In today’s world where internet has become a part of our functioning, marketing professionals are expected to interact with leads or customers online as well as offline. Websites provide marketers the opportunity to understand what a customer needs and his/her decision making process to fulfill that need. Living in a start-up oriented city, I wanted to learn building a website in shortest time span. Being from a non IT background, my avoidance to coding is quite natural. As will be anyone’s instinct, I started looking for blogs and YouTube tutorials for a step by step approach. I started with Siteground and found it very helpful. It has an excellent step-by-step creation of website manual. However, I was looking for something more specific for myself and I learn better visually. So I looked for videos on YouTube and found Tyler Moore’s 2015 Video to be the most viewed one. The two and a half hour long video was very interesting initially. Building a website from scratch seems time consuming and an expensive affair but Tyler showed how easy and inexpensive it can be if done wisely. Some of the other things that I liked about Tyler’s approach were:
- Comparison between an effective and ineffective website design
- Step by Step approach to building a website
- Uses simple language and explains each step in depth
By the time video ended, I was excited to get my site up and started. So the first thing I did was to setup an account on Hostgator. Tyler also shares a discount code “ThirtyFive” to get a 35% off on the hosting site. It was helpful but I wanted to look for other hosting options too. Also, Tyler uses his own theme “Tesseract” and builds the site using it. I was looking for more options. I was looking for more information on criteria to choose a hosting site, a domain name, themes, plugins that are important. My concerns were addressed when a friend who runs a small bakery business recommended me to read “Create Your Own Website Using WordPress In A Weekend” by Alannah Moore. I received the book in a couple of days and started flipping the pages. My first impression on seeing the book was that it looks very simple and easy to understand. If you glance at the Table of Contents of the book you will find that the author has taken a very systematic approach and has kept in mind a beginner’s low awareness with all the jargons. In my opinion, the book delivers what it promises. With illustrations and pictures on every page, the author has kept the content minimum yet very engaging.
I began with the basics and learnt that WordPress has 2 different offerings, WordPress.com (provides free setup and hosting )and WordPress.org. (Hosting to be handled by the admin/owner). The book provides good insight on choosing a professional domain name especially for small business. Hosting is well explained and multiple hosting companies are recommended including DreamHost, BlueHost, Hostgator etc. This makes me believe that the author is not a part of any marketing initiative of a hosting company and is genuinely interested in helping readers. Some of the steps like pointing a domain to a website look small but are important as they can affect the pace of the website designer(in this case ME!). I especially like the tip that author provided on choosing a hoster that provides “One Click Install” to reduce manual setup for a beginner.
The next chapter, “Planning Your Website” is one of may favorite. Website objectives have been categorized into: Business Site, Portfolio Site, Magazine or Blog Site and E-Commerce Site. Each of these have been explained in depth in the later chapters with recommendations such as themes to be used, look and feel for the particular type, content to be included based on the purpose of the site. This was very unique about this book that I did not find online in beginner’s manuals and videos.
The author lays special emphasis on Header images and has explained in details about the Image usage guidelines, sources for stock images, a maximum width of 960 pixels tip and formats to be used. This was very helpful for me since I come from advertising background and understand the relevance of using images. Logo creation has also been discussed and the author also suggests using online logo creators such as 99 Designs and more. Throughout the book, I found very useful tips and tricks that I would have never known otherwise such as Image editing software and how to edit. It have already taken more than 2 days to read the book and still not over since I did not read it at a stretch. The book elucidates small to big details for setting up basic model website. My familiarity with the process of inserting header image, choosing relevant background, home page specifics, text editor, adding pages, images, medial files and blogs to the site has increased and am more comfortable working with WordPress.
Another appealing part of this book is helping the reader understand that the process doesn’t end on making the site live. The book also educates the readers about growing audience for the website through various online marketing techniques. As a certified Inbound Marketing Professional, I was surprised to see the extensive coverage of the topic in the book and can say that these tips were derived from the best practices.
Overall, I believe this book is perfect for anyone who is willing to learn from the basics and is curious to learn multiple features that a website can be loaded with. After learning the basics in first 3 chapters, the user can expect the book to get more detailed and specific without losing its focus on easing the process for the reader. If you are at home and its snowing outside on weekend , I recommend you to pick this book and feel like a Website Designing Pro on Monday.
Resources :
https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Website-Using-Wordpress
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0415662680