I want to build a blog - help please!

[lisa_spyder]

OK guys and gals,

I need some techno help....

I am not really up to speed with this whole blog thing. I'd like to do something for Spyder Automobiles (our biz) that carries all the stuff I wouldn't load up on a website. Things like my recent trip to SoCal, the upcoming Phillip Island Historic meeting etc.

I have started to set something up using wordpress which will do quite nicely I think, but I am totally clueless as to the whole "category and tag" thing. I have tried reading up on both and still can't quite work out the hows and whys.

Silly question no 1: is it important to categorise or tag posts, pages, whatever?

Silly question no 2: if so, how do I do that effectively?

Silly question no 3: can I just avoid the whole category/tag thingy and just point people across from websites, via email etc?

TIA,

Cheers,

Lisa

[nostatic]

you don't *need* either. They are just a way to organize your posts and possibly make it easier for people to navigate your content.

Think of categories as folders. You might have "travel", "work", "play", etc. I used to have a somewhat cryptic category system that used song titles to group things by general content area (http://www.nostatic.com/weblog/). My current version doesn't even bother with it...I only have one category, "free verse", so that I can find the free verse that I write (http://nostatic.com/blog/).

Tags are keywords that can enable people to sort your stuff as well. Some sites use tag clouds, which are weighted tags...ie if you have 5 posts with "dog" and 3 posts with "cat", the word "dog" will be bigger in the tag cloud, and clicking on that word will pull up all the posts that have that tag. We use tags and tag clouds at work, but I don't yet use them at my personal site because I'm lazy.

[lisa_spyder]

Thanks Todd! What I was hoping to hear .

I figure a blog is a great place to keep our bunch updated with "co-curricular" goings on. Saves me tooling around with the website too much ( the one I am still working on ).

Cheers,

Lisa

[johndglynn]

I use Wordpress, good system. I find categories useful, even if just for my own reference later, so maybe start as you mean to go on and sort stuff into categories from post #1. Imagine it ten years from now with a few hundred posts

[lisa_spyder]

Thanks John,

That's good advice. I'll certainly look at doing this. As you say; even for our own use it would make things easier to trace and find. I am still finding my way round it all though.

As for thinking 10 years ahead - good god! I have trouble getting past next week at the moment . Note to self - get bl00dy well organised girl !

Cheers,

Lisa

[lisa_spyder]

Well I have pulled my finger out of my proverbial and have made a start...

Lots more to do/add, but I am doing it around a lot of other things so I am reasonably pleased with my progress so far.

http://spyderauto.wordpress.com/

Critiques welcome - comments posted to the blog too .

The website can carry all the static info (working on that too in what little spare time I have), but with the blog we can share the fun stuff with people.

So, any feedback is welcome.

Cheers,

Lisa

[id10t]

Advice? Quickly go register spyderauto.net as your own (use godaddy or similar) and then see if you can get your newly obtained name pointing to your wordpress account.

[lisa_spyder]

Yep - silly move on my part. I should have used the username Spyder Automobiles as we have both .com and .com.au registered...was half asleep at the time.

Thanks id10t - at least someone is on the ball (not being me ).

Cheers,

Lisa

[lisa_spyder]

Id10t...job done! And thanks again

Cheers,

Lisa

[Sapporo Guy]

You might want to consider your own domain.

I also tend to recommend modx -- It does blogging and what not but it's more of a site system with the ability to adapt to your needs.

[Sapporo Guy]

lolo, didn't refresh before I posted

[lisa_spyder]

Ha Ha!

Good advice definitely and yes I did act immediately upon it. spyderauto.net is paid for . I'll link this one to the "official" site as well.

610 hits already - and some great comments. I think I'm gonna really love this whole blog thing!

Now to get my Mike up to speed on it too....

Cheers,

Lisa

[id10t]

Yup, gotta be quick to grab a good domain... Not a lot of name-based domains left... somehow a friend and I got "itsjustcrap.com" last year, suprised it wasn't taken...