Starting and Designing Your First Website

When I was backpacking through the quirky streets of Toronto in 2001, I noticed some graffitti on a wall, that read “Don’t Stop Living”. The legendary youthful phrase kickstarted a whackpacking adventure and…a website, this one you are reading. At the time I didn’t really know how to design any website or blog, not even a basic website. I started from scratch, from nowhere and it was all a new adventure for me. I didn’t even know where to start. I just knew I wanted a blog and for my stories to be online.

Website Name and Branding

First you need a name and brand. This part was easy. I started with the name “Don’t Stop Living”, I made a logo and a blogspot page. I used green, blue and white as these are the colours of the earth unpeopled. Green for land, white for cloud and snow, blue for ocean and sky. So it all started on Blogspot. Later I converted it intill a fully functional website on its own hosted domain – https://dontstopliving.net. Incidentally the original DSL on Blogspot still exists! You can find it here – original Don’t Stop Living. To go alongside this, of course I also opted for a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and an Instagram showcase.

Don’t Stop Living – A Lifestyle of Travel

http://www.twitter.com/jonnyblair/

http://www.facebook.com/donotstopliving/

https://www.youtube.com/user/jonnyscottblair

https://www.instagram.com/jonnydontstopliving/

Website Design from Silky Ocean Studios

If you head to the Silky Ocean Studios website, you can see how their experts design wonderful websites. This is a perfect way to kick start your business without doing the work yourself – you are hiring an expert!

Silky Ocean Studios make perfect website designs for small businesses. There are numerous examples of their work online, you can see one of their designs if you click here. What is important is for the website to be concise, clear and not complicated. A simple, easy to use design usually works best. Examples of businesses that could use Silky Ocean Studios include small hotels, hairdressers, cafes, up and coming musicians and so on.

Once you have an idea of the type of website you need, you can get in touch and make a good deal to ensure you have the best website for your audience. A nice simple design with clever colour schemes, enticing photos and easy to navigate menus works well. The menu should not be too complicated as viewers and potential customers can be put off quite quickly by it.

Promoting Your Blog

So once you have the social media pages set up and your website, you need to start promoting your blog to ensure you widen your audience with the view to turning it into a career. And so how do you go about promoting your blog? Here are a few of my pointers I learned through my time as a professional travel blogger:

• Post often – it is important to post regular articles on the website, keep your social media updated
• Be honest – stay true, pure and honest at all times. Real bloggers win and don’t be ashamed of anything, and if someone lies to you – expose them – that way you show your honesty constantly
• Engage with your readers – ask questions, interact, reply to their comments
• Do interviews for other sites and media – get your name and brand out there by featuring on other sites
• Share other bloggers stories – once you get into the world of blogging, become a part of the community and share stories and posts from other bloggers. Cross promotion works well. You promote them, they promote you.

Good luck in your adventure!