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YOUR DOMAIN NAME

How to pick a domain that is easy to find

IT’S ALL ABOUT PLANNING Make your website a success from the start

THE 3 Ws:

Which one is the best choice for your website?

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DON'T BE IN THE DARK WHEN IT COMES TO TECH...

IT INSIGHTS FOR BUSINESS 2 techradar.pro

CONTENTS 6. How to plan your first website Planning is the key factor in any successful website project

12. How to choose a domain name for your website Pick a domain that is easy to find

14. The ‘lazy’ option: Should you let a third-party outfit manage your website?

Not every business has the staff to handle a hosted website

28. Why social media and newsletters are vital for your website’s success How to stay on message

32. Twenty ways to promote your website Be the constant gardener to your web foliage

36. Create a site one step at a time Anyone can build a website

16. The three Ws: Web hosting, Word Press or Website builder?

Which is the best choice for your website?

22. What type of website do you want to build?

Plan carefully to avoid frustration in the future

26. Why it’s crucial to keep your website regularly updated People will only come back when there is something new to see

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TechRadar is the ultimate source of tech buying advice. It is the market-leading authority on all things technology, and for good reason. TechRadar is the first place to visit if you want to find out about the latest rumours, and the final click when making the ultimate buying decision. Packed with breaking news, expert in-depth reviews, fantastic features and easy to follow how-to guides, TechRadar is for anyone unashamedly obsessed with tech.

Editor-in-Chief Desire Athow

Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA

Account Director Amanda Burns

Future PLC Richmond House, 33 Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH2 6EZ

Art & Design Fraser McDermott Production Editor April Madden Production Manager Patris Gordon Licensing Matt Ellis matt.ellis@futurenet.com

Future PLC 1-10 Praed Mews, London W2 1QY Future PLC Units 1 & 2, Sugarbrook Court, Aston Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B60 3EX Future is an award-winning international media group and leading digital business. We reach more than 49 million international consumers a month, and create world-class content and advertising for passionate consumers online, on tablet and smartphone, and in print.

All contents copyright Š 2018 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence.

All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, stored, transmitted or used in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price and other details of products or services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any changes or updates to them.

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Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUtr). www.futureplc.com

Chief Executive Zillah Byng-Thorne Non-Executive Chairman Peter Allen Chief Financial Officer Penny Ladkin-Brand Tel +44 (0)20 7042 4000 (London) Tel +44 (0)1225 442244 (Bath)

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Welcome I recall pushing my first website live more than 20 years ago on a web hosting provider called Fortunecity. Back in the days, the World Wide Web was a vibrant, sometimes chaotic but welcoming planet.

You still had to know HTML coding as well as mastering arcane technologies like FTP (file transfer protocol). It was fun but not something I could see my parents delving into. Fast forward to 2018 and GoDaddy, one of the pioneers of that era, along with other service providers, are doing their best to bring online visibility to tens of millions of businesses worldwide for whom having a website has often been a priority that’s never been executed.

The book that you are about to read aims to make the whole process of getting online much less daunting for the less tech savvy of us.

Building a house is complex and costly, but you can have a virtual property on the Web for, well, far less than you’d expect and within minutes. This bookazine will help you build your first website even if you

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have no coding experience. Thanks to the rise of website builders, millions have been able to get an online presence without knowing their HTML from the CSS. You can now join them. Put together by the experts at Future, this handbook not only covers how to plan and publish your website but more importantly how to make sure that it thrives using tried-and-trusted, real-life techniques that have been tested on some of the biggest tech websites in the world.

The bookazine is split up into simple, easy-to-understand steps to allow you to digest the process of getting online. You will find the chapters you’d expect from any such resource: from the planning stage to the choice of your domain and deciding which platform to adopt. But it goes beyond that stage, helping you track and chart the progress of your online property using social media, newsletters and other online tools. It’ll help you get your site online with the minimum of fuss.

Desire Athow, Editor, Techradar.Pro

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How to plan your first website Planning is the key factor in any successful website project We’ll guide you through the critical thought processes that are needed to formulate a successful website plan

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Websites that go wrong are very often fatally flawed before a single page is even created. For numerous reasons, the phrase ‘we need a website’ isn’t a brief, and starting out with such a loose concept is a recipe for failure.

Planning what the website will achieve, who it is aimed at, why it exists, and why those who visit would ever come back, are all questions that need answers before any constructional work is begun.

So with that in mind, here are seven core elements to any website that need to be thrashed out at the very beginning.

1. Do research It might seem a crass statement, but in the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

The first job in any web project is to create a long list of critical questions that need answers. These might be about your potential visitors, the uniqueness of the site you want to create, what the initial budget will be, what ongoing costs might be, and so on.

If you have a competitor that already has a site, it might be worth considering what’s good about it, and perhaps more impor-

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tantly, what it fails to achieve. If the budget can handle it, some market research might be worth considering, because everything that gets thought about at this stage is a cost-saving later on when it isn’t necessary to redesign the site or change its focus.

2. The sitemap

Ever played a computer game where you couldn’t just wander anywhere?

While there are games that allow much more freedom, the majority of single player affairs are designed to guide players through a level along a predefined path, where they can interact with gamegenerated characters, puzzles and traps.

In many respects, a website should be much the same – because the majority of visitors will arrive at a common entrance, before travelling to the pages that they’re most interested in. How they navigate there and how easy it is to

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find likely destinations is a critical part of the planning process, and an early task you must complete.

Remember, it isn’t vital that the whole site structure must be a tree diagram, but some logic as to where the various substructures are is important, if only to make navigation easier to follow, and visitors less confused.

The other value in creating a sitemap is that you can use it to create a list of the pages that will be needed, along with any special features that might be required, like contact forms.

Your website needs to offer visitors a logical structure to follow

3. Prepare content Those wanting to get their website up and running as fast as possible should already have the content that they wish to use prepared well ahead of the actual site construction phase.

Situations where the website can’t go live because a board member left to go on techradar.pro 7

It’s important to plan, and preferably finalise, the content your website will have before you start

vacation without his corporate biography being finalised absolutely aren’t acceptable where live deadlines are concerned.

If the content is all created in advance, it’s a relatively minor exercise to populate the site with those words, images and videos – but only if they already exist.

If work on assembling and creating content can happen at the same time as the structure and design of the site are finalised, some time can be saved in the delivery process. This also allows for iterative versions to be produced for approval using the actual content, which makes it easier to visualise.

4. Design Unless you’re looking to use a unique visual metaphor, there will be other sites out there which you’ve seen that incorporate elements or aesthetics that you wish to adopt. Perhaps printing some of these out, and even manually combining these with visuals (like company logos) sourced elsewhere might be a starting point. Those who have chosen to work with a designer should attempt to give them as many hints and preferences as possible, so that they spend their time working towards a design that is acceptable and fulfils the brief.

IF WORK ON ASSEMBLING AND CREATING CONTENT CAN HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME AS THE STRUCTURE, TIME CAN BE SAVED 8 techradar.pro

BUILD YOUR FIRST WEBSITE

5. Choose responsibilities early on Depending on the size of the company involved, the resources available to support a web project can be vastly different. The fewer resources and technical experience you have on tap, the more you’ll need to rely on others to convert concepts into web pages connected to a domain that people can find with a search engine. What the business will contribute to the process should be decided early on, as well as what work will be contracted out to professionals. Once these divisions are determined, those involved will have a much better idea of what tasks they must complete, and what will be done by contractors or as part of a hosting service.

6. Legalities

These days, all websites need to be protected against legal action, and clearly

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outline to visitors their responsibilities and any rules for using the site or its contents. If the site is involved in any direct selling, these legal elements will have to cater for any rules that cover resellers, especially those regarding the return of goods and the warranty on products. Having this all defined before the site goes live is critical, and so is creating the various ‘small print’ elements for the pages, and deciding where on the site the full detailed ‘ conditions of use’ will be published.

All websites need to be protected against legal action or you could find yourself facing costs

7. Always define a budget Even the most basic site costs time and money, so decide what you are prepared to spend and then formulate your plan on that basis. A website needs to have regular updates, so an ongoing cost projection is also a necessary part of defining the budget you’ll need to invest. techradar.pro 9

Promotion

5 REASONS WHY GODADDY SHOULD BE AT THE TOP OF YOUR WEB HOSTING LIST A few good reasons people pick GoDaddy If you ask GoDaddy why you should do business with them, they will point out that they have over 17 million customers worldwide and over 75 million domain names under management.

While statistics never tell the whole story, the high level of subscription does strongly hint that GoDaddy is doing something right, even if not all their customers write glowing appraisals of them.

Here are five reasons that many people head to GoDaddy first when looking for a domain or website hosting.

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DOMAIN AND HOSTING

This point might seem obvious, but having the domain registered by the same operation that is also hosting the website can make a potentially complex situation much simpler. Should an issue develop, dealing with a single company should avoid the potential outages caused by a scenario where the domain registrar blames those hosting, and vice versa.

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FLEXIBILITY

All businesses aim to start small and get big, even if occasionally those plans work in reverse.

Having the ability to scale is critical to any venture, and especially to those that have a website that got tens of visitors one week and exponentially more only a month later.

Being able to smartly adjust the website’s hosting package will help a site to grow more smoothly, providing a more consistent user experience and a greater number of returning visitors.

3

SECURITY

No site or service is 100% secure, whatever is claimed by others. The security model that GoDaddy created is purpose built, continually updated, and immediately alerts you if files appear on your site that you didn’t intentionally upload. With so many sites under their wing, security is a high priority for GoDaddy, and you get peace of mind knowing that they’re looking out for your site’s welfare.

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ATTENTION TO DETAIL

In many business relationships, being contacted by the provider isn’t always a welcome thing. But in the website business, I’d much rather get a call asking me about a domain or site that was about to expire than find out with a call asking me why a site is now inaccessible. The GoDaddy representative will also make you aware of any special deals or new options that relate to your current hosting packages. These might not reduce the overall spend, but they might get you better value for money at the very least. And if these calls annoy you, tell them and you won’t be bothered.

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GODADDY LOVES WORDPRESS

You can create custom code and host it on GoDaddy, or you can use their site creation tool, but one of the most popular tools they use is WordPress.

GoDaddy uses the same version of this immensely popular and powerful platform that is hosted by the creators and on a million other sites across the web, enabling anyone with experience of this platform to jump right in.

WordPress hosting is a specific GoDaddy product, and alongside it you can take a WordPress support package, giving you some tailored help when you need it most. techradar.pro 11

How to choose a domain name for your website Pick one that’s easy to search for Here are some pointers to make choosing a good domain name a less daunting prospect

Domain names make a first impression on the web. Because the domain is often the first thing that a browsing customer encounters, it needs to send the right message, and an appropriately professional vibe. Therefore getting it right from the outset is very important – indeed it’s possibly one of the most critical choices to make when it comes to implementing your website. The right domain is all about being found easily and repeatedly by those who want to visit, and achieving this isn’t as simple as it might sound. Furthermore, a bonus of having a domain is that you can quote a domain email address – something that looks distinctly more professional than a Yahoo or Gmail account.

Here is a list of considerations to keep in mind when selecting a domain name.

1. Keep it short

The more letters you ask people to type in, the greater the chance that they’ll make some kind of an error, type the wrong thing in, and therefore fail to find you. Six letters is ideal, and you certainly want less than eight characters. Definitely avoid ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.com’, as someone has already registered that.

2. Be in the right domain extension

When the internet first began there were relatively few choices of extensions (the final letters of the URL). While most 12 techradar.pro

businesses used .com, a few opted for .org as an alternative.

These days every country has a two or three letter code, and the number of subject variations is significant. These are the most common ones: .co Often an abbreviation for company, commerce or community. .info Informational sites. .net Typically these are internet infrastructure sites. .org Non-commercial organisations and non-profits. .biz B usiness or commercial use, for those that don’t like .com. .me Blogs or other personal sites.

And often you can find these combined with geographic extensions, as in .co.uk (a company in the UK).

Whatever you choose, bear in mind that picking the right extension could be the difference between being found or not. If in doubt go with .com because it is considered to be the best choice for entities with a global presence.

3. Check existing domains If you come up with a name for your site, the very first thing to do is check if someone else has already registered that domain. GoDaddy has an excellent tool for doing this. You might also want to check obvious misspellings of that domain and consider registering them to bring those searchers to you.

Having a name that is very similar to another website could end with a legal challenge and confused customers on both sides. So take care to pick something that is unmistakably you, and not Amazen. com or Gooogle.com.

4. Do a language check A language check might seem an odd thing to do, but a word that seems innocuous in English might have other connotations in other languages.

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Check if a word has been used as a trademark before you include it in your domain

5. Do trademark searches Using a word, or even part of a word, that another business has trademarked could be very problematic. This is especially true if the word you’ve come up with is a fabricated one, and therefore isn’t covered under the protections offered by common usage.

A good place to check is knowem.com, as this will show you if a word has been used as a trademark, in a domain, or even if the word has been used on social media.

6. Avoid hyphens and numbers

As a rule, avoid hyphens and also underscores, because they can easily be confused. And, for the same reason, generally avoid numbers, as a zero and the letter ‘o’ are also difficult for people to differentiate between.

7. Consider focusing locally If you don’t have global ambitions and you are just running a hat repair service in Boston, then BostonHatRepair.com is a good choice. Putting the place your business covers in the name will likely bring anyone in the surrounding area to your site when they search for hat repairs. The only caveat to this plan is that

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Boston, for example, isn’t only in the US state of Massachusetts. There is also the original Boston in Lincolnshire, England, and 15 more of them in the US, a couple in South Africa, Ireland, Uzbekistan, Costa Rica and Columbia, and others in Jamaica, Peru, Italy, Cuba, Bolivia and Andorra.

Again, be sure to consider every angle when picking a name.

8. Memorable is good Easy to recall websites are much more likely to be found, and they’re also easier to pass on by word of mouth. Bearing the latter in mind, it also helps if the name is easy to pronounce, and depending on if you’re looking at a global audience, whether it’s easy to say in other languages aside from English.

Coming up with something snappy and memorable can be tricky, but finding a name that fits this criteria will have a positive impact on traffic levels.

9. Try a word generator If you get stuck for ideas, you could always have a dabble with online word generators that take key words and merge them in interesting ways. Try TextFixer and see what it comes up with! techradar.pro 13

The ‘lazy’ option: Should you let a third party manage your website?

Laziness or business sense? It depends on your site Is outsourcing the development of your website to a third-party the right choice for your business?

Read enough business journals, and you’ll encounter the expression ‘core business’ on a regular basis. The phrase refers to the part of the company that creates, produces or services those things which are the intrinsic reason that the business exists. Most firms have departments like human resources and accounts that are important in operational terms, but aren’t ‘core business’ functions.

Some companies will review the various components of their business on a regular basis to determine which parts are core, and which aren’t – potentially outsourcing the latter to other firms, who can then take responsibility for, say, cleaning the offices, finding new recruits, and so on.

In a similar vein, hosting a website, updating the contents and managing any web-related security issues are all complex jobs that require experienced staff to handle. Therefore, rather than accepting those additional tasks, many businesses outsource the whole problem, and have their entire web solution managed by another company.

In these scenarios, the website is designed and developed, then ultimately

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hosted and managed by a third-party, with minimal contribution from the client.

This might seem like the ‘lazy’ option on the face of it, but it could also be the most sensible one too. Let’s look at the arguments for doing things this way first, and then the cons, before weighing up the relative merits in our conclusion.

The advantages

An obvious benefit of having the website created and maintained independently is that it won’t involve the hiring of expensive specialist technical staff. This is especially important if the web project is going to be a relatively short-lived exercise, followed by an update and maintenance phase that can be overseen by less knowledgeable folks. A big company could easily justify having a web expert, but smaller operations might not need one.

Where the full service agreement is most valuable is if the website must go live within a tight timescale, as that can be specified within the contract and then resources allocated accordingly. On the client side, there needs to be a dedicated project manager to parallel that of the development team, with this project manager making sure that milestones are achieved on schedule.

This person should also be involved in the creation of the website specification that the developers will subsequently use to construct the site.

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Don’t think that because much of the work is done for the client company, that this disconnects the firm itself from all responsibility, as without branded web graphics, content guides and sign-offs, the development team is rudderless.

Costs are traditionally regarded as a disadvantage. But with a properly defined specification, delivery schedule and maintenance quote, the costs should at least be ring-fenced.

Internal web projects have a knack of spiralling over their previously agreed budget, and very rarely take into account the hidden impact on staff members who are employed to do other things the majority of their working days. The companies that provide the full web design, development and maintenance cycle are usually very experienced at delivering these things without stressing their clients, and that peace of mind is really what you’re paying for.

The disadvantages

One obvious disadvantage of managed web facilities is the inherent lack of control. The service and the website provided by a managed service will deliver exactly what the original contract itself

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specified, no more or less. Any company entering into one of these agreements should have a clear understanding of what will happen to the site and its contents when the contract ends – since the line between ownership of code and content might easily be blurred.

Outfits providing this type of service often have bespoke web development tools that are then licensed for use on each project, and without access to those, further changes might not be practical or possible. But the biggest disadvantage of the lazy approach is undoubtedly cost. The initial design overheads and monthly charges aren’t likely to be cheap, and those providing these services obviously need to make a profit.

There are costs that come with running your own website as well as having it administered

What’s the best choice?

How well a full service solution fits a given company will depend on the human resources available, the immediacy of the need for the site, and the level of control and involvement that is required. Bigger companies usually have some internal resources; smaller ones would balk at the cost. The decision should reduce the number of management headaches, rather than creating extra ones. techradar.pro 15

The three Ws: Web hosting, WordPress or website builder?

Which is the best choice for your website?

Let’s explore the relative advantages of these three methods when it comes to creating your website

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When creating a website, early on, those involved should decide on the exact breakdown of responsibilities between those in the business and those in outside companies contracted to provide services and technical knowledge.

The three Ws represent three possible divisions of responsibilities, where external service companies handle some aspects of website creation, and the business handles others.

With web hosting, a service provider sells space and access to a server (or virtual server) where the website can exist, but the content of that location is entirely down to the company to provide – whether crafted by them or another external firm.

WordPress is a widely available content management system that was initially very popular with bloggers. Using it, a relative novice to the web can create a working website pretty swiftly, and private hosting

services for this platform are widely available from a variety of providers.

The third alternative we’re discussing, a website builder, is a software tool for creating websites without needing any understanding of HTML or other technical knowhow. Once the site is completed and tested, it is uploaded to the hosted location, and the domain name then points to this server.

An easy way to think of these different options is to imagine organising a wedding reception. Web hosting is the equivalent of hiring a venue, but doing all the catering yourself, so you get to choose exactly what people will eat. WordPress has a good selection of pre-prepared foods but doesn’t require the bride, groom or relatives to cook on the day. And using a website builder is like ordering pizza to be delivered to the reception.

Let’s look at what each offers, and their strengths and weaknesses.

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WEB HOSTING

Those who buy hosting have the most flexibility concerning the nature and content of their site. However, they are also taking on a greater workload in order to deliver the end product.

Most hosting businesses have some kind of website creation system that you get

as part of the hosting package. But if you want to create a pro e-commerce solution, then it is likely that you will use the server space to host a thirdparty platform, or an entirely custom-built site, even.

What you’ve bought is storage space and access to the site for internet users, and

FOR

✔ Total flexibility ✔ Suitable for e-commerce ✔ Easily scalable

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the rest is up to you.

So to take advantage of this particular method of hosting, you’ll need to be (or know someone who is) web and coding savvy enough to build your site from scratch, and crucially, to administrate it as well. If customers have any technical problems it will be up to you to fix them.

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✘ Requires greater management and resources

✘ Assumes web knowledge ✘ Not for everyone

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WORDPRESS

What’s interesting about WordPress is that you can combine it with the web hosting option. This is because it comes in two versions: there’s one that is hosted by WordPress and anyone can use this for free, but there’s also a download-and-install version that you can host on your

FOR

✔ Flexible ✔ Easy to maintain ✔ Great for blogs

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own companyowned servers or with a web host.

The evolution of WordPress from a blogger’s tool to the do-anything website builder we see today has been dramatic.

However, be warned that if you’re looking to access the full power of this platform, that can be a daunting prospect

for anyone with little or no web experience.

The biggest challenge facing anyone designing a site using WordPress is that the final look of the website can be subtly different than you had initially intended, because of the way that WordPress works and the web layouts that it supports.

AGAINST

✘ Steep learning curve ✘ Not ideal for e-commerce ✘ Can have performance issues

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WEBSITE BUILDER

The principal advantage of a website building tool is speed. Neither of the other two options allows you to get a website operational within hours, but a building tool can achieve this.

A good website building tool can create a whole site very rapidly with no requirement for

coding skills, and then once this is transferred to the hosted location, the site can go live.

The downside of such a templatedriven solution is that most websites created using a tool will look and work similarly, and this doesn’t allow for entirely custom site layouts.

FOR

✔ Quick ✔ Easy to use ✔ Requires little technical

It can also be challenging to add functionality that isn’t inherently part of the site building tool, or to have structures that fall outside of the template model, like an e-commerce store.

However, if you are in a hurry, a website builder could be ideal to get a site up and running quickly.

AGAINST

✘ Can be inflexible ✘ Results look similar ✘ Scalability can be an issue

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Promotion

5 ESSENTIAL GODADDY TOOLS GoDaddy’s neat tools for budding webmasters Hosting and domain registration isn’t the business it once was. Providing space on a server and handling domain creation isn’t enough any longer; people want and expect more. As one of the biggest providers of these services, GoDaddy understands the evolving marketplace and has put in place a suite of useful tools for those involved in website creation, administration and marketing. Here are five of them. They demonstrate GoDaddy’s commitment to making domain administration and website management easier.

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GODADDY PRO

GoDaddy knows its customer base well.

They’re made up of a varied selection of occupations that includes commercial IT people, bloggers, corner shop owners and web professionals, to name just a few. For those that have one domain or site, administration is relatively straightforward, but for those that handle many, some extra help is at hand.

GoDaddy Pro is a free-to-use facility that helps you manage multiple websites, and different clients for them, through a single easy-tofollow interface. Along with the website management convenience that GoDaddy Pro offers, they also have a useful mechanism for billing clients for site service contracts, with whatever additional services that they’ve taken (backups, SEO, etc). For professionals managing a dynamic hosting and web services business, GoDaddy Pro provides a direct means to keep on top of the workload and help them deliver a service that will impress clients.

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ONLINE BOOKKEEPING

As part of the GoDaddy Email & Office suite, you can access an Online Bookkeeping solution that is perfect for small entrepreneurs. Online Bookkeeper provides an easy way to accept credit, debit card and ACH payments without all the hassle of having card readers and other paraphernalia. All that functionality costs only $3.88 (£2.99) a month ($5.17 or £3.99 when renewed), and you can expand that functionality to include local sales tax, importing bank and credit card transactions, and import sales data from your Amazon, PayPal, eBay and Etsy for $7.75 (£5.99) ($9.04 or £6.99 when renewed) with their ‘Essentials’ package. For those with serious business ambitions, they also offer a ‘Premium’ Online Bookkeeping option at $10.34 (£7.99) per month and $12.92 (£9.99) when renewed. That can also generate recurring invoices, making it ideal for those businesses that provide a monthly service.

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WEBSITE BACKUP

Hackers have more than one way of disrupting a smoothly running website, and after using it as a repository for malware, the next most common activity is defacing it. If that happens to you, the best policy is to return the site to its previous state, rather than trying to find every change.

The GoDaddy Website Backup tool is a low-cost facility that can automatically secure your entire site on a daily basis, or selectively

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backup a file, folder of the entire database on demand. It can also download to local storage, as a secondary line of defence, and you can restore the whole site or parts of it with a single click. Every day the site is scanned for malware, so you don’t inadvertently restore that too, and support staff are on hand if you have any issues with backup or restoration.

The cost of the service is modest and based entirely on the amount of data that makes up your site. For basic sites that only need 5 GB of backup storage that could be as low as $2.58 (£1.99) per month ($3.88 or £2.99 to renew).

And, even big sites that might need 50 GB of capacity are only $6.46 (£4.99) a month ($9.04 or £6.99 to renew). They’re happy to deploy this inexpensive service on sites that GoDaddy doesn’t host, in case you wondered.

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DOMAIN BROKER

Companies often register domains they don’t need or use, and they remain an asset that has overheads but no return on investment. Maybe they’re just waiting for someone to come along and make them a reasonable offer for that domain, or they’ve entirely forgotten that they registered it, or possibly why.

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The GoDaddy Domain Broker is a service where one of their team will contact the current owner to see if they are willing to sell the domain name you’re interested in. They’ll do all we can to get the name at the lowest possible price for you. The fee for handling the process is $63.31 (£48.99), plus 20% of the final agreed price if the domain transfer is ultimately successful. These costs don’t include the cost of the domain name when that is agreed. As the fee is non-refundable, you should check that the domain isn’t in use before asking them to enquire about selling it.

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DOMAIN VALUE APPRAISAL

On the flip-side of the Domain Broker coin is the GoDaddy Domain Value Appraisal tool. This tool has two practical uses: if you have an existing domain that you wish to release and are curious how much it might be worth, it will give you a ball-park valuation.

It will also tell you if it has previously sold, and for how much. The valuation is based on the extension, if it contains a popular keyword and the domain’s prior sale history,w if one exists.

While it might not accurately represent what it is worth to those that want to own the domain, it’s a decent start point for any negotiations. techradar.pro 21

What type of website do you want to build?

Plan carefully to avoid frustration in the future Making this decision from the outset can save you from plenty of headaches down the road

Deciding on the type of website you’re making right from the outset can save you plenty of time in the long run. Because if you spend time and effort on making a certain type of site, only to be forced to try and turn it into something entirely different, it can be quite a painful – not to mention costly – experience.

This scenario is especially true of e-commerce sites, as they require special facilities and coding that a different kind of website certainly won’t need.

There is little point going to the expense of creating a site with all the functionality to sell products if you’ve no intention of offering online sales. And equally, adding this functionality into a site that was previously meant to be a blog or a portfolio solution is going to be a frustrating experience for you.

So what sort of website do you need? Let’s explore some of the main types of sites, and whether they fit the bill for your requirements.

MAIN BUSINESS SITE Every major company has a main site, the one that you’re invariably directed to if you put the firm’s name into a search engine, because it’s returned at the top of the search results.

At this location, you should be able to find all the information about products and services that the

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business offers, and be able to easily establish a usable communication channel for sales, support or marketing.

Sometimes, if the company concerned has many products or supports multiple markets, the main site often has a very limited selection of pages

at the top level, with a series of subdomains representing various functions layered below.

With this model, the site structure ends up less complex and allows for the isolation of e-commerce technology on the sections of the site associated with financial transactions.

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PRODUCT AND SERVICES AFFILIATION Let’s imagine that you have a passion for, say, lawnmowers, and you have a blog where you discuss the technology involved in mowing lawns and the latest products that have been released.

If you can create a list of all the mowers made by a given brand, and

then link that to another site where they are sold, a referral fee can be earned for directing your visitors.

Building one of these sites isn’t an overnight exercise, though, as accumulating enough content to attract visitors, and then

gaining the trust of those readers, all takes time. Those who pick the right products or services can be very successful, but getting there can easily take two or three years of work. The consensus is that direct selling is often an easier and quicker path.

THE BLOG When blogs first appeared they were generally a personal site with a stream of thoughts on a subject or musings the life of the blogger. Like most things on the internet they’ve evolved, and they now combine the regular blogging function with things like branded sponsorship, product reviews, merchandise like site-related products (T-shirts, mugs, and so forth) and services. A blog that does these things and utilises targeted advertising can be a

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good source of income for a popular blogger. And, with the regular income, it is much easier to justify the time spent in maintaining the site and creating new content. Blogs can be code-built, made with website builders, or many creators choose to use the most popular blogging tool: WordPress.

Another useful monetisation method is affiliation with sites selling products that you often mention.

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SUPPORT SYSTEMS Not every site can be a big standalone venture, and often isolating a business offshoot with a unique web location has many advantages.

Here are a few of the better reasons for having a subdomain.

BRAND IDENTITY Everyone knows Kellogg’s, so well in fact that it has become the accepted term for Corn Flakes, even if it is technically a brand.

Fewer people know that the company that makes this breakfast cereal is called The Kellogg Company, and that it also makes a wide range of other products including

crackers and cookies, plus it owns other well-known brands like Cheez-it.

Often those brands are more important to the organisation than the holding company’s identity, and therefore a separate website is needed where purely promotional material can exist away from

corporate content. A good example is Nestlé, which has an official website. But it also has a brand site for KitKat in the UK. The other advantage of branding sites is that they’re very easy to disappear should the brand or product fail, rather than attempting to remove all references from the main site.

SELLING SITE Most e-commerce sites started as a normal business doing work through either phone sales or with a retail bricks-and-mortar location. But now some start out from a website or by using eBay, or one of the other major selling portals. These sites don’t generally need a blog or other content as they’re updated with new product lines and special offers as a means to generate traffic. What these sites need most is a way for the product catalogue

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to be easily searched and navigated. And, when the customer has found what they want, a means to process the order securely, and then confirm that order back to the customer. While this might sound easy, there are numerous caveats to creating e-commerce sites that make them challenging to create and maintain. Often the best way to create one is to buy an existing e-commerce model and then customise it with bespoke branding.

BUILD YOUR FIRST WEBSITE

OTHER WEBSITE TYPES There are many site types that we’ve not covered in detail that are mostly variations on what we’ve mentioned or amalgamations of traditional types. Artists of all types often have sites that are effectively digital galleries. Homage sites exist for musicians and actors, and there are also the likes of streaming media portals, historical reference collections and translation services.

The variety of site content is almost endless, although they all build on the fundamental concepts of

easily navigating through that content and directing the visitor so they can find the knowledge, service or product that they’re interested in.

The skills needed to build any type of website are essentially the same, except for the unique skill set required to build e-commerce sites, in which financial LEAD transactions require GENERATION specialist knowledge You have a new product, so to handle safely. It’s you want to direct customer better to buy and interest. Achieving this is customise these. remarkably simple, and is

usually done with just a single-page site that has the company branding and a contact form.

PURE SUPPORT Product and service contract support is big business. And having a dedicated website that can manage that part of the operation can convince customers that they’re getting something useful for their money.

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Usually, access to the internal resources on the support site is via customer login, and support requests are managed through a ticketing system that’s programmed to record the progression of the request.

By way of providing some

self-help options, many support sites have an integrated forum, an extensive FAQ, and a collection of support documentation.

Having live support responders available for a chat is also common.

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Why it’s crucial to keep your website regularly updated People will only come back when there is something new to see Regular content updates are vital to ensure visitors return to your site, and to better your standing with search engines

Ever had to endure a series of visits to a dentist or doctor, where you end up reading all the magazines, even the ones that are months old? For most people, boredom is quite simply torture – and nothing kills enthusiasm like seeing the same things over and over again.

And the same is true of a website, because once we’ve visited somewhere on the web, there needs to be a good reason for us to return. Which is why it pays to ensure that there is constantly something fresh and new for visitors to experience on your site, in order to encourage a regular pattern of visits.

But the attention span of the average human isn’t the only reason for regular content updates. It also helps to boost your site’s visiblity.

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Ranking signals When a search engine creates a list of links for a given enquiry, it takes a good many factors into account when deciding which sites are the most relevant.

One of the important elements in how page rankings are determined is exactly how new the content on the linked page (or pages) is. Therefore if there are two web pages with an article about a given subject, and one of them was written more recently, then there is a good chance that this one will be listed in first place, unless it is perhaps on a site with almost no visitors.

While there are many other factors in determining search rankings, having fresh and regularly updated content is one proven means to deliver a successful site

BUILD YOUR FIRST WEBSITE

in this respect. And conversely, sites that arrive and are never subsequently revised are mostly a complete waste of time, money and effort.

Where to add content Exactly what content should be added to a website is very much influenced by the nature of the site and what it was created to achieve.

However, if you’re looking for ways to create content on a regular basis, here are a few standard methods that any site can include.

A blog: Make a person in marketing a blogger, using the pages to talk about products or clients on a regular basis. These pieces can be created during quieter periods, so as not to interfere with the regular work cycle, and then released once a week or so.

A dynamic homepage: Even if the homepage of the website isn’t meant to change, you could include a section that links to a news story, the blog, or external news coverage of the business. It only needs to include the latest chronological item, with a link to a page containing all the previous stories that have been run.

A forum: Having a website forum does take some user management, but regular visitors will create their own content and a community that encourages repeat visits.

Whitepapers: An informed article by an expert in any subject will attract lots of visitors, and amass reference links on both social media and other websites.

These aren’t things that need to be added every day, or even on a weekly basis, but building a collection of informative discussion papers is another way to get visitors.

new content is the equivalent life force that enables a site to establish itself in a very crowded world wide web.

All websites start with very few visitors, and not all of them manage to evolve into a dynamic operation with many visitors who repeatedly return.

The key is to keep producing enough new and interesting content to drive the numbers up and ensure that people come back to see what else you’ve created.

If done correctly, new content can provide engagement with your potential customers, plus it can differentiate you from business rivals and provide new opportunities for building relationships.

The idea that a website is simply a fire-and-forget missile built for a static cost is long behind us, and what companies need now is an effective digital shop front that entices window shoppers inside, and entertains them once they’ve got over the threshold. A mix of content types, especially the kinds that are catnip for search engine algorithms, is essential.

Quite simply, the key to the success of any web venture is updates – and plenty of them.

THE KEY IS TO KEEP PRODUCING NEW AND INTERESTING CONTENT TO DRIVE THE NUMBERS UP

Keep moving forwards The majority of sharks must move forward through the water to get the oxygen they need to survive for their entire lives, and

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Why social media and newsletters are vital for your website’s success How to stay on message…

Being creative with social media and email campaigns are twin weapons which can really boost traffic to your site.

Given the vast number of websites that exist these days, the actual chances of anyone turning up randomly at yours are vanishingly slim. And equally, if a person does visit your website, and you want them to return, it will take more than blind optimism to make that happen.

What you need is a means to lure potential new users to your site, and also encourage those who have already visited to come back again.

And, while other options certainly exist, using social media and sending out newsletters are both good methods of drumming up customers.

Be professional Almost anyone who uses a computer can craft an email and send it to a long list of email addresses.

But doing this in a way that represents the company – branding and all – and isn’t automatically rejected as ‘spam’ by the majority of recipients’ email servers, requires more skill and knowhow.

The obvious solution is to let a service provider handle the process, as it can manage the distribution of marketing messages, and also collate the responses to any customer engagement.

Service costs are entirely dependent on how many subscribers you are likely to have, and the number of emails or social media postings that you intend to make on a monthly basis. When looking for the right service to deliver a marketing message, 28 techradar.pro

these are the features to bear in mind that are critical for it to be a success.

• A signup form: Most marketing projects start with a pre-existing list of subscribers, but adding new ones should be one key objective. So having a form to capture them is a necessity.

• Templates: For newsletters to look businesslike they need to be structured using templates with all of the branding predefined. Once these have been created a newsletter or post can go out very quickly, if needed.

• Unsubscribe: Not everyone will want to hear from you indefinitely, so some means for removing subscribers from the list must be available and managed.

Ignoring any unsubscribe requests is a guaranteed way to annoy potential customers and scare them off.

• Blog trigger: With many business sites already creating a blog, what can save time and money is if these blog postings are subsequently repurposed as email newsletters and social media posts.

A system to automate this process of repackaging the content is very helpful.

• Date triggers: Having a means to automatically trigger an email, even only to say ‘happy birthday’ if you have that information, can be useful. Or you could remind a user that a service that they’re paying for is about to be renewed.

• IP collection: While this isn’t a perfect means to identify the location of a new subscriber, it’s better than just guessing.

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• Statistical analysis: When you’ve sent a newsletter out, and it had feedback for a new product embedded in it, those responses need collating, and maybe comparing with similar questions you’ve asked previously. The more data that’s captured – and the better analysed it is – all contributes to providing you with useful information for planning your future communications and strategic marketing.

Where to get this help?

The majority of web hosting businesses will provide an email marketing service, and some will deliver at least some of this functionality as part of a hosting or web management package. GoDaddy, for example, has a simple tool that (for

a monthly fee) can deliver all critical newsletter functionality. This, combined with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts, can have a big impact on your site visitor numbers.

There are also companies like Constant Contact that specialise in delivering these facilities, at a price.

Whatever approach you decide to take, making full use of social media and newsletters to establish a communication channel to your existing and potential customers is a critical component in the success of a website.

Therefore, it should be considered at the website planning stage, and not in the weeks after the site goes live and hasn’t had many visitors.

WHAT YOU NEED IS A MEANS TO LURE POTENTIAL NEW USERS TO YOUR SITE, AND ALSO ENCOURAGE THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY VISITED TO COME BACK in association with

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Promotion

DO YOU MANAGE MANY WORDPRESS WEBSITES? HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD TRUST GODADDY PRO Using GoDaddy Pro could avoid many headaches Managing WordPress sites can be challenging, especially if you do this on behalf of other companies.Each client needs to feel that they have your full attention, but practically, you can only focus on one at a time.

Depending on how many clients you have or WordPress sites to administer, squaring this circle can require legendary organisational skills and total recall. Or, a service like GoDaddy Pro to make the fine detail of this task a little more manageable.

WHAT IS GODADDY PRO? Simply put, GoDaddy Pro is a free-to-join service that enables a web developer to grow their web business with free tools to manage sites and clients.

It works with sites that are hosted by GoDaddy and those elsewhere, and for GoDaddy customers, there are some extra useful features for sites created using either the GoDaddy Website Builder or WordPress.

For WordPress developers, it’s also the best place to go if you wish to move to GoDaddy.

Existing WordPress sites hosted elsewhere can be selected from inside the Pro Dashboard and then, after simply clicking on the ‘Migrate website’ button, the site can be painlessly transferred to GoDaddy hosting.

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Those that already have a hosting plan can allocate this site from their existing hosting credits, and for those who aren’t already using GoDaddy, you can select one of the available hosting plans.

Once this is agreed, the site transfer can begin, and you will be kept informed about progress through to completion.

But as a website management tool, what else has Pro to offer?

ONE PAGE TO RULE THEM ALL The first place you arrive when logging into GoDaddy Pro is the home page, a location that’s full of useful information – not least what jobs you need to do most urgently, but also tips on being a better Pro and a reminder of recent activity on your website.

At this top level, you can access your sites, clients, the GoDaddy Rewards scheme and ‘My Products’; an overview of your financial relationship with GoDaddy and the services you already have.

Of these, what will interest most managers of WordPress sites are those pages specifically connected with Sites and Clients. The Pro Sites page has four sub-pages: Overview, Websites, Clients and Add-ons. Let’s take a look at what they offer you.

OVERVIEW

CLIENTS

Overview is where you see the bigger picture, and once you’re managing more than a handful of sites, that’s not always easy.

All the sites that you are responsible for managing are here, and that includes those that are WordPress-based, as well as others.

You can also identify those that are hosted by GoDaddy, and elsewhere.

Alongside the website information is your current clientele list, and how many websites each client has.

What website management needs to be above all is a client-focused activity, and this part of Pro is all about that. At the Pro Home level of the system you’ll find an entirely different way to look at client information, and also a handy GoDaddy mechanism for shopping for new customers and chasing potential leads.

WEBSITES At first glance, this page is similar to the Overview, with the same filtering panel that lets you select by Status, Clients and Tags. But it also includes a thumbnail of a site, showing what it currently looks like, and quick access to the dashboard of that specific site.

The Dashboard is a complete overview of that site and its history, and in there you can add additional GoDaddy functionality, such as uptime monitoring, website rankings, and connection to Google Analytics.

From here you can also generate Client Reports about their site, and also keep an eye on the performance levels of the site.

ADD-ONS The Add-ons section of GoDaddy Pro is the place where you can click those useful extras on for specific websites, and also deactivate them if needed. Pricing for each service is on a monthly basis, and a total for any site, or sites, is calculated for you.These include Backups, Uptime Monitor, SEO, White Label, Client Reports, Security Check or Performance Check.For those that want all the bells and whistles on all their sites, GoDaddy has a bundling system. Choosing a bundle can give 100 sites a particular feature for a flat monthly fee. Currently, a single feature on up to 100 sites costs $25 (£19.35) per month, and you can have all of them for $150 (£116.10) per month. For those with more than 25 sites, this is a very cost-effective way to provide a better service to your clients. techradar.pro 31

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ways to promote your website

Be the constant gardener to your web foliage

Make sure your site continues to attract visitors by being proactive with promotion

We’re all familiar with the term ‘one hit wonder’, and many artists or groups have had huge success with a single song, then subsequently nosedived into commercial oblivion with their following tracks.

The lifecycle of a website can be disturbingly similar, at least to a point. There’s a kind of gravitational force which acts on all websites, pulling them down the search engine rankings as they’re replaced with newer, fresher, more successfully promoted sites.

If you want to defy this natural force, you’ll need a promotional plan, many clever tricks, and a concerted effort from your web development team to capture the public’s attention. With that in mind, here’s a list of 20 ways in which you can promote your website, and keep it as visible as possible.

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1 Be SEO smart

Most of the time, your website will be found via a search engine, and the vast majority of folks out there are using Google for search duties. And where your site is placed in terms of the rankings in any given search is heavily influenced by how Google matches the words that people are using to search. Consider altering the site’s content to include popular phrases that people are searching for. This process – although there’s a lot more to it – is known as SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimisation.

2 Get reciprocal

The more links that external websites have to your site, and the more links you make to them, will be seen by search engines as a good reason to elevate your

BUILD YOUR FIRST WEBSITE

importance as a web location. Therefore if you have commercial relationships, you can strengthen those by exchanging links and building a flow of traffic between your mutual sites. This is useful if you are part of a bigger conglomerate, where the group site can link to all the subsidiaries without the need for permissions.

3 Facebook ads

If you want to sell door-to-door, then you need to turn up when people are at home, and the web equivalent of this is catching them on social media. Despite some recent flattening of growth, many millions of people still use Facebook, and this platform has the advantage that you can target users of a specific age or gender, those with certain interests, or those who follow particular brands .

Express to hit a large number of search engines in a single operation.

6 Use YouTube

The right video on YouTube can rapidly attract tens of thousands of views, and can subsequently generate links in Facebook and Twitter. Even if it’s just a recording of a seminar speech or something made to promote a new product line, it’s all worth placing on YouTube to create interest and attract visitors to your website.

7 Be adaptable

Tracking and analysing information from your website will tell you where visitors typically enter, and the pages they most often access. You are then able to concentrate on enhancing more popular areas of your site – and deprioritise the

RECIPROCAL LINKS WILL BE SEEN BY SEARCH ENGINES AS A GOOD REASON TO ELEVATE YOUR IMPORTANCE AS A WEB LOCATION

4 Connect with influencers

Perhaps you can’t get an A-list star to blog about your products. but maybe you could find an existing blogger who has a dedicated following that they can influence. Compared with celebrity endorsements, the costs will be minimal, and some might even cover a product for a free sample if asked.

sections which see less traffic – and that should hopefully see your visitor count grow. Not only that, but those who do visit will be more likely to come back, elevating your status with search engines.

5 Go beyond Google

Google may be the search giant of the world, but not everyone uses it. For example, in China, more surfers use Baidu. Submitting to all those other search engines aside from Google and Bing is a worthwhile exercise, especially if you do business in locations outside of the US and Europe. Instead of submitting to each engine in turn, use a tool like Submit

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made by a phone with no image stabilisation, at the very least.

11 Answer questions

People love online experts who can answer questions, so be one of them.

There are numerous question-and-answer forums run by the likes of Quora, Yahoo, and so on, which are all free to join.

You might also consider adding a question page to your site. You could then take the best answers, and use them to construct a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), which users find useful.

12 Create infographics Wikipedia is a surprising addition to the marketing tools at your disposal, but proves useful for driving web traffic

8 Use Reddit

Modestly labelled as the ‘front page of the internet’, any news story or press release from your company should be put on here, with links to bring people back to your site.

However, be advised that Reddit users can take a dislike to anything perceived as overtly corporate, so be careful about how you position content and interact with the denizens of the site.

9 Be a community player

As a representative for your business, you might want to join some appropriate Facebook groups and other social networks, so that you can tap into what they’re thinking, and how they react to product launches and promotions.

10

Be professional

If you post images on your website or social media, then do make sure that they’re really good quality ones, and even consider having them link to the full resolution original. The same goes for video footage. Avoid portrait recordings

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Infographics are those charts that you see here and there about the web, which graphically illustrate an interesting trend or the breakdown of a market by percentages. Making one that relates to your business, or the market that it operates in, and then distributing this infographic is a great way to get visitors.

13 Incorporate a blog

This is a method that both Google and Microsoft (and many others) employ, where they have senior staff blog about new or interesting products that they’re working on.

Visitors react better to people than corporate entities, and personalising product development, in particular, can be highly influential. Often this is a much better way to release company news, rather than an official press release.

14 Use Google My Business

This is most useful if you run a local business where customers can physically come to your office or store to collect products, or engage in real personal interaction. The Google My Business tool allows your company to appear on a Google Map search so that you can be found easily by anyone looking for you.

BUILD YOUR FIRST WEBSITE

A nifty added benefit of being on here is that if your company name is searched via Google, the result returned will also bring up a map showing where you are.

15 Get a webmaster account

Most search engines have special accounts for those who run websites, and once you have this connection with them, you can use it to interact with the company about how you might improve your search ranking.

A Google account, for example, is an excellent way to make sure that the site is indexed correctly, and isn’t being ignored for some spurious reason.

16 Use email marketing

A timely reminder to previous customers or a nudge to potentially new ones is an effective way to stimulate web traffic. It’s also a great idea to include links to new and interesting content within the marketing email, stimulating the recipient to visit.

Just make sure that those who get the emails have a means to decline receiving any further messages, or you’ll get a reputation as a spammer.

17 Cross-marketing

Once you have a web presence up and running, make sure that the web address is clearly visible on all stationery, printed promotional materials, giveaway pens, T-shirts or other merchandise..

18Have an email signature

All company emails should have a branded signature, and in that information, a link to the website should be included.

19 Invest in search engines

Search engine marketing allows you to promote the position you will appear at on a search, and those links that are present on the first page of results will get the majority of traffic for any keyword.

20 Use Wikipedia

Most companies have a Wiki page, and those that don’t need to make one. Not only is this a good place to chart the growth of the firm and how it compares to competitors, but it can also provide a good linkage to the main website that anyone researching a subject related to your business might run into.

Social media is a great way to connect with your audience and find out what drives them to your site

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Create a site one step at a time Anyone can build a website We’ll show you how to easily create your own website using a popular site building tool

Faced with the prospect of creating a website, most people would immediately look to find someone else to do it for them. But the truth is, if you pick the right solution, anyone can create a site, and do 1. Find a website builder We’ve decided to use the GoDaddy website builder for this exercise, but the majority of web construction tools are very similar, and most assume no technical knowledge about HTML or CSS technology.

To begin with GoDaddy, click on the ‘Start For Free’ button and then register with an email, username and password.

2. Type and name The site builder then asks you to choose a category and a name for your site. At

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the job quickly, too. To prove that assertion, we’ll now take you through the whole process, assuming that you have no prior web knowledge or coding skills.

Let’s begin.

this point, you don’t even need to have a domain. We decided to create a retail website for our fictional Boston Hat Repairs company, and selected the category ‘Used, Vintage, and Consignment Clothing’.

3. Theme The app picks a default theme called Trade, but there are some alternatives to choose from on the right-hand side. We picked Clarity as it seemed suitably retro-looking for this particular project.

4. Shades and hues Pages created by this system have an accent color, the default being a rather excessive GoDaddy green.

Using the colour picker on the right, we selected a rich dark red and immediately saw the difference on the prototype site. If you don’t want to use the color picker, you can enter the RGB Hex code instead.

5. Fonts Another right-hand side option is the headline font, and while the default one was fine, we

BUILD YOUR FIRST WEBSITE

decided that we liked another called Monserrat more. Again, the change to the website is made immediately.

6. Preview time Upon reaching this stage, the selection part of the process is effectively complete, and a ‘Preview’ button appears for you to see the site on both a computer and a phone.

Browsers can render pages slightly differently, and screen resolution can also have an impact on how things look, but most visitors should see a version of this.

7. Domain to go?

With the site ready to edit, GoDaddy then offers you the name as a domain with a selection of suitable ones that are available. You don’t need to use these specific examples, and a button below directs you to search for an alternative.

8. Editing Currently, the site has just three pages, and none of the wording is ours, so it’s time to click on ‘Edit’ and then adjust the contents. To change something, all you have to do is click on it on the page, and then on the right, options will appear that allow you to modify the words or style. Here we started with the headline text

that appears under the title. It did read “True style is timeless”, but we edited that in a panel on the right to say “Brimming with ideas”.

9. Sections Each page is subdivided into a collection of segments, and to add a new section in you simply use the button between them that is marked ‘+ Add Section’. Once this button is clicked you can select one of the section types from a menu.

10. Calendar From the section types, we added a calendar that’s linked to Google, but you can create one that’s unique to the site and add whatever events you like.

This web tool has tons of choices for sections, with blog, e-commerce and photo galleries available.

11. Pages With only three pages, we need to add some more. At the top level of the menu, click on ‘Pages’ and it will show you what pages are defined.

Above the list is an ‘Add’ button, and that allows you to add a page, and also a link to an external website and a dropdown menu.

The new page you add will be automatically included in

the navigation system of the site, and you can then add whatever sections you’d like to that page once created.

12. Settings At the top menu, accessed via the house icon on the right, there are three sub-options called ‘Theme’, ‘Pages’ and ‘Site Settings’. Inside here are all the switches and levers to make various things work, and it also provides a means to analyse the site traffic and link social media accounts.

These are probably the last things you might want to tinker with before making the site live.

Final thoughts While other methods of website construction offer more detailed site controls, the raw speed of using a tool like this is undeniable. We need to mention that the tool is free to use, and GoDaddy will keep your website for a month at no cost, should you want to experiment, or prototype a new site. If you decide to use the created site, then depending on how many visitors you expect – and the security options you need – prices start at $5.99 (£4.99 plus VAT) per month and scale up through various tiers to $29.99 (£19.99 plus VAT) monthly for an e-commerce solution.

THE TRUTH IS, IF YOU PICK THE RIGHT SOLUTION, ANYONE CAN CREATE A SITE, AND DO THE JOB QUICKLY in association with

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