Having your own website

[Klaustasya]

I've heard that having your own website/domain during these times is very very good compared to only relying on socials nowadays (especially when they're all for monetizing and only already big account have a chance to grow more) do you have your own website? How do you lead people there without (or almost) using no social medias?

Edit: i simply want to start running ads and doing mailing lists but i really need guides on this XD

[shazzbaa]

I agree that having a website and not relying fully on social media is good (having full control over how your content is presented, not having to worry that you'll lose your audience completely if a website goes down or falls out of favour or changes in a way you disapprove of, having a nice neat memorable "runewriters.com" URL to tell people rather than "tapas.io/series/runewriters"),

but I don't agree that you should have your own website instead of having social media. Social media is still important! How on earth are people going to find you? Like, I guess you can make contacts at conventions and stuff, maybe do some really thoughtfully placed paid advertising? But if you're not hanging out where people are then it's going to be a lot harder to tell people about your work, and it's going to take way longer to grow your audience.

I do both! My comic is on its own website, but I still participate pretty regularly on twitter and tumblr. I don't agree that it's impossible to grow on these platforms unless you're already big -- we all start somewhere -- it's just going to take time and participating rather than just self-promotion in order to grow your audience.

[phen]

I have my own websites -- one for artist portfolio purposes (phenylketonurics.net) and one for my webcomic (tnstaj.com).

Without using social media, having good SEO work put into your website ensures that searching certain terms puts your site ahead of others. Relevant and concise metadata for your webpages helps a lot here.

Even still, you'll want to leave links and/or mention your website's availability in your social media pages. Use platforms like twitter/instagram/facebook like free ad-space to tell people about your site. Get traffic going and watch how users interact with it.

EDIT: here's a simple, clear little blurb about SEO. https://www.mtu.edu/umc/services/digital/seo/

[Klaustasya]

Gosh, all this SEO stuff looks rather complex x__x english is not even my first language and it's so hard to understand about digital marketing and stuff XD i really need to study more on this...

[Klaustasya]

I've recently received many suggestions on this, like runnings ads but i don't know how to do it and how much it costs x___x

[kytri]

I have my own website. I've had one since I was a teen.

How do you lead people there without (or almost) using no social medias?

You don't. You'll still need social media to get people onto your site in the first place. Having a domain isn't promotion in itself. It does give off a sense of professionalism though and a good way to aggregate all of your content.

Also just being able to control your own space is just really useful? Suppose tapas changed their TOS tomorrow and I couldn't or didn't want to keep posting my comic here? I have my own site so I wouldn't have to struggle to find a replacement.

[phen]

Haha, those terms are all so intimidating, yeah? It seems complex but it's simple once you get going with it -- hopefully you can find more info about it in your native language so it's not as foreign-sounding.

Really, for comics, you can launch a website with wordpress plugins and work from there. Investing in ad-space and swapping links with fellow creators can help. But yes, one step at a time is key. Research ways to start a basic site, check out how successful webcomics sites work, and in time you'll be able to get there too! You got this!