"Tales from The Hosting Helpdesk"
I talked about Blacknight's blogger background, and explained some of the key hosting issues bloggers need to be aware of, specifically:
- Keep control of your domain name and hosting account.
- Make sure your website software is kept up to date (e.g. Wordpress and plugins)
- Make sure your website is backed up. Monitor your website.
Most bloggers need technical help, either from friends or professional web developers to maintain their websites. But as other speakers pointed out, you should take some responsibility for understanding the basic technical foundations. A good web developer will explain what you need to know, and make sure that your domain is registered in your own name.
Social media is excellent, but make it work for you, not the other way around:
- Own your own domain name. Don’t build your online presence entirely on someone else’s platform. There are hundreds of creative domain name possibilities thanks to the new Top Level Domains.
- Use social media, but encourage users to click through to your site.
- Optimise your content for Social Media. I recommend Yoast for blog SEO and Social Optimisation.
Over the past few years Blacknight has introduced products aimed at helping bloggers and small website owners. Our web hosting starts at less than €5/month and, combined with free self-hosted Wordpress, is as popular as ever. As an alternative, we've introduced Blacknight Basekit, with simple drag-and-drop design and built-in software updates. Blacknight rankingCoach is highly recommended for DIY Search Engine Optimisation: it teaches you the steps you need to optimise your site for better Google ranking. Finally Blacknight SiteBackup offers multiple-version backups and built-in website monitoring.
I also talked about the new .BLOG domain name, brought to you by the people behind Wordpress, but generously made available to any and all blogs, whatever they're built with. We're currently taking applications to pre-order .BLOG domain names, which will open in General Availablility on next Monday 21 November 2016.
More details: http://blacknight.blog/dot-blog-bloggerconf.html
3. Conn Ó Muíneacháin
• Blogger
• Blagadóir
• An tImeall – 2004
• An tImeall Podcast - 2005
• 2006 – Irish Blog Awards – Best Blog in Irish
• 2007 – Professional, Blogging, Digital Media Production
• 2007 – Irish Blog Awards – Best Podcast, Best Podcaster
• 2007 – Digital Media Awards – Grand Prix
• 2013 – PPI Radio Awards – Bronze – Clár Gaeilge
9. Domain
• Don’t run your business on someone else’s online platform (e.g.
Facebook). They can change the rules anytime, or kick you out.
• You should make sure that your name is on your domain, not your
web developer’s.
• A domain name is your online address. It is the home of your online
brand and reputation. fishsticks.com , haircuts.ie ,
goatscheese.kitchen , hire.me
• There is a huge selection of new Top Level Domains to choose from
besides .COM and .IE. What about .FILM? .MOVIE? .VIDEO? .LIVE?
What About Social Media?
32. Blogging & Websites
•Domain Name
•Hosting
•Content Management System –
CMS
•Promotion (SEO, Digital Marketing)
•Social Media
33. Social Media
•Don’t build your project entirely on
someone else’s platform
•Do use social media: Twitter, Facebook,
Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest
•Do encourage social media users to
click through to your site
•Do optimise your posts for Social Media
36. Tales From the Helpdesk
•Keep control of your domain name and
hosting account
•Make sure your website software is kept
up to date
•Make sure your website is backed up
•Ask your developer
•Monitor your website
Paul & Michele and Bert
We are bloggers – and we grew up with this community.
Michele runs several blogs – tweaks them – adjusts them
He blogs about technology and the internet industry
Film blog
Food blog
The internet is what’s called a namespace.
Historically
Why do I need a website when I can have a Facebook page for free?
I got one word for you
What happens when the social network changes their algorithm?
What happens when your posts are removed without warning?
What happens when your images are deemed "unacceptable"? (And they don't need to be that salacious to be considered problematic by the rather prudish social networks)
What happens when your Facebook page is shutdown without warning?
What about when nobody sees any of your posts?
There are a lot of positives to using social media - we're not denying that. But unless you have your own website and custom domain name you will never truly be master of your own destiny. You'll always be at the mercy of someone else.
contested
The internet is what’s called a namespace.
Historically
The internet is what’s called a namespace.
Historically
ICANN
IANA transition
This week, at ICANN 57 in Hyderabad, India, Michele was elected to ICANN’s principal stakeholder policy committee: GNSO – Generic Names supporting Organisation
contested
contested
contested
contested
Automattic
Automattic
The term ‘hosting’ is used to describe the storage of website files on a computer, so that they can be accessed over the World Wide Web. Every website is hosted somewhere. Hosting is where a website lives.
Hosting is built into the Blacknight Basekit website builder, but we also offer a range of other hosting products up to and including enterprise hosting.
Practical – register a domain
Sexy means different things to different people
I work with people who find servers sexy. These people are vital to our organisation – they keep the wheels turning. They keep our servers up and available.
But we don’t let them meet the public
You don’t need to spend hundreds of euros to get a professional website developer
to build your site (but you may want to do so later).
● We’ll show you how easy it is to set up a website in minutes, with no programming
skills required.
Practical – register a domain
● Once you’ve built your site, you need to tell others how to find it.
● Google won’t do all the work for you to market your site effectively
You need to OPTIMISE your site, to help Search Engines, so they can help the
people who are looking for you to find you. This is called SEO - Search Engine
Optimisation - or simply Digital Marketing.
● Blacknight rankingCoach is an simple Do-It-Yourself tool which lets website owners
optimise their site to improve their search-engine traffic.
● Blacknight rankingCoach provides a simple checklist of actions which a user can take
to improve his/her search engine ranking.
Other Products / Enquiries
We also offer online backup solutions - for your website and for your office systems.
We have a range of email solutions for large and small customers, including spam filtering, MS Exchange Server and OX (Open Exchange).
We are a Microsoft Partner for Office 365. This is an online version of MS Office, and suitable for collaboration and online document sharing.
The term ‘hosting’ is used to describe the storage of website files on a computer, so that they can be accessed over the World Wide Web. Every website is hosted somewhere. Hosting is where a website lives.
Hosting is built into the Blacknight Basekit website builder, but we also offer a range of other hosting products up to and including enterprise hosting.
Other Products / Enquiries
We also offer online backup solutions - for your website and for your office systems.
We have a range of email solutions for large and small customers, including spam filtering, MS Exchange Server and OX (Open Exchange).
We are a Microsoft Partner for Office 365. This is an online version of MS Office, and suitable for collaboration and online document sharing.
The term ‘hosting’ is used to describe the storage of website files on a computer, so that they can be accessed over the World Wide Web. Every website is hosted somewhere. Hosting is where a website lives.
Hosting is built into the Blacknight Basekit website builder, but we also offer a range of other hosting products up to and including enterprise hosting.
Other Products / Enquiries
We also offer online backup solutions - for your website and for your office systems.
We have a range of email solutions for large and small customers, including spam filtering, MS Exchange Server and OX (Open Exchange).
We are a Microsoft Partner for Office 365. This is an online version of MS Office, and suitable for collaboration and online document sharing.
The term ‘hosting’ is used to describe the storage of website files on a computer, so that they can be accessed over the World Wide Web. Every website is hosted somewhere. Hosting is where a website lives.
Hosting is built into the Blacknight Basekit website builder, but we also offer a range of other hosting products up to and including enterprise hosting.
So lets get back to hosting. What can we learn from these people?
My company has over 40% of the Irish web hosting market – but by international standards we are tiny.
I can’t compete with large international companies and their big advertising budgets
Like Pornhub – my product is unmarketable.
Like Ryanair – I like to give the media something to talk about.
Like both of those companies – I think that creativity is perhaps the sexiest thing of all!
