The Importance of a Website

As digital information replaces the soon to be obsolete print form of news, the website has become an appendage of our being. It is no coincidence that the first page our wandering eyes visit is called the home page. We spend more time surfing the web and becoming upset when we do not receive enough website traffic, than complaining about getting stuck in actual street traffic. But there is an ultimate purpose to this madness. Without a website you will not be reading this right now. Without a website I would not have written this piece. So, one of the major important reasons for having a website is to provide information. More and more people will learn about the world’s current events not by reading a newspaper but by checking out Yahoo's front page. A newspaper is a day late, so therefore it is not really news. If you want to view “New News” you would need to be on the internet. However, information does not have to be factual it could simply be someone’s rant about how their piano playing cat did not receive enough hits. Blogs have replaced the teenage girl’s diary stereotype and has opened the doors to even grown men and women who give us their thoughts sprinkled with some words of wisdom.

Information and Blogging

Blogging has become another past time of its own. One of the main reasons for its popularity is that most of the blog sites are free. Which means you do not need to be 18 to enter in payment information to buy a product.  This has introduced a wide variety of people to posting and uploading information onto the net.  Stories of little girls from Malaysia flying over to LA and recording a major record deal just because the executive liked their YouTube videos, is a direct result of the power of the almighty blog. Now granted YouTube is more of a video social networking site than a blog itself but the idea remains the same. Although you can post videos of yourself onto your own websites, Blogs are most commonly used for pictures and text. Two of the most popular blog websites are Blogger.com and BlogSpot. Both of these websites are free and are easy to use. Now remember how I said that there will be more young people using blogs? Despite the must be 18 age restriction there is a high number of younger people blogging more than ever today. A direct result of this is MySpace. which is mostly composed of 14 year old girls looking to find a man will give her positive comments of her cell phone mirror pictures (Emphasis on the word positive.)Regardless of its popularity, if you are concerned that your child may be blogging, sit down and have a talk about its pros and cons. If your child really wants a blog, then make him or her agree that they will not post any information that could get them into trouble. As the social networking trophy goes to Twitter, people are posting their every impulse to the world. It is not uncommon for me to randomly stumble upon a past tweet I made about a bad potato salad. I even watched an episode of a girl that was upset at her man for “Twittering” so much that it was causing problems with their relationship. I digress. Be aware of the dangers. There have been countless cases of kids getting arrested for having a beer in their hand on Facebook and stalkers coming to the front door because the home was address listed on the blog. With that in consideration I will begin talking about word press.

Word Press is the most popular blogging plug-in for a website. These means that along with all of the blogger.com style blogs, there is a plethora of individually owned websites that post blogs as well. Let's be honest, there are a lot of strange opinions and views from twisted minds that are posted in blogs. However in their minds this is simply information that they are sharing, like what I am trying to accomplish to do here. Although a blog may contain what is considered to be “opinions,” the author is providing information to one person or another for good or for bad. Even if the author believes that what they are writing is simply a rant, it could help someone if all they are looking for is something to read.This then brings up the topic of positive vs. negative information. I know the title is the importance of a web site; it should really be “The Importance of Having a Useful Website.” I can’t say positive because that will mean that we could not have” how to articles “on making curry. Curry is neither good nor bad. It simply is curry….a food.  A useful website provides information in the form of positive thoughts, directions for things, and just “things” that are for sale. Now you could say that some websites do not sell useful things but if they decided on making a website to sell their “things,” then a large enough group of people would have to like these "things."

E-Services and Usefulness

Although e-services is a relatively unknown name to some, useful websites cannot all be categorized as e-commerce. You do not have to sell something to be useful. Now the cynic in you is probably thinking what about Google Ad sense? That’s a good question but the average person does not click on ads. I do not and I would make a firm assumption that neither do you. Although ads may be placed all around the border you do not feel pressed to click. Useful sites may even offer information about products that are for sale, but the web page does not have to be a market place. If you do not own an e-commerce business than promoting your product and knowledge of your area of expertise on the web is one of the most common reasons for creating a website. a webmaster may feel that they have something to share, whether it is a thought, trade, or product. If you feel like the public can benefit from something that you can offer, than it is worth considering building a website. Like I said it does not have be an ordeal. There are numerous free hosting sites as stated in my previous article How to Choose Web Hosting so it does not have to be a big financial investment either, although a website in general is a major investment for a business overall. I will not get into how to build a website because that is covered or will be covered in my articles: How to Get Domain Names. I want to dispose the myth that having a website is dangerous. Having a dangerous website is dangerous. If your website is not dangerous, then you will most likely not risk any danger. This however, gets into how danger is based on one's perception but I will not get into that now. It is no secret that the information is advancing at light year speed. If you are not familiar with basic internet functions such as creating accounts, clicking on links and forming online discussions than you need to start a website. By having a serious website you will be forced to learn how to build one, regardless if you got the information from another source. The method of how you did it is not the focus, rather it is the fact that you actually did it.

Feels Good

One can say that the feeling of clicking on one's first website URL is comparable to holding a newborn. Well not exactly, but websites in general can resemble children to us. Even though the coffee stain on the keyboard isnt exactly a dirty diaper, managing a website does take alot of time.  If you are able to work yourself around Adobe Photoshop, you can create your own custom banners, backgrounds, and layout templates for your site. If you are adept in these areas you may even consider building a website that provides these very services. Let’s face it there are more sites offering tips on Word Press themes than directions on how to make kim chi. Once you start receiving positive comments, RSS subscribers,  and high traffic, you will begin to feel that you have accomplished something and that other people believe it was helpful too no matter how stupid or unoriginal you may think the idea was.