Photo credit – jasohill
Temple, Template
I’m sure you’ve all seen them. I’m sure most of you have them. I’m sure when you look at one you feel just like Indiana Jones as he dropped into the Well Of Souls only to be surrounded by snakes.
Seeing as how we’re all looking to further ourselves and our careers through the use of technology, I thought I’d discuss my website and where I’m going with it. For right now, let’s all take a look at my temple (I mean, template).
Ok, first off, you’re probably wondering why the name and not all the “rockstar” business I told you about last week. Well, Dr. Jones, we’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s concentrate on the site first. Landing page – B to the ORING. Any other page? Exactly like every other agent in our three offices – in other words, nothing to sing the Indiana Jones theme music about.
(Note: Mariana Wagner wrote a great AG article about how to make a template site better, so if you’re still inclined to keep yours, read it now.)
So where do we go from here?
As Harrison Ford once said, “We walk from here.” I want my site to grow and evolve in time and with the knowledge we all gain from comments and our discourse, I think I will build a site to be reckoned with. So I may take some baby steps and crawl along, but this is why we’re here.
First step is to get a domain name. My old template was at www.exitnsa.com/mattstigliano. Try giving that to your clients or printing it on your business cards. Now that we’ve started to build the rockstar identity, I thought it was appropriate to buy www.RErockstar.com and find a host (as our IT company doesn’t offer any sort of hosting and in fact once asked me “What’s WordPress?”). I was tempted to ask everyone for ideas on that, but to be honest, I’m pretty good with this end of things. Like Indy with a leather whip, I’ve tackled many hosting companies in my experiences with the band and laid most of them to rest. I went with Dreamhost, as I’ve used them for many years without a single hiccup. Cheap, reliable, great features, a hilarious monthly newsletter, and to top it all off – they’re carbon neutral. I may not be the biggest tree hugger on earth, but I do what I can.
After purchasing the hosting, I installed WordPress as it was what I knew most about and Dreamhost has a “one click install” of it. Since they support it, it makes my life easier. Now, the new site is at www.RErockstar.com, but its barely started.
The first couple of days of having it was when the whole “rockstar” revolution began to take shape, so the first few entries are rather dry and will not be on the eventual site (or in some new form). It was all about the test and getting used to it.
The adventure begins…
Over the course of the next few weeks, we will begin to build the site. Yes, I said we. With your comments, ideas, suggestions; the site will take shape. As things get done, I will report back within the comments (until its time to write a new post that spins off one of those topics).
First off, a theme. Although I’m a decent coder, I’ve never coded with WordPress, so we’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I have installed a theme that looks ok, but the fact is, it shows no “rockstar” personality. Truth is, if we’re going to go with an identity, we might as well go whole hog as they say.
So who wants be the first brave soul to raise their hand and kick start this adventure? What would you do if you could start all over?
