Your Own Writing Site - The Next Step on Your Travels To Success

Writers need websites to get to the next level. I started for free and you can too but when you're ready to take your writing career up a notch, you need your own website. If you're on the fence about it and worried about taking the plunge for technical reasons or for financial reasons, this post is being written to talk you into starting your own website. Trust me, you will not regret it!

Yes, the link below has my affiliate button for Host Gator. Host Gator costs me $10 a month through Paypal. I pay quarterly. The Baby Croc plan was recommended to me by a fellow writer and I'm so glad I took the plunge. I now have 7 different sites hosted on it. I can add unlimited sites to it provided I stay within bandwidth limitations and I am having no issues whatsoever with my 7 websites, eight blogs and two forums. I've had to stifle my URL buying not because of my hosting service but becuase I'm running out of time in terms of having enough time to build and maintain all the sites I have ideas for. Not only has Host Gator given me a professional services website for my freelance writing business but it's helped me do more than dabble with affiliate / internet marketing too.


This is what those sites are doing for me:

I have DanaPrinceWriting.com. This is my main site on the hostgator account. I now have a professional services website. I used to point potential clients to blogs and my free google page and e-zine articles but now I have a place to show them my work. I also host a customer focused blog on this site for no extra charge that helps me get search engine traffic for specialties. I have had this site running for just a few months, have a high page rank and am getting clients from it that are finding me.

Let Clients Find You

One of the best benefits of having a client find you is that a) you quote your rates and they are already interested in you and b) you can set up a payment page or list your terms for up front deposits which helps sift out non-payers from the start.

I've also added a not yet active forum in case my team grows large enough that I need a secure and private place to communicate with them and this site has the potential for being very interactive and useful with other tools I've not even activated yet.

Affiliate Marketing income. I've joined Pepperjam, Clickbank and Commission Junction and am now making money in affiliate marketing. Each of my domains has cost me less than $10 (except for 1 that's a .ca so was $15). I can host all my sites from one panel and it's very easy. I am getting a lot of value for my $10 a month and I'm getting tools to track my keywords and analyze my traffic and SEO practices as well.

Bonuses of Host Gator - You Don't Need to be Technical

I'm not technical and I don't need to be. Host Gator answers all my questions, no matter how silly and a few times when I've messed things up, they have quickly fixed it for me for free.

Main accounts can use a site building tool with many template options and you can also add Wordpress to your site as well as create an e-store with open source OSCommerce tools.

As a writer, I operated for over 1.5 years without my website. I've done a pretty good job of getting my career going with no investment but as I mentioned in the past, there comes a time when you need to invest a little in order to take your writing career to the next level and for a $35 start up fee because I found a coupon code, I got a domain name and three months of hosting. I also know my investments in my website are tax deductible. If you're planning to get started this month, the june hostgator coupon code is BEACH which will save you 20% off.