is ideal for people who want to get on with focussing on running their business.

WordPress.org is great if you are happy to pay for web hosting and pay a web developer for their time.  Read more.

It’s not about the camera | Michael Ashley Currin

Brian CurrinLeave a comment

A lot of marketing advice for photographers I read on blogs or in magazines is how to advertise, mainly using online media. Marketing is much more than just advertising. I thought I could write a more wholistic guide for photographers marketing themselves, also looking at the bigger picture (purpose and strategy). – Michael Ashley Currin

via It’s not about the camera.

Why you should be using WordPress.com for creating a Web Presence

Brian Currin2 Comments

and the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

The Yoga Factor
The Yoga Factor

The quick version:

People need to Find You and Talk To You.

Finding you is called Marketing and talking to you is called Sales.

I have now just saved you 3 years of study at University.

Yes, it is that simple.

A WordPress.com website is the perfect tool for marketing and sales without breaking the bank, especially if you are passionate about your business and would like to get involved with your own online promotion.

I love WordPress.com because you can have a website where ordinary people can update their content without paying for web hosting, graphic design and web development.

Not that those things are wrong, of course, but you can always build up towards having them as your business and brand grows.

Some examples in action:

Some of my pending projects that will be using WordPress.com:

  • Triple M Entertainment
  • Stars Of Africa Football Academy
  • Masauko Chipembere (from Blk Sonshine)
  • The Production Person

The long version:

WordPress.com is a hosting platform that utilizes the same WordPress software that anyone can download from WordPress.org.

With WordPress.com, the hosting and managing of the software is taken care of for you.

With the freestanding WordPress.org software, you need to install it on your own server or a 3rd party hosting provider.

WordPress.com Benefits

  • It’s free and much easier to set up
  • Everything is taken care of: setup, upgrades, spam, backups, security, etc.
  • Your website / blog is on hundreds of servers, so it’s highly unlikely it will go down due to traffic
  • Your content is backed up automatically
  • You get extra traffic from the WordPress.com community
  • Your dashboard is secure (SSL) making it even safer to log in on shared networks

WordPress.com Cons

  • Provides 170+ themes (and adding more every day), but you cannot upload a custom theme
  • You can’t modify the PHP code behind your blog
  • You can’t upload plugins

If you are a web developer, or you are happy to pay a web developer for their time, here are the benefits of WordPress.org:

WordPress.org (self-hosted) Benefits

  • Ability to upload themes
  • Ability to upload plugins
  • Great community
  • Complete control to change code if you’re technically minded

However, for me, the Cons far out-weigh the Benefits:

WordPress.org (self-hosted) Cons

  • You need a good web host, which can get expensive.
  • Requires more technical knowledge to set up and run
  • You’re responsible for stopping spam
  • You have to handle backups
  • You must upgrade the software when a new version comes out
  • If you get a huge spike in traffic your site will probably go down unless you have a robust hosting setup

Why I love WordPress.com

For no charge, WordPress.com provides web hosting, unlimited database storage with redundancy and backups, automatic software upgrades, community support forums, multi-lingual administration and themes, real-time traffic stats, comment tracking, blog and post rankings and other features not available anywhere else. These features will always be free for blogs started on WordPress.com.

WordPress.com offers paid upgrades as a way to provide premium features without forcing people to host their website / blogs elsewhere. These upgrades are optional.

  • Currently over 170 themes to choose from, some are Premium, but most are Free.
  • Integrated Statistics on where your visitors are coming from, and a whole lot more.
  • Excellent support available from fellow users (on Forums) and WordPress staff.
  • Robust server back ups.
  • Multiple users, great for clubs, communities, bands and so on.
  • Mobile-friendly

Resources for this article:

WordPress.com, WordPress, and WordPress.org

The Features You’ll Love