NEW WEBSITE IS UP AND RUNNING!!! A huge thank-you to Brian Currin for making it happen!! Have a look @ www.unfazed.co.za.
Exciting things starting to happen!! Watch this space!! – JP Willson
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“.
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.
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
and the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
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 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.comBenefits
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.comCons
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.