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Having a platform where you can spread your ideals, passions, and thoughts to a wide audience is extremely powerful. The good news is that the tools that you need to execute that platform are cheap, and easy to use. Put the simple tools and the big impact together and you have the power of digital publishing online.

Do note that Iâm using the phrase âdigital publishingâ instead of the word âblogging.â I feel that âbloggingâ is too limiting a descriptor, and can thus inadvertently bring negative perception to a positive concept. I blame that on the low moral rumor and gossip sites out there which unfortunately give us real Citizen Journalists a bad name. We are not all Perez, after all. Plus, the term digital publishing encompasses the full spectrum of what weâre aiming to do: provide readily accessible and relevant content for an audience.

The First Step: Hardware And Software




So to start, how do you comb the vast landscape of web hosts and platform providers when all you really want to do is write? If you are new, this is where you have to begin.Iâm not going to suggest any particular web host, instead Iâll empower you to do the homework of searching for reputable providers.

In your favorite web search engine look for âweb hostingâ and youâll certainly get a number of great options. Youâll want to review product and service offerings to make sure they meet your overall objectives. Near the very top of your requirements list should be:

Notice I did not mention price. Web hosting today is such a commodity that all the âbig guysâ are priced relatively similar with great promo deals all the time. You do tend to get what you pay for, so donât shy away from spending a few dollars.

After you decide on your host, your next question is what platform you want to use. Will you use WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Squarespace, or Blogger? Iâm going to voice some bias here and say WordPress is the way to go for just about anyone. Iâll go into greater detail in a future post (I canât give away all the secrets at one time). Take it from someone whoâs used all of those platforms, plus many others (yes, even the old school straight HTML coding). Plain and simple, if you want a content management system (CMS) that is flexible, actively contributed to by a development community, and has a huge trajectory of longevity ahead of it, you just have to go with WordPress.

At this point youâve got your host and youâve got a platform, so now what? Start writing! The hard part is getting all this administrative stuff taken care of. If you have a niche youâre focused on and have some information to share â start pushing it out. Trial and error is part of life and part of establishing a business. True, there are right and wrong ways to do everything, but youâll never succeed until you try. Fail first, and then fix, but donât let a technical error kill you.

Iâll continue to dig deeper into this top of digital publishing in a continuing series with more tips and analysis as the weeks go on. Iâll focus on the various tools available to help with search engine optimization (SEO) and effective content linking in the next segment. In the meantime I sincerely look forward to reading your comments, suggestions, and experiences. Get writing!

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