CAUTION: Construction Ahead
So, posts have been a little sporadic. I have a good excuse though. I swear.
Remember my promise of the new website? Well, it’s getting there. I’m still planning on launching on April 1st. There is a lot of work to be done, though, which has kept me away from here more than I’d like.
I’m actually launching three new websites on the 1st. Mostly because I am an idiot who likes to bite off more than I can chew. Two of the sites will be blogs- the new home for this blog, and also my parenting/personal blog. And things are going well with both.
The other site, though. Hahaha… Yeah. Talk about biting off more than I can chew. Let this be a lesson to all of you. Do not try to teach yourself web design on a deadline. Because, holy cow. Not as easy as it looks. Actually, no. It is kind of easy. But trying to learn how to do it, and then at the same time trying to decide how you want your page to look, and then figuring out how to make it look like that…
Yeah.
And that’s not mentioning the problems I am currently having with getting my contact sheet to work. Because Javascript hates me. But I am still working on it. And it will be ready. And it will be awesome.
I’m learning XHTML/CSS/ect. with the HTML/XHTML/CSS/Javascript/and so forth For Dummies book. It was my second choice (my first choice being the Head First guide- which Amazon was out of and I hate to wait), but I am glad I got it. I think the author (Andy Harris) does a wonderful job of making everything easy to understand. Which is saying a lot. Especially as I failed my college Web Design course. Twice.
I have stated before on here how important I think it is to learn skills like this, ones that maybe aren’t necessary to being a writer, but can come in very handy. And I am convinced that if I can teach myself how to build a website from the ground up, and then do some kick-ass SEO, marketing, and so forth, that my business will benefit from it. I can become a one-stop shop. Which, really, makes sense. I would rather turn to one person (or company) and have them build my site from the ground up than to work with several different people at different stages.
How could your business benefit from branching out, learning new skills and then offering them to your clients? The cool thing about being web writers is that we have an inside to the pulse of the internet community. We need to know a little bit of everything, just to write quality web content, blogs, and what ever else we send out into the world. Take some time to take stock of your skills, and think about how you can market them. Which areas would you like to learn more about? What parts are you not at all interested in learning? Knowing the answers to these questions can help you with planning out how you want your career as a writer to grow and develop.
If you could do anything with your career, what would you be doing? Are you moving forward in a way to help you realize that goal?
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I’m doing pretty much the same thing at the moment – rebranding myself online, in order to support my efforts as a freelancer (if I’m going to appear online, I might as well make it look good).