Promote Yourself on the Web Your presenter – Jacques Surveyer

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

Why Free Blogs are possible Review of some of the best services Examples of cost-free websites

5-10 minutes Q&A session

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!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!

● 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 out-of-pocket costs of $250 or much less

3 Stages of Web Development

1) HTML and supporting coding- PHP, Ruby, ASP, JSP etc

● 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

● Provide friendly interface wrapper around core data & tasks

● 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 IIThe 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.

● Many are easy to use and develop with

● 9 tools have emerged from these Website Creation tools

● 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

● 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

● 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 needed.

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.comFree 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, Ads15 free templates, extra themes or widgets for monthly fee

BlogMaker: Google Blogger

● Free hosting, YourBlog.blogger.com

● Size limits – 100 blogs, no limit on posts, 1GB of imagesDozens of templates, 50+ widgets, 3rd party for both

Blogger Web Design Tool

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 images155 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

● 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 JavaScriptures blog – pro look, no-costs

NearlyFreeWebsites – polished blog+website

Your Websites Added Free Features

Google Blogger and WordPress.com have the largest array of free features:

Not just one website and one user/admin but many

Easy to use dashboard to manage all the websites

Dozens of Website/Blog design templates + options

Dozens of Widgets to give Blog/Website a “pro”-look

Ability to create both Web pages and Blog posts

Easy to use Word-like and HTML editors for posts/pages

Many options for showing and controlling comments

Dozens of settings and easy help to control Website

Auto-gathers + displays stats on your website usage

Summary:No-Cost Blog/Website

No-out of pocket costs for: Domain name Design and development of the blog/website Ongoing operating or hosting costs

Storage space up to 3GB free Bandwidth upto 2GB free Ad revenues may net $10-50/quarter

Maintaining/updating is easy to do Blogger, Weebly, Webs, Wordpress.com .

No-Cost Blog/Website: Cautions

But your time to maintain and update, is it truly cost free??? Is that realistic?

There can be a host of expensive extras Stats, tracking, plugins, extra themes, SEO Advanced features: custom forms, eCommerce etc

Keeping up – new fit to mobile phones and latest features are often NOT free.

How is it possible? Blogs make money for Google, Yahoo, etc Blog/Website creation software is:

very good, open source, plentiful Give away basics , sell the upgrades

No ads cost $10-30/year, own domain name $20-30 Added storage space is $10-100/year Added bandwidth is $5-20/year Video, audio, extra widgets and plugins - $5-30 Extra templates, users, database and eCommerce

is more $$$$

But No-cost Websites Can Be Compelling

Professional look with design themes,template All the features of standalone website

Pulldown menus linked to Web pages and blogposts 2 and 3 column layouts with optional header or footer Forms for user input and interaction Widgets for managing the user interface, etc Flash, video, image galleries, calendars, etc Links to Facebook, Google Docs and Maps, Twitter, etc

But also some great design and development tools

Key Idea: Easy to Create and Manage

If you can do Word or eMail with confidence – then you can both create and edit your own website

Great, easy to use tools To create and style your own website and/or blog To add pages and/or posts to website 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

● 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-vs-joomla/

Another view: https://www.udemy.com/blog/drupal-vs-joomla-vs-wordpress/

Two Ways to BYO Website – Hosted CMS - 2

● 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