Building A Media Platform
Domain Based Identity & Media Platform Using WordPress
Domain Names
Domains are the address locations of business, and individual projects on the World Wide Web (WWW). It is always best to own your domain, this is the first step in becoming your own media entity! We can purchase our domain cheaply and retain our independence.
WordPress Why?
There are many options for building web platforms, WordPress happens to be the best. Beginning in 2003, developing via a global community of brilliant engineers, developers and media people it goes from strength to strength. The software remains free-of-charge, it is the best for Search Engine Visibility, we can publish all types of media to our WordPress project. There is a learning curve, but this is not beyond the reach of an averagely intelligent person.
Can I Publish a Podcast?
As I say above, we can publish ALL types of digital media to our WordPress media platform. Some people call it ‘Blogging’ but really web publication has moved on from these clunky descriptions, we can present polished, professional media results for our readers and followers. We can of course present a Podcast, and also distribute this widely, but having our own platform is a very powerful insurance: we cannot be closed down or told our content is not ‘suitable’ because we have our own home location to fall back on, plus this boosts our own web presence and ranking.
If you are interested with Podcasting, I have written a book just for you! The book is available on Kindle (Amazon) and costs $3.29; all aspects of Podcasting are discussed and described together with a summary of the history of the World Wide Web: Podcasting and The Media Revolution
Can I learn From iWriteBox?
Well, yes! I hope to be presenting some good training materials for you to learn how to build your own project, and to learn how to produce digital media. I am gauging the demand, and the more people who sign up the more I will be motivated to help you, so spread the word! I hope to keep this free of charge, but I might also offer exclusive help for a modest fee if individuals are interested.
First Steps
To become a ‘Web Journalist’ the very first consideration is to secure your Domain name. I am going to assume you are basically familiar with web terminology, and that you understand basically how the WWW works in general. If you have any questions, or require clarification on specific points, just send me a message from the contact page, or my email address: gorman.mi@gmail.com.
A Domain Name is actually a numerical address, but the web has what are called ‘Domain Name Services’, or DNS for short, this works to convert English names into numbers (and vice-versa) which computers understand (computers can’t actually understand spoken and written language). Anyway, we obtain our Domain name from registrars. Go Daddy, Namecheap, Google are typical examples of registrars.
There are plenty of ‘guru’ types who claim that the .com is the only serious option: this is rubbish! Today we have the choice of over 1,000 different domain types, these can be highly specific to particular subjects, such as: .BEER, .SPORT, .CLUB, .XYZ…to name but a few.
It is also true that many people feel uncertain with many of these new TLD’s (Top Level domains) but that younger people are more comfortable with them. Many start-up tech projects are using .IO very often, there is definitely a fashion and trend among different groups to favour different domain name types.
Consider that .XYZ is being used by the most successful internet company in the world: Alphabet
You should not stress too much about your name, or the domain type: just select something you can live with, and can stand to work under for a long time!
Video 1 Getting Started With WordPress For Media People
Video 2 Introduction To WordPress For Media Types
Web hosting is spoken about all over the web, this is a vital, critical service for publishers; this is where your personal projects ‘live’ and are presented to the web community. A lot of people seem to choose very cheap services, or even free. This is a mistake, I understand why this is but really the quality of your projects will be determined by the quality of your hosting; basically hosting is the server on which your web media is published.
Much depends on your intentions, what your objectives are: are you serious about your outcomes, or simply dabbling?
If you are unsure, if you don’t really want to commit to publishing media seriously, then sure, choose free, or very cheap options to begin with.
I am going to assume that if you are intent on building your name as a web journalist, or writer, podcaster, video producer then you want something that works well for you.
I have used many hosting services, Hostgator, Bluehost, AWS, currently I have chosen Siteground for my projects, this is a very good hosting service; Siteground are based in Bulgaria (A European country) and it is managed by some very skilled web specialists, they specialise in WordPress hosting and they provide some excellent optimisation tools, to speed your site up and provide a good user experience.
You should choose a high quality hosting service, this is critical to your outcomes; don’t listen to people who say it doesn’t matter!
Yes, my link to Siteground is an affiliate link and if you also decide to use this company they give me a small gratuity, your price is not affected by this. Such links enable me to present education and help to you for no charge, the links help me to keep the lights on.
Do check out Siteground, they really are superb, they also provide help and assistance to you; their prices are very reasonable indeed!
WordPress
So much has been written and spoken about WordPress, it would take an entire dedicated course to explore the history and development of this enormous project; the central objective of WordPress is to ‘democratise publishing’ on the web, and this means that even if you cannot ‘code’ you can still participate and produce very high quality content under your privately owned domain.
WordPress for the purposes of web journalists, podcasters, specialist subject authors, video producers is absolutely perfect.
Yes there are alternatives, and devotees to these other options, Squarespace is a good example. The thing is projects such as Squarespace are very similar to WordPress, they are most often built from ‘PHP’, but they are nowhere near as highly developed, plus they tend to charge a lot of money for their accounts, these can include hosting, but take it from me, WordPress is vastly superior in every way that matters.
What we have with WordPress is a ‘barebones’ project, if I were to begin from scratch and commence building a web content project it would take me months to arrive at the stage that a basic WordPress installation is at; we are all set to begin building something right out of the box.
With our WordPress content management system we now have the opportunity to put together our very own Media Platform. What do I mean by this?
Rather than think in terms of ‘Blogging’, or building a ‘website’ what we have with WordPress is a fully resourced media content system. If you look at something like ‘RollingStone’ for example, this is built with WordPress, Newspapers online are often built with WordPress also.
We can produce a genuine, top of the range media project which can include all of the media types: The written word, Audio, Video, Graphics.
By using Elementor you have a rich, effective toolset for your page designs; you are not limited.
Moreover, you should consider yourself as being a Media Company, go forward as you mean to continue. By refining how you think about what you are doing you give your project shape and form. If you want to be a journalist, a writer, someone who offers analysis and perspective for others to benefit and learn from, you have all of the tools right in front of you to execute on this objective!
In the video above I introduce this method of using WordPress and Elementor as our building tools. We can use our own design acumen, ideas and concepts without having to learn complicated coding languages; this is a visual method of design/build, and the results can be very impressive.
You will be able to learn how to use this if you have some basic skills, and a little imagination. Like anything, it depends how much effort and attention you devote. The independent path is never easy, but these tools make it more possible.