Hosting your own website requires commitment and planning. You must choose a theme that shows your personality, have easy navigation with categories and search, and know your visitors through analytics. Most importantly, backups are crucial - have daily, weekly, and monthly backups of your files and database in at least three offsite locations like Amazon, Dropbox, or email to ensure quick recovery from disasters. Promoting your site through advertising and guest writers will help get the word out.

3. HOSTING YOUR OWN SITE
IS NOT A LEISURE TRIP

4. EXCEPTIONAL WEB HOST

5. SLOW PAINFUL DEATH

6. • Commit to a schedule
• Be consistent
• Write content that invites discussion
• Invite guest writers
• Advertising
CONTENT PLANNING

7. DISASTERS
WILL HAPPEN

8. RECOVERY PLAN
• Daily / Weekly / Monthly Backups
– All site files (themes and plugins)
– Database
• Pick 3 offsite backup locations
– Amazon
– Dropbox
– Email

9. BORING VANILLA THEME

10. SHOW YOUR PERSONALITY
• Mobile Responsive
• Colors
• Images
• Video

11. CONFUSING SITE FLOW

12. EASY SITE NAVIGATION
• Start from the top left
• Work down
• Then across
• You don’t have to show everything
• Use categories and tags
• MUST HAVE SEARCH

13. EASY SITE NAVIGATION

14. KNOW YOUR VISITORS - ANALYTICS

15. THE 5 W’s

16. CACHE NOT CASH
This term is pronounced like "cash" -- not "catch," and
definitely not "cashé." There are many different types
of caches but they all serve the same purpose. A
cache stores recently-used information in a place
where it can be accessed extremely fast.

17. BACKUP - BACKUP - BACKUP

18. GET THE WORD OUT

19. SUPER CHARGE YOUR
WORDPRESS

20. Thank you!
http://thomallen.com
@thomallen
http://thom.ws/17BtgQt