Cue evil laughing.
Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
So today I have some news for you, to do with the blog. If you haven’t already heard me talking about it, then take a little gander at the URL up there. Yup, that fancy, shiny new one. This is the part when you ask me “what was the point?”
This post is mostly justification.
Digital Footprint
From what I’ve heard, it is incredibly important for writers these days to be able to be found online, especially aspiring authors. This is why my full name is in the title of this blog, as it should come up on Google when you type my name. (So far I’m on about page four, although this new domain might have set me back a bit for now.) I’ve heard – and I’m not entirely sure it’s true – that a having a domain such as .com or .net will cause you to leap up the results in Google searches. I get the feeling that .wordpress.com would have me listed as just a profile on a pre-existing website, whereas .net will categorise me under having a website of my own..
Professionalism
I wasn’t joking back in my first post when I said I’m taking this seriously. This is a writing project, and as such should be treated with the effort it deserves. Having my own domain proves that I’m willing to put more time and effort into this; using the free domain provided is too easy.
Motivation
This wasn’t free! I’m not shy in revealing (considering you can find out for yourself) that this is costing me £15 a year. Hardly the most taxing thing in the world, but if I’m spending money on this blog, then I’ll be more likely to stick with it. In theory. And no, I doubt I’ll pay for the WordPress upgrades you can get. They’re like £80 a year. I, ah, think not.
Why .net?
.com was taken. Grumble grumble. The expiry date for kristianrichmond.com was February 25th, so it felt like fate. I spent the entirety of the 25th checking the domain and attempting to register it. And the entirety of the 26th, where the whois was still telling me it should be expired by now. And by the 27th, it had magically been renewed two days before. Mutter mutter grumble. They’re not even using it for anything!
I could have gone with .me or .co, but they cost like an extra $10 (so £6). That’s not too much, sure, but I’m picky; I’ve not seen .me or .co domains being very widely used and I feel like if they’re as rare to everyone else as they are to me, then people might think they’re just one of those cheap naff ones that people use when everything else is taken. There goes your professionalism. If I didn’t care about that, I’d have gone and got a free .tk domain. (Those haven’t worked well for me in the past, though.)
As for .net itself… I’m a network! I… work… on the… net. No? Well I’m not .organised, that’s for sure.
Other Factors
It’s more memorable.
It’s less typing for your beautiful fingers.
It’s nifty to say.
It’s my name! As a website! Squee!
The shorter the URL, the better.
And one more thing; I know that somebody is itching to tell me where I could have gotten this domain name a lot cheaper and how I’m doing everything wrong and wasting my money and oh god the whole world is going to implode because of my tomfoolery. Well, here’s what I know about web hosting in as little as one paragraph:
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I’m happy to pay for the convenience, if I’m honest. And people will tell me how easy it is and that it isn’t inconvenient, but it’s done now, so oh well!
Hopefully I’ll have a normal blog post coming up about what it’s like to write a screenplay for the very first time. For the meantime, though, I’ve got some serious hoovering to do.
Perpetually Perturbed 