Download Social Media + YourSite.com Creating your own Website I Why

Promote Yourself on the Web
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Your presenter – Jacques Surveyer
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Writer, photographer, 15 year web-developer
Editor of theOpenSourcery.com [web development tools and
tips] and thePhotoFinishes.com [photography and graphics
design blog]
30 minute slideshow
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Why Free Blogs are possible
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Review of some of the best services
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Examples of cost-free websites
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5-10 minutes Q&A session
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Optional 55 minutes opportunity to build your own website
Presentation © Jacques Surveyer
Promote Yourself on the Web - Background
Two years ago I gave a series of free presentations on how to develop a
nearly free website for the Web. The idea was that the cost was cheap
and the blogs and website were easy to operate and run.
Well what a difference two years make.
There are more and better tools, the costs are even lower and now the
design, creation and operation of your own website is also easier
than ever before.
Promote Yourself on the Web
In the past 2 years it has become easier, cheaper, and surprisingly
effective to promote you and your portfolio, event or business on the
Web. Having a Web Presence pays off because it allows you to talk to
clients directly.
And you can still do it for nearly free!
A 3 Step Plan to Achieve Effective Web Presence
1)Even if you are already on the Web, create a social media site on
Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Its easy, essentially no cost,
and provides exposure where you want it – among friends, their
colleagues, and among potential customers.
2)Create a standalone website using any one of the easy, low cost, and
popular website creation tools.
3)Consider moving up to a pro CMS tool like WordPress, Blogger, Drupal
or Joomla. The costs keep dropping while the features have
improved dramatically.
... and big time players like NYTimes, IKEA, and WhiteHouse.gov are
doing so.
What a difference 2 years make!
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DIY - Do It Yourself Web presence has never been easier or better
You can have a free web presence where your friends and
customers are with Facebook, Twitter and Google+
The new and nearly free Website tools like Weebly, Webs,
Blogger, WordPress.com are also easy to develop with
The biggest costs will be your design and upkeep time
But even Pro CMS tools like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla have
become easier to use.
You can have a savvy 8 page website built in 1-2 days and for outof-pocket costs of $250 or much less
3 Stages of Web Development
1) HTML and supporting coding- PHP, Ruby, ASP, JSP etc
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Core expertise is HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Programming tools enhance security, performance and
complex commercial transactions
Anything can be done but costs + upkeep can be large
2) CMS- Content Management Systems provide design and workflow
assistance
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Provide friendly interface wrapper around core data & tasks
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WordPress, Drupal,
3) New broad range of Drag and Drop Visual Designers extend and
support both HTML based tools and CMS systems
3 Types of Web Integration
1) Integration of Website with business processes and
operations. Users can get some or all tasks done on
the Website using desktop computer or mobile
phone/tablet
2) Integration of Website with Social Media like
Facebook, Google+, and Twitter where your
customers can find out the latest trends and offers.
Strong email and alerts interwoven in.
3) Integration of Website with other vendors & suppliers
for cross business deals and support
Basic Web Promotion: A Social Media Page
Best place to start is Social Media, where your friends, colleagues and customers
are.
Simple strategy is to get a free page on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc
Basic Web Promotion: A Social Media Page II
Basic Advantages of Social Media sites
1) Simple familiar environment
2) Easy to operate with no/low start-up cost
3) Experience gained applies to other web vehicles
4) Lots of promotional tools – messaging, likes, posts, photos,etc
5) Keep social media site when you upgrade to your own website
6) Extras like group messaging, notifications, hangouts, etc
Basic Web Promotion: A Social Media Page III
Trade-offs with Social Media sites
1) You must conform to their site's stylings & layout options
2) You effectively have only one long page to work with
3) Advanced features like slider, tabs, forms, grids, tables maps, etc
are hard to implement for your page
4) NO Unique identifiers like domain name, favicons, banners
Social Media are great if your primary goal is to inform customers
Very low out-of-pocket costs but also clear limitations
Basic Web Promotion with Social Media
Other social media like Google+, Tumblr, Twitter and LinkedIn offer free
web page services too with similar features
Tumblr allows the most opportunity to create a unique look
But all the social media talk to other Websites well – Webs, Weebly,
Blogger, Drupal, Joomla – all have strong integration with social
media including sending posts and excerpts to your pages
So when you think Web Presence think of being present on 2 or more
websites: Social Media + YourSite.com
Creating your own Website I
Why Create Your Own Website?
Effective way to communicate with customers
Easy way to market yourself+services beyond Social Media
You can sell directly to customers with shopping cart &
storefront
You can support customers online with tips, tutorials, live chats
Creating your own Website II
Why Create Your Own Website?
Many of the tools are nearly free, but your time is not
But current Web Tools speed design, while simplifying
operation of your website. If you are at ease with email, you can
handle the Web.
You can choose various Web options to test the market and
then modify and expand based on real experience
Remember current tools make change easy and low cost
You can and should link back to your social media site
Create your own Website II
The Web design and creation tools are very good
Two Major Approaches from Many
There are now 20-25 Website development tools that are reliable,
reasonably secure and fast in performance.
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Many are easy to use and develop with
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9 tools have emerged from these Website Creation tools
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6 Nearly Free website tools – WordPress.com, Google Blogger, Webs
SiteBuilder, Weebly WebBuilder, Wix Web, Yola
3 truly Free hosted CMS software tools – Drupal, Joomla + WordPress
plus the Eclipse set of Enterprise tools
It is easier than ever before to build an 8 page starting website for $250
or a lot less depending on DIY effort
Two Ways to Building Your Own Website - 1
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The free, online tools like Webs
and Blogger allow users to
develop websites with menus,
widgets and sidebars using web
standard layouts with
customized header, contents,
sidebars and/or footer.
Website design and construction
are drag and drop easy to do
and work with
Bzzzzt – What is the Web Standard Layout?
This is only a guideline and website pages do vary dramatically from this “standard”
Two Ways to BYOWebsite – Hosted CMS - 2
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The free hosted CMS – provide
the same features as free
website builders but also
have a choice of 10,000
different themes or page
templates, 25,000 plugins and
thousands of widgets.
Hosting cost of $100/yr or less
But the biggest CMS
advantage is the nearly 1
million developers that are
savvy in one or more of
Drupal, Joomla and /or
WordPress and their ability to
support your website when
Bzzzzt – What is a Hosted CMS?
CMS = Content Management System
This means all the website contents – text, images, video, HTML, CSS,
JavaScript – are contained in or generated by the CMS when users
request a page from the website
Hosted means the CMS sits on a Web Server connected to the Internet.
That Web Server could be your own or a 3rd party service.
Typically 3rd party hosting services charge $100/year for “serving” your
website but prices vary depending on amount of storage used, tools
available, support services provided.
Many Common Features of 9 Top Web Tools
1) All 9 tools use Web standard HTML5/CSS/JavaScript
2) 8 of 9 tools deliver signed and dated Posts with user comments
for maintaining a News Blog on your website
3) All 9 tools provide menu system and accessible Pages for
serving your customers need- About, Contact, Events, etc
4) All 9 tools provide WYSIWYG editors for creating and maintaining
those Posts and Pages
5) All 9 tools have layout templates or themes for designing your
website with header, footer, 0-2 sidebars and body.
6) All 9 Tools have plugins that allow adding new features.
7) The Eclipse Pro tools produce advanced websites but take teams
of developers to develop and maintain.
Divergent Features among 9 Top Web Tools
1) Only some allow extensive native and 3rd party themes or
templates and plugins or widgets. This means more choice.
2) Some are online tools with WYSIWYG Designer – all the web
creation and website operation is done on their site
3) Others require you to setup website hosting with 3rd party typical the cost is $100/year for unique name+ample resources
4) Some allow you to modify or create new themes/templates or
plugins/widgets
5) All 9 Tools have additional costs of widely varying rates beyond
their core free offerings
Review of the 4 Nearly-Free Webtools
A Quick Overview of the best starter/small website building tools
1) All 4 have Themes and Templates to get you started with the
overall design and layout of your website
2) 3 have simple theme preview and swap systems
3) 3 have drag and drop Web page designers
4) All 4 have drag and drop menu and widget wizards
5) All 4 have WYSIWYG editing of pages and posts
6) Each one has its own special design features as well
Bzzzzt – What is a Page and What is a Post?
A Page is a web page that is static, rarely changing
It usually does not have an author or date shown when displayed
It only appears after a menu-item or link is clicked
It can contain images, videos, tabs, tables, etc
It can have vastly different layouts from Page to Page
A Post is self contained story that is part of a Blog
It can be shown 1 or many Posts to a page
It appears in a blog in date order & has a named author
It also can contain images, videos, tabs, tables, etc
It can be classified by tags and/or categories
But its layout is more restricted than Pages because it may need to
appear on a multi-post blog page
Weebly Designer
Free partial hosting, YourSite.Weebly.com
Free site with 10 pages or less
Weebly Designer $Extras
For $3.29/month add:
- No Weebly ad in footer and edit footer layout
- Premium Support
- Expanded usage stats – this is free from Google
- $100 Google ad credit – this is free from Google
- Your own favicon
- 100MB of storage – about 30-50 web pages total
For $6.63/month add all of the above and:
- Splash page slideshows in header like pro-sites
- customizable HD audio and video controls
- Site search control
- Editor permissions for many contibuting editors
- Password protect pages
- 250MB of storage – about 80-100 web pages
Webs Site Builder
Free hosting, YourName.Webs.com
Size limits – 1 blog, 15 posts or pages, 40MB of space, Ads
15 free templates, extra themes or widgets for monthly fee
BlogMaker: Google Blogger
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Free hosting, YourBlog.blogger.com
Size limits – 100 blogs, no limit on posts, 1GB of images
Dozens of templates, 50+ widgets, 3rd party for both
Blogger Web Design Tool
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Refine website layout with dozens of easy to choose/change options:
Google Blogger
Blogger does websites as well as blogs
Google Blogger $Extras
Blogger has numerous 3rd party add-ons
Widgets are $3 to 20/month for premium tools
Templates typically range from $12 to 50/year
There are many 3rd party free templates and widgets
WordPress.com Free Blog/Website
Free hosting, YourBlog.Wordpress.com
Size limits – 100 blogs, no limit on posts, 3GB of images
155 free templates, no 3rd party themes nor plugins
WordPress.com for Nearly Free Websites
For 5 years WordPress.com has offered nearly free hosting to
users
WordPress $Extras
Ad free $30/year
Premium themes $30-60/year
Domain name $13-25/yr
Custom Design Tools – $30/Year for CSSEditor, Font Set, Color
Picker
Themes range in price from $50 to 125/one time cost
Video support $60/year
Extra Storage – 10 GB for $20/year to 100GB for $290/year
Transfer site from WordPress.com to hosted WordPress $129/site
Note – the cost of a hosted WordPress site is $100/year or less
with all of the above features
Website Makers Common Features
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All of the Webmakers can be used to create any type of website
– shopping cart, portfolio, special event, etc
Some can do certain types of websites better
All of the Webmakers can create pages and posts, menus to
navigate among the pages and posts, galleries of images and/or
videos.
All of the Webmakers can create widgets, headers and footers.
Often for extra fees users get slideshows, tables, forms, etc
with varying ease of creation and use.
All of the Webmakers have visual designers to render a
common look and feel to the pages/post on the website.
Low-cost Websites are Compelling
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JavaScriptures blog – pro look, no-costs
NearlyFreeWebsites – polished blog+website
Your Websites Added Free Features
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Google Blogger and WordPress.com have the largest array of free features:
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Not just one website and one user/admin but many
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Easy to use dashboard to manage all the websites
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Dozens of Website/Blog design templates + options
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Dozens of Widgets to give Blog/Website a “pro”-look
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Ability to create both Web pages and Blog posts
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Easy to use Word-like and HTML editors for posts/pages
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Many options for showing and controlling comments
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Dozens of settings and easy help to control Website
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Auto-gathers + displays stats on your website usage
Summary:No-Cost Blog/Website
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No-out of pocket costs for:
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Domain name
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Design and development of the blog/website
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Ongoing operating or hosting costs
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Storage space up to 3GB free
Bandwidth upto 2GB free
Ad revenues may net $10-50/quarter
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Maintaining/updating is easy to do
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Blogger, Weebly, Webs, Wordpress.com .
No-Cost Blog/Website: Cautions
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But your time to maintain and update, is it truly cost
free??? Is that realistic?
There can be a host of expensive extras
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Stats, tracking, plugins, extra themes, SEO
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Advanced features: custom forms, eCommerce etc
Keeping up – new fit to mobile phones and latest
features are often NOT free.
How is it possible?
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Blogs make money for Google, Yahoo, etc
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Blog/Website creation software is:
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very good, open source, plentiful
Give away basics , sell the upgrades
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No ads cost $10-30/year, own domain name $20-30
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Added storage space is $10-100/year
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Added bandwidth is $5-20/year
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Video, audio, extra widgets and plugins - $5-30
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Extra templates, users, database and eCommerce
is more $$$$
But No-cost Websites Can Be Compelling
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Professional look with design themes,template
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All the features of standalone website
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Pulldown menus linked to Web pages and blogposts
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2 and 3 column layouts with optional header or footer
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Forms for user input and interaction
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Widgets for managing the user interface, etc
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Flash, video, image galleries, calendars, etc
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Links to Facebook, Google Docs and Maps, Twitter, etc
But also some great design and development tools
Key Idea: Easy to Create and Manage
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If you can do Word or eMail with confidence – then you can
both create and edit your own website
Great, easy to use tools
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To create and style your own website and/or blog
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To add pages and/or posts to website
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Manage/administer the website
After a few months you are ready to move up to
eCommerce, collaboration or Database and forms driven
Websites
Also add SEO, Facebook, Google, Twitter features
But Running your Website is Not Free
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Plan on monthly maintenance costs depending on what services your
website provides
1)
With Info services like About, Location, Events and
Contact Us wep pages expect 1-3 man days per month
2)
If you add News and Weekly Specials expect a doubling of
work
3)
If you add Online Sales expect 1-3 man days per week
4)
If you add Support or Warranty Services also expect a
doubling in weekly workload
Plan on tinkering or optimizing your website 2-3 times in
the first 3 months then once a year or more if there are
major market changes occurring. Cost 1-5 man days per
“tinkering”
Okay, What Do I get with Pro CMSTools?
First, we are not going to cover the Enterprise Web Development tools
from IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc
Second, this is because our 3 top-tier tools - WordPress, Joomla and
Drupal, now produce near Enterprise level reliability, features, and
performance at a fraction of the cost of the top tier tools
Okay, Why I Recommend Using WordPress 1
24,000
Okay, Why I Recommend Using WordPress 2
Okay, Why I Recommend Using WordPress 3
Okay, Why I Recommend Using WordPress 4
Above chart from: http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all
Last 3 charts from: http://www.techi.com/2011/07/open-source-wars-wordpress-vs-drupal-vsjoomla/
Another view: https://www.udemy.com/blog/drupal-vs-joomla-vs-wordpress/
Two Ways to BYO Website – Hosted CMS - 2
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The free hosted CMS –
provide the same features as
free blogs but also have a
choice of 10,000 different
themes or page templates,
30,000 plugins and
thousands of widgets.
But the biggest CMS
advantage is the nearly 1
million developers that are
savvy in one or more of
Drupal, Joomla and /or
WordPress and their ability to
support your varying needs
So Which of 9 top-rated Tools Should You Use?
- Match the tool to your key plans
- For a portfolio site you have the most options. Decide whether
you want to invest in your own unique name and your own
hosted website – then tool choice narrows
- For news or an event website, then a Web tool with good
blogging features become important. Now what features you
want to provide becomes pivotal to decide which tool to use
- For business or eCommece website the best tools are also
reduced to a few depending on the size of the product set and
the features to be offered
- Modifying or moving a website to a new tool is supported by
many with automated facilities
Summary
Now more than ever before you can easily get the message out
on the Web of your event, products, portfolio or service
It is very easy and cheap to do it where your friends and
customers are with apps on Facebook, Twitter, Google+
Low-cost websites from Webs, Weebly, Blogger and WordPress
give you much greater flexibility in what you can do including
linking to your Facebook etc presence.
Websites from WordPress, Joomla, Drupal are used by major
players like MTV, NYTimes, IKEA, etc.
So the big 3 are industrial grade – secure , reliable, and high
performance on huge visitos and usage loads