Seven Things to Keep in Mind When Building a Website

Posted on Facebook by Yola on Monday, March 28, 2011 at 12:06pm.Congratulations on taking the big first step toward getting your business website online! By signing up with Yola, you’re on your way to creating a professional website for your business. If you’ve suddenly realized you don’t have everything you need to get your website live, don’t panic. Here are a few simple things you can do to help get your website in great shape and ready to launch.

What do I want my website to do?
When buying a car, you’d probably consider where you’ll drive it, who will be using it, and what features you’ll need. It’s a similar process for your website. Think about specifically why you want a website. Is it to sell your products online? Blog about your industry? Provide directions to your location? It’s important to identify your main goals so you can plan for them.


Who do I want to visit my website?
You’ll also want to think about your target audience. Who would you like to visit your website? What’s their age range? Technical experience? Educational level? Income bracket? The answers to these questions will shape how you design your site, what you want to say, and even how you present your products and services.

What should I name my website?
The default web address we provide is certainly serviceable, but it’s not very memorable. Picking a good domain name (web address) for your website is critical; it’s how your customers and the search engines find you. Make sure the domain name represents your business, blog, or personal site. It should be short, easy to remember, and tell people what to expect from your website. Also establish whether you want a .com, .biz, or .org (if you’re a non-profit) site.

Learn more about picking a domain name in our tutorial.

What do I want to say?
Spend a little time considering what you want to say. This will determine the number and types of pages you’ll create. Think beyond text—photos, videos, and animations/slideshows go a long way toward communicating exactly what you want. Don’t have good photos for your website? No problem. We’ve partnered with Fotolia to bring you over 8 million royalty-free images. And don’t forget to plan for how much time and effort it may take to keep your website content up-to-date.

What do I want it to look like?
Designing your website is the fun part. Bells and whistles are great, but don’t get too carried away. Keep it simple and easy for your customers. Yola’s easy-to-use Sitebuilder lets you customize your site to suit your needs. Start by selecting a design; we have over 100 professionally designed templates to choose from! You can then personalize your style by changing your background, font or banner.

How do people find me?
Publishing your website does not necessarily guarantee visits from prospective customers. Make sure your site is search engine optimized (SEO) and search engine friendly. This means you’ll want to spend some time thinking about keywords (words that accurately describe your business and your website) and ensure they’re included in your website copy and messaging.

How do I promote my website?
Once your website is live, it’s time to start promoting it. There are lots of ways you can do this, including Google AdWords, a “pay-per-click” advertising program. (Attention Yola Silver customers: You have $50 of free AdWords credits!) Social networking is also a great, inexpensive way to get the word out. If you’re on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, make sure to post links to your new website. You can also create a blog on your website, write interesting articles about your industry, then post links to them.

Check out this site more tips to promote your website.

If you haven’t launched your website yet, now’s the time! Follow these seven steps and your business website will be bringing in the customers before you know it.


Go to my site if you need some help:  http://webclassesnm.com/









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Make Money Blogging

by Sandy Penny, http://webclassesnm.com

This is one of the most down to earth, easy to read blogs I’ve found in a long time with non-hyped sane information about how to make money blogging. I think you’ll like it, and I am currently creating my blogging empire, so it’s a hot topic for me.

http://www.problogger.net/make-money-blogging/

I immediately signed up for updates. Inquiring minds always want to know how to make money. And they have two money blog books out too. Check the carousel below. Get some straight talk on the subject of blogging and making money. I’m new at it, and I have a big learning curve. Glad I found a good resource to help me.

Here are some good books you can get on Amazon on all forms of blogging: blogging for dollars, pink blog (for women), blogging for dummies, Huffington Post blogging recommendations. All good resources. Get on with making some money blogging.

More on Building Your Free Website

So, I’ve been working on my new website now for a while. After years of being unavailable, my sandypenny.com domain name became available. I jumped on it as I had wanted it for so long. Having already set up my Yola.com site for WritingMuse.com, I had mastered the tools pretty well, except they gave us a bunch of great new tools, like a blind contact form and easy to use mp3 media player. Lots of new stuff.

During this process, my friend Claire at LightedPaths.org wanted to switch to a Yola site too because she did not want to pay and wait for her web master to make every little tweak she needed. And, she wanted to be able to upload more audio to her radio archives. So, while helping her create a new free website, I began to refine the process into a logical format.

Meanwhile, I moved to the Albuquerque area and started thinking about what I could offer the community here. The idea to help people learn to build their own free websites came to me. So, I put together a class agenda, sent out some emails through new friends’ lists, and began my first “Build Your Own Free Website” Class. I offered the class to spiritual and alternative healing entrepreneurs, so there is a nice mix of compatible people.

I’ve done the first two classes now, and it’s going well, although there have been a few glitches in the process. It’s a learning experience, after all. Here’s a list of things I teach my students that may help you organize your website and get launched into the world market.

SignUp and Basics
•Buy a domain name.
•Create Free Yola account.
•Choose a template.
•Add basic template pages (Welcome, About Us, etc.)
•Explore Widgets, Properties and Yola help center.
•Create a Customized Banner, if needed using Paint.
•Identify content and navigation strategies.
•Learn to Use Text Boxes and Photo boxes.
•Paste content into Notepad for ease of formatting.
•Don't type directly into the sitebuilder. You could lose it before saving.
•Upload photos and files to File Manager.
•Add photos and text boxes to various pages.
•Save and Preview Pages, adjust as needed.

Search Engine Optimization
•Define your target market.
•Write Window Titles.
•Identify list of keywords or search words.
•Write a short two sentence page description for each page for search engines using your key words.
•Learn where to post the window titles, key words and page descriptions for

Refine Site
•Refine Your Design & Content, Standardize colors and font sizes.
•Explore Other Yola Sitebuilder Tools
•Links: add Page Links, File Links, Photo Links.
•Add a Blind Contact Form to your Contact Us Page to avoid email address being added to spider crawler spammer lists.
•Add New Pages and Photos.
•Rearrange your navigation bar if pages are not in order.
•Add specialty widgets to site (like audio player, html code, maps, etc., as needed for your site.)
•Edit Photos in free program: PicNik (linked to Yola photo boxes)
•Add PayPal Ecommerce, if needed (catalog, single product, donation.)
•Add "Buy Now" buttons where needed.
•Set up a Free Stat Counter that counts your visitors to the site and tracks where they come from, popular pages, lots of info. Post stat counter code in html box.

Finalization & Review
•Launch (publish) the website.
•You will have to redirect your domain to Yola if you did not buy your domain from Yola. (See Yola help.) Yola’s domains are too expensive for me. 
•Review the launched site on various browsers settings and refine as needed.
•Search Engine Optimization: Create Google Webmaster free account. Get your Google Webmaster Code and put it in properties to Scan Pages for Search Engine recognition. Yola offers a tutorial to walk you through the steps.

If that all seems too complicated, Contact Sandy to help you privately or to register for a class. For more info, check out WebClassesNM.com.

Feel free to send me some questions or post them in comments, and I’ll help if I can.