How many of you have a website, separate from here?

[PotooGryphon]

Yes, I have an official website for my comic series.

I think it's definitely a good idea to have your own official site for the purposes of:

• blogging news about your comic
• having a storefront
• setting up a links page to help promote your friend's comics/comics you love
• it's more professional/official to have your own site
• it's another place to post your comic incase the platform site your own ends (ie. Inkblazer)
• the ability to feature and post whatever you want
• the ability to customize and design the site how you want
• another place to earn ad revenue on
• you can use it as a hub and post links to all the platform sites you also post your comic on
• and so on.

Other than the down side that it's another site to promote and push, the good far outweighs that negative.

[Kayke]

I do!

I love having a place to put fanart and extras! Also I like having control over the design of the site and making if fit the style and colors of the comic.

[glennsong]

This Mortal Coil has it's own site too. I enjoyed building the site to go with the book.

@CyndiFoster mentions a lot of good reasons to have your own site. I suppose of the downsides is having to work harder to attract folks to it whereas Tapastic has a built in audience that, in theory, would be more willing to flock to your work.

[vonblinden22]

Thanks for chiming in, everyone.
Yeah... I pulled the trigger and paid for web hosting today.
Now I have to deal with actually getting the darn thing up and running.
Wordpress is loaded.
Comicpress is loaded.
Having issues with installing the right plugins.

[dglisson]

I have a website as well for Beast Bait in addition to the tapastic site. I plan on doing all my storefront stuff from there once it's all nice and pretty, but it's functional right now.

[PotooGryphon]

As far as plugins for Wordpress goes, Jetpack is really all you need.

[phen]

Alright, got your website going! I found using wordpress extremely clunky and awkward so I ended up just building my personal site on my own. I'm working on getting my comics there (phenylketonurics.net is predominantly a hub for my galleries and personal projects) so it shouldn't be much longer before I've got everything wrapped up! Excited!

And yo, definitely keep us updated on your progress! I hope you can get the right plugins and everything with comicpress going!

[zoonland]

I have (well, is a blog dressed as a website): Zoonland
It features the comic but also illustrations and other info about it.
I need to make it more aesthetically appealing and keep adding new contents.

[DTSaranya]

I've got one for Waffles and Pancakes here. I've only just gotten it recently, so I haven't quite set all the pages up or anything, but it's mine, and it works.

@vonblinden22 Let me know if you need wordpress help/advice. I'm not an expert, but I've had some time to familiarize myself with the plugins and pick which ones I want for comic purposes.

[WintreKitty]

I have an outside location for my reviews since Tapastic doesn't support their layout. I've debated paying for web hosting, but I'm finding it difficult to outweigh the cons currently. So my reviews remain here for now :)

[jmhenry]

That I do! Updates are easier to find there than here on tapastic, there's also a nice section for fanart from readers.

[vonblinden22]

Thanks. I really might need your help!

[vonblinden22]

I can't really get anything done yet, but I guess the real problem is that the site hasn't finished registering, and doesn't exist yet, so I can't effectuate anything yet.

[ToonDoctor]

I think that everybody should have a hub that they control to some extent. Doesn't have to be your own website but something similar like a Blogger, Tumbrl account.

[quietsnooze]

Most definitely! Radio Silence has its own dedicated website. It'll be easier down the line to expand if I wanted to sell things, customize to add music or playlist related info, or talk more in depth about character bios, all of which can't happen on my tapastic mirror.

[DTSaranya]

You've said that you've got ComicPress loaded, but you'll also probably want:

-ComicEasel (gives you an upload system for adding pages easily - click "add comic" and then use "featured image" in the top right to pick the image, also gives you a navigation bar that you can customize or reskin and an organization system for chapters, characters, locations)
-Google Analytics (Lets you see your traffic, where your traffic's coming from, what pages people visited, etc.)
-Photo Gallery (Let's you add/organize galleries and then easily add them to your pages. There are other plugins that do this, but Photo Gallery seems the least limited in the free version)
-UpdraftPlus (helps you easily create backups and restore them in case something goes wrong, you get hacked, or you need to migrate your site)
-W3 Total Cache (optimizes your site so that pages load much faster and you use less resources - will be necessary to withstand high traffic - just remember to clear the cache after you make changes or they may not show up for other people)

Those are my personal choices, anyway. Other people may have other suggestions, and ultimately it's up to you.

Also, post your stuff on reddit. Even if some of your posts don't do as well as you hope or a few nasty people say something mean, be tough and keep posting. It's the best way to generate traffic for your site and accumulate returning visitors. If you don't post there already, there's /r/webcomics and /r/comics.

Hope this helps!

[quietsnooze]

There's also r/webcomicbooks! It's a new community so it's still small, but I've had very friendly and positive feedback there as opposed to elsewhere on reddit.

[PotooGryphon]

You don't need Photo Gallery, UpdraftPlus, W3 Total Cache, and other plugins if you install Jetpack. That has all of that and more like mobile optimization, carousel image galleries, infinite canvas, so much.

I agree that Google Analytics is definitely a great tool to use though.

[DTSaranya]

Hm... I like my current setup, but I may have to try that instead. Any chance you could elaborate on the settings it offers? Particularly with the image gallery, because I went through a bunch before settling on the one I have. How invasive are the descriptions of the photos, and how customizable is the lightbox?

Also, in terms of caching and performance, does it have more advanced options than the one in the screenshot you linked? I like all the different options W3 total cache gives me so that I can select which methods work well for my machine and enable/disable specific types. The screenshot only says "Speed up images and photos," if I'm not mistaken. Can you also customize it for page, object, minify, database, etc?

Also, in the screenshot you linked, it seems like VaultPress does the backups, and that it's paid. I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay for that if UpdraftPlus is free.

Also, what is infinite canvas?

Sorry to bombard you with questions. Trying to figure out what's optimal for my needs.

[PotooGryphon]

The link to Jetpack gives more details and specs.

How invasive are the descriptions of the photos, and how customizable is the lightbox?

I don't find it very invasive.

When you create a new comic page/post it's a simple check box

To further customize it you can by going to the settings in the plugin.

Also, what is infinite canvas?

Infinite canvas is what Tapastic uses for their site, the page infinitely scrolls vertically revealing the next page. Or like Tumblr as well.

I recommend Jetpack over W3 total cache because that plugin caused a lot of trouble on my site to the point I had to call in Go Daddy's tech support to help uninstall it. Both manually uninstalling and uninstalling through my wordpress dashboard couldn't completely get rid of it and it was conflicting with other features I was wanting to use from Jetpack.

Jetpack has over 28 features, making it like having 28 plugins rolled into one which is easier to managed than installing a bunch of specialized plugins and hoping the work together.