Looking for Advice Starting an Online Business
Hey friends!
I have recently begun the journey towards creating a dedicated webpage for Om Forest Crafts to sell my partner's wares of hand carved goods. I am looking for some advice, and figured Steemit was a great place to go since we are such a diversely skilled group!
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I would like to make the domain both an active blog and a storefront.
By doing this, we intend for people to be able to engage with us on a personal level as well as help fund the projects we are posting about. We think this doubling up can bring more diverse traffic to the site while helping to boost sales and overall human to human interaction. We had been selling through Etsy but would like to be more 'in charge' of our wares.
I had thought of creating a Wordpress specific for this, as I know that host is pretty easy to work with and makes presentation of the site simple. Through some research I've done, it seems that it is best to secure a domain through a different party than your web host, but I'm not totally sure what is the best choice for host or domain registration...
I feel decently comfortable with formatting html and have no fears about learning more about web design. We don't expect mountains of traffic, as we are pretty small-scale humans in all areas of our lives, but we do want a site that brings more abundance to our earth experience.
I'm hoping to get some feedback/ advice on what options could work well for us:
How can we make a secure and presentable site without breaking the bank?
Should we host through Wordpress, utilizing the add-ons and tools they provide?
Is there a real benefit to a domain registration through a second party? Any suggestions?
As a side note: We would love to link steemit articles through the blog, but are curious about copyright or plagiarism woes if we are sharing our own posts... Has anyone had issue posting similar/identical content from their steemit to other blogs?
I know this isn't my usual style of post, but I do hope that someone out there hears my call for help!
Thank you for engaging with this content.
Till next time,
Be Sweet, Stay Wild
@coyoteom
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Good luck! I have heard that Wordpress is pretty easy to use.
I use dreamhost but have been having trouble with their HTTPS. Bluehost has been recommended to me by several developers.
I have worked with WordPress and their is a plugin for almost everything. I wish I knew more about the online shops but I haven't managed any. A friend of mine uses the plugin WooCommerce extensively with her clients and she has built beautiful shops with it.
As for double posting the same blog content, we have done one article exactly the same and the rest we have changed. We don't get enough traffic to know if it negatively affected us. From what I have heard the content has to be about 25% different between the articles otherwise Google will flag the content and it will rank lower in the search. Does that make sense? -Aimee
Thanks so much for this response!
I had looked into both bluehost and dreamhost yesterday, and bluehost is the one i felt more inclined to use between the two.
It seems like making an online shop out of a webpage can be done pretty simply, wother through a plugin like wordpress offers or simple 1-click purchase options via paypal. I'm leaning towards a shopping cart method over the 1 click purchase. I will look into woocommerce 💫
The 25% does make sense. I figured there has to be some way of reformatting or alternating content to post through mutliple outlets. I follow some steemians who also have blogs elsewhere and I had thought they posted similar/same content on both blogs.
Maybe I can find a nice algorithmic way of altering articles to keep them kosher in the eyes of the web spiders.
Thanks again Aimee! Great response 🙌
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STOPHey, I see that this is a few days, but recently I was referred stablehost and they've been great with the limited experience I've had with them. A lot of people suggest to avoid any hosting site by EIG (you can google a list) because they tend to be scammy I guess. Anyways, good luck!
Thank you @type.unknown! Your advice definitely isn't coming in too late. I'll look into the EIG list.
Do you have any recommendations on the topic of hosting with the same site you register a domain with or outsourcing for domain registration?