Creating A Professional Website for FREE Ninety-Nine!

Creating an Effective Web Site 

Often times it is hard to figure out where to start in creating an effective website. There many questions such as where to host your new site, or what type of layout should you use?

The first step is to determine the audience you are trying to reach. The next step, before creating wire frames and mock ups, is determining your budget. The last step is to consider who is going to build it or if you are going to build it yourself. In this article we will be looking at the free route. These days it is very easy to build your website with ZERO programming experience. So, don't be bashful, roll up your sleeves, and keep reading.


I am attempting to build a personal portfolio site highlighting me, and I have already determined the layout by searching other portfolio sites that are interesting to me. Since I will be doing all the design work, using a free website builder, and taking advantage of there free web hosting, budget will not be concern currently.

Now that I have a better sense of the direction I want to go in I can start sketching out my layout on a or choose a template from the web site builder. Often times when a web designer meets with a client they will sketch out the layout on something as simple as a napkin. You would be surprised how often this happens! The rough sketch will be a guideline for the website and lead to creating the wire frames for each page. Wire frames are just the outline of your website's layout and controls, such as the navigation, images, header, footer, and links. (see the example below)

One way I think of designing a website is like oil painting, because just like when painting with oils, you will have multiple layers until you reach the final product. Also, like a painting, the most important thing to remember is to have a solid foundation to build upon. You will make your life harder if you try and correct your foundation at the end stages of creating your website. Work smarter not harder! When you are creating the wire frames of each page, they should be pretty close to the actual layout you will end up using.

My web site will have eight pages. The pages will include a splash page, home, about, art, music, web design, contact, and a blog. I hope to accomplish a website that will give an insight to who I am and what I do, and of course I want it to be interesting visually and easy to navigate.

The last step is to find a place to host your site. There are a few options that are  initially free, but as you continue to add certain functionalities, like eCommerce, you could end up paying a monthly fee. However, for a basic site like I am building I shouldn't have any issues with cost.

Often times with the free hosting you might have advertisements on your site, or you may be limited to how many pages you can host, but if you use any of the sites that I researched below, you won't have to worry about ads unless you add them. I choose Weebly.com for my site but the others are just as good. Below are three sites that I have researched.



Weebly.com

Weebly is awesome because it is 100% free and it's interface is simple and quick to use. You basically just drag and drop your content and you can upload photos with just a few clicks. Weebly has a ton of different template options, and they are always improving on their templates. Weebly also has eCommerce built into their site, which is great if you are selling anything, and the basic option is free!

Wix.com

Wix is also template based, with as they say, "100s of Designer-Made Templates". Wix is also drag and drop like the others and Wix has an option that will allow you to use one-paged templates, that allow you to publish your site quickly and add subsequent pages later. Wix also offers protected pages that will allow you to designate who can access those pages. This is a cool feature if you need security for any reason.

Webs.com

Webs is template based with professionally designed themes and it's also easy to use. Plus like the others it allows you to drag and drop content to your liking. You don't need to know any programming language you just need to be creative. Lastly, they also show you how to market your site and use Search Engine Optimization.

As you can see you really can't go wrong with any of these site builders, and the truth is they are all really similar. Maybe in the end the deciding factor for you will be the templates that differ from site to site. I suggest doing some research and see what works for your needs, as I have only scratched the surface as to what these sites offer. In the end it's left up to you and your creative juices! Good luck!

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Polishing Your WebSite: Wax On Wax Off

The Finishing Touches

It's a beautiful sunny summer’s day. The temperature is crisp 77 degrees Fahrenheit and you just finished washing and waxing your new car to go cruising. It's going to be a great day! Your new website that you built is similar to that new car; and now it's time to polish it up before taking it for that inaugural spin. 

Once you are done adding the content to your website, it is important look over your site to see if anything could be added or taking away. This is the time to streamline your site. I don’t think there are any hard rules that you need to follow during this process but there are some important things to look for.

In the end, I chose to add a search bar onto my splash page and a counter. I also removed a previous ad that I had on my Art page, because it broke the clean lines I was trying to achieve. Lastly, I chose to change my grammar from 3^rd person to 1^st person since this is my portfolio.

Spelling and Grammar:

I am very guilty of making spelling and grammar mistakes. You want to make sure that you are using proper grammar and spelling so that your users aren’t distracted by the errors; which can result in your message, product, or idea not being conveyed effectively. I find that if possible, have a second pair of eyes look over you content before you publish.

Ads & Pop Ups:

Depending on your website you might have ads. If you do have ads, it is important to make sure that your ads are placed in strategic areas of your site, so that the ads are effective and your site layout flows well. There is a science to your website layout, so you should do some marketing research if you are not sure where to place your ads. In the end, it’s a game of addition and subtraction to find the right Feng Shui.

Functionality:

By this stage you should already know if all your links are working or if you have any broken links or images. However, this is a good time to double check and make sure that all of your images and links are functional. It would be slightly embarrassing to publish your site with a bunch of broken links.

If you have reached this point you should be proud, because you have a functioning website! I salute you! Now take it out for a spin!

SHOPPING MANIA!

 SHOPPING MANIA!

If you have been following my blogs you are aware that I created a website on Weebly.com to host a site about myself. I chose the layout, created the images, content, and published my site all for FREE ninety nine!

Now it is time to add a shopping cart to my site. I can hear you asking, "But why Brandon, why a shopping cart?". Good question, and after doing some contemplating  it was really the logical next step. I had to figure out if I had something to sale or if I wanted donations to help with the site but  in the end I chose the former. The truth is that I never really intended to make this an eCommerce site, because that idea was reserved for another site that I will create. However, I thought that this would be a good time to put the eCommerce idea through the paces by making some mistakes and seeing what works.

After searching the internet I saw that there are many offerings to add plugins to your existing site to handle the online transactions. These companies consist of Paypal , Selz, Stripe, and Google Wallet to name a few. I ended up going with Stripe for now. 

The first reason I went with Stripe is the ease of adding the plugin that is already present in Weebly. It is as easy as dragging and dropping the plugin onto the page that I specify. In my case that page was my Art page. The second reason is that right now I am taking advantage of the free hosting Weebly offers, and unfortunately that means I'm stuck with Stripe unless I opt to upgrade my site, which would start costing me monthly. Now, don't get me wrong, I think upgrading is a great idea and the cost is reasonable. In the future, for my readers, I will try another template based website builder to see the differences but for now I can't complain. Weebly.com really is a great platform and I do see myself upgrading in the future. 

Lastly, here are the details of the non-binding deal I have with Stripe. 

Stripe

• Instantly start accepting credit cards
• Integrated shopping cart on your site
• 2.9% plus 30¢ per transaction
• Funds deposited after 7 days
• Weebly fee: 3% per charge | Remove this

So, as you can see the deal is not too shabby. I suggest you do your own research and always do what works best for you. I have placed a couple of links if you want to see how the cart looks on my site and if you want to read about the other eCommerce providers. Good luck and God bless!

My Site

http://brandonshoals.weebly.com/art.html

The extra info is for WordPress but will give you some insight.

http://www.wpexplorer.com/collect-payment-using-wordpress/

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Website Interaction is a MUST!

Website Interaction is a MUST!

If you have been following my blog you know that I created a web presence highlighting your's truly, me!  As the title says, website interaction is a must so I had to add it. The type of website interaction I chose for my site is the use of social sharing icons, a contact page, and also comments section for my blog. The reason I went this route is that my site is more of a profile of me, rather than a e-commerce or social site. The website interaction I chose will help me stay connected to my readers and visitors. As time goes on I will try different iterations of website interaction to see what is appropriate and works best for my site. I do have other website ideas in the pipeline that will be much different, but for now this works. However, you might be wonder what in the world is website interaction? Well read on my friend!

Website interaction allows for the end user to interact with your website, by using various forms of interaction such as; chat rooms, feedback forms, polls, games, and etc. Website interaction is a valuable tool to drive traffic to your site and also keep your visitors staying longer. Having website interaction on your site will add value to your site and bolster you online presence, while generating new customers. Most social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are great examples of user interaction. These sites specialize in user interaction and it seems that the popularity of user interaction will continue to increase into the future. Most millennials seem to value experiences more than their parents and that is what user interaction provides, an experience. 

Having great content is one of the first steps in increasing user interaction. It is important to make sure your content is relevant and up to date. SEO (search engine optimization) will help you achieve higher rates of interaction by letting the various search engines know that your site exist. It is important to use concise meta data, such as a good description of your site as this will ensure that the web crawlers and users will easily find your website. Making your content easier to read by using proper layout and formatting will also help with more frequent user interaction.

It is not enough to just have clear and interesting content to increase web traffic and user interaction. It is also important to have a more aggressive form of user interaction. Most template based website design programs have many types of additional interaction features that you can easily drag and drop onto your site. For example, if you have an e-commerce site you could use CTAs (Call To Action) to entice users to click on a button or image that would redirect them to what you are promoting. If you were selling t-shirts you could put text on the button that says, “Cool shirts” or “Limited edition shirts”, this would be enticing to a user and may lead to a purchase. Another more aggressive form of user interaction is the use of pop ups. Pop ups will force the end user to interact with your site by forcing the user to click out of the pop up or continuing on through the link. However, pop ups should be used wisely because they can cause frustration for the end user.

Another important factor in website interaction is data collection. It is important to know what your users think about your product or website, and it is equally important to know who your users are. Data collection can be achieved by having a survey or a poll on your site or having your user subscribe to an e-mail newsletter. Both of these methods are valuable for data mining to ensure that you’re marketing to and designing for the right demographic. With a subscription you will have a constant connection to your user which will help drive traffic to your website. Furthermore, having a blog with a comment section on your site will also increase the rate of user interactions. Most users are willing and ready to share their opinions about anything that is presented. However, this can be a double edged sword if the users use the comment platform to post negative things about your site.  

Lastly, it is also important to have the appropriate social share buttons on your website. These social share buttons will help increase visibility to your website via word of mouth. This is one of the best marketing tools because it is free and powerful.

Citations

"10 Ways To Increase User Interaction On Your Website." Business 2 Community. Web. 31 July 2015.

Help! Which Web Authoring Tool?

Web Authoring Tools

Remember that old 70's R&B song by The Dramatics called “Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get”? Well, they could have named the song WYSIWYG, although admittedly that acronym doesn’t roll off the tongue well.

In the programming world there exist a plethora of Web Authoring Tools that will allow you to create dynamic web pages, and view in real time what your code would look like when published. This functionality is called WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get). WYSIWYG is a great feature and most web developers would agree that it is best to learn both WYSIWYG and traditional web authoring tools, such as notepad.

I have reviewed three web authoring tools for your viewing pleasure. Two of the tools are free and the third will require some cold hard cash. I suggest that you play around with the free web authoring tools and find the tool that works best for you, then if you are feeling feisty by all means purchase one!

1. KompoZer:

This free web authoring tool is like your first bike with training wheels. The interface is pretty straight forward, and you don’t have to be a serious programmer to jump right in as it works much like a word processor. KompoZer does have the WYSIWYG functionality and is plenty powerful enough to fit your needs to create a great looking site.

KompZer Download

2. Notepad++

This is like regular Notepad on some serious steroids, like the Incredible Hulk type steroids. Notepad++ is free and has many features that are useful, such as color coded syntax, code collapsing, macro recording, code searching, and auto code completion to name a few. Even if you end up installing another web authoring tool, I highly suggest you have Notepad++ in your arsenal.

Notepadd++ Download

       

3. Dreamweaver:

This IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is what I personally use in conjunction with Notepad++, the bad news is that this one will cost you a little coin. Adobe has done an outstanding job over the years with the Dreamweaver platform and it shows, because many professional Web Designers use DW.

Dreamweaver also has the WYSIWYG functionality along with so much more that it would take me forever to cover it all. Just know, that if you are serious about web development you can’t go wrong with Dreamweaver.

Adobe Dreamweaver Download

The Dramatics!

How do you Make Your Site Visible? SEO!

How do you Make Your Site Visible? SEO!

So, now that you have your site up you want to drive traffic to it, right? What's the use of having a site if no one will visit it?

If you have been following my blogs you know that I created a website for my personal portfolio which you can find here Brandon Shoals Portfolio. I chose to go with Weebly.com for three reasons: it is very easy to use, they have many different layouts to choose from, and IT'S FREE! I plan on upgrading at a later time to paid hosting in order to get some of the bells and whistles they provide, and  it's at a very reasonable price, but for now this will work.

After all the painstaking work of creating content for my site, now it is time to work on Search Engine Optimization. I am sure glad they call it SEO because that is a mouth full. SEO will allow for the  robots or spiders (creepy) that all search engines, like Google, use to rank your site, and list it higher in the search results. Back in the day people would use keywords to put their site higher in the rankings, but a good thing got way out of control when folks started repeating words hundreds of time in their code to improve their rankings. Just in case you don't know these keywords are not seen by the end user, nor is any other of the meta data that is used in SEO. However, these days things are different, and search engine ranking websites is big business and their algorithms are proprietary information. Every search engine uses your description of your website, the pages and or advertisement that you have linked on your website, and how many visitors you receive to rank your website. You will also need to register with search engines either through a service or manually on your own. BUT DON'T BE LAZY....AND DO SOME RESEARCH! 

Ok, so here's the meat of what I did below for my marketing:

1. WRITE A GOOD DESCRIPTION

Search engines use your website description to find and rank your site. So you need a good description for the robots that crawl the web. In Weebly, this is located under the settings tab. Make sure your description is concise and accurate to your website or else the search engine overlords will drop your site. If you need some description ideas google web sites like yours and see what others are doing that rank high on the list.

2. REGISTER YOUR WEB SITE WITH SEARCH ENGINES.

I went to Submit Express and registered for free, but only 5 submissions of your URL in a 24 hour period is allowed, because the search engines might think you are spam. Submit Express submitted to several search engines for me and this worked well for me because I was being lazy. I also went to Google Site Submission to manually submit my site, you might have to do this as well.

3. KEYWORDS

This might not be as effective as it use to be but it won't hurt, so I went to the settings tab in Weebly and put in key words that people might be searching, but don't be a keyword maniac or else they will drop your site ranking.  

4. SOCIAL MEDIA

I also created a Facebook page Brandon's Facebook, and a twitter page Brandon's Twitter this will allow for me to link to my website and drive traffic. Just be careful with linking to existing social media you might have, because people are watching!

So, in the end these are just a few things I did to start driving traffic to my site, but this will be an ongoing project.

 Have a comment, question, or just want to say hi, drop me a line!