Easy to use, easy to build professionally designed websites in minutes EASY START INSTRUCTIONS www.easysitelive.com Contents EasySiteLive provides you with the tools to create and publish a professional website in a matter of minutes without the need to learn html or how to use a complex html editor. Remember that a website is different from a brochure because unlike a brochure, once published it can be changed quickly and easily. In other words you can quickly create your web site now and publish it and in the days ahead you can expand, develop and modify it in the light of the experience you get and the feedback you receive from family, friends, customers or staff. Using the EasyWizard Logging and getting started ..................................................................................................... 2 Welcome Screen ...................................................................................................................... 2 Creating your Home Page Choose a Theme, Style and Colour ......................................................................................... 2 Choosing the Layout ................................................................................................................ 3 Choosing the page title ........................................................................................................... 3 Content for your first page ...................................................................................................... 3 Adding pictures ........................................................................................................................ 4 Other page content ................................................................................................................. 4 The Main Menu ........................................................................................................................ 5 Edit ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Promote ...................................................................................................................................... 6 How to Add a New Page ...................................................................................................................... 6 Adding Pictures ........................................................................................................................ 7 Change the format of a page .................................................................................................. 7 Change Theme, Style and Colour of your web site ................................................................. 8 Create a Contact Page............................................................................................................. 8 Delete a page .......................................................................................................................... 8 Edit a page............................................................................................................................... 8 Get Visitor Statistics ................................................................................................................. 8 Publish you web site ................................................................................................................ 9 Web Widgets ............................................................................................................................ 9 Tips Keep it simple. ....................................................................................................................... 10 Think how you would view a web site. .................................................................................. 10 Theme, Style and Colour ....................................................................................................... 10 Keep words to a minimum. .................................................................................................... 11 Think about what searches your visitors may put into their search engine............................ 11 Always check your web site after building, amending or adding and publishing your web site. ........................................................................................................................ 11 Add and amend web pages regularly. ................................................................................... 11 Use a picture instead of words if you can .............................................................................. 12 Contact Forms can materially reduce spam........................................................................... 12 Do not Publish until you are happy with the pages you can see in EasySiteLive. .................. 12 Watch who visits your web site. ............................................................................................. 12 Page 1 Using the EasyWizard Logging and getting started When you have installed your new EasySiteLive software, go to Programs and click the Welcome Screen When you have logged in, you can immediately start building your site, access this Quick Start Guide or go to the Main Menu to Manage, Edit or Promote existing sites. When you have started the Wizard, click Next and make the selections you want in each screen before moving to the next one by clicking Next again. When you start building your website, the first thing is to choose theme, style and colour scheme and then to create your Home page. Your Home page will be the first one that any visitor sees and is therefore the most important. Please note that the home page is always called the index and cannot be changed unlike other pages in your web site. It is an Internet convention that someone going to a web site, the browser will first go to the index file (always with a lower case ‘i’ or it will not work. Creating your Home Page Choose a Theme, Style and Colour Over 100 professionally designed themes are available to choose from here. A theme will dictate how navigation menus, banners, default colours for your site will look so it is important to pick one which reflects the purpose of you web site. Different themes offer different colour scheme choices so that you can get the best theme and style for your site. The theme, style and colour you choose here will be applied to any further pages than you create Page 2 Choosing the Layout Next you should choose the best layout you can, given the objectives of your page and your site, from a series of templates from straight text to all pictures with a number of variations designed for visitor friendliness in line with web design accepted best practice. Choosing the page title The page title is important because it is displayed as the name of the web page when open in your browser in the computer menu bar even when another page is being accessed. Search engines will often display the page title of sites found in a search, giving the searcher a quick résumé of what to find if he follows that particular link. Titles should be about 100 characters, telling the potential visitor exactly who and what you are. Content for your first page On your first page you need to sum up the purpose of your web site. Tell the visitor who you are, what you do, maybe what you sell and where you or your products have unique selling points – briefly! Page 3 Adding pictures If you have selected a page format including one or more pictures, these are added through the next screen. To add a picture from your PC 1 Click on the image on the screen Please note that the screen to the right is showing a help graphic of what will come up on the next screen of how to view pictures while browsing to help you select the right one. The way to change to ‘thumbnail’ pictures in place of the file names has been circled in red. 2 Click Next 3 Browse for the picture you want. Initially you will be taken to an EasySiteLive library of Fotolia pictures free of copyright that will fit many occasions. For your own pictures, navigate to the directory it is in like My Documents/My Pictures. If you need to source a picture elsewhere, we have included a link Get images from Fotolia. Other page content After inserting your picture(s) you can add more content, probably expanding on the purpose of the web site and what it has to offer to complete your page and move to the following options. Page 4 (Needs an Edit Page option here as well as on the Preview page) The Main Menu • Build a new website using EasyWizard will replace the pages you have created so far and, when published, replace those in your website. • Build a new site without EasyWizard (????? – this starts selection but then just disappears so am uncertain what it is intended to do!!!) • Continue working on your existing site displays all pages created, the ability to change their position, delete, edit or change name (unless it is the index page – this is the home page and cannot be changed if the site is to display), change style, preview the whole website, add new standard or special pages and publish the site: Edit The Edit Menu is the main page through which to change or add pages. It is designed to be as intuitive and easy as possible. However, if you need to find out quickly how to make the changes you want, please refer to the How to section below. Page 5 Special pages include templates for: • Events • News • Photo Gallery with or without text • Product(s) [- we also need a Service(s) page or the option to change Product to Service] • Testimonial • Examples of Work • About us/Staff • Story/Article • Contact us Promote Having a web site is all very well but it is important that people know that it is there. Making sure people find it is a hard and on going task but we have added links to a number of tools to help with this: • EasyMailer – this is a specialised email program to allow you to send emails in bulk. Most email providers will limit you volumes in a number of ways as a protection against spam and getting their email services blocked by other providers. EasyMailer is an essential if you want to launch and email marketing campaign or simply email everyone you know just to say you are here. • EasyWebSubmit (needs to be added to) Website Promotion Tool will submit your website to a number of search engines according to the package you choose and help move you up the search engine rankings. • Email your site visitors [– sounds good but not sure where it is going – software to automatically email people out of EasyMailer(?) if they complete the contact form?] Links are also provided so that you can buy domain names, contact us to build a professional and unique website for you or give a copy if EasySiteLive to you friends. How to….. Add a New Page 1 2 3 4 Login and go to the Main Menu Select Edit or Continue working on your existing site Click Add New Page Select your preferred page layout for the standard and special templates 5 Click Build this page 6 Enter the heading for the new page and click Next 7 Add the main text for this page and click Next Page 6 8 Enter the name for this page as you want it to appear in your web site 9 Click Save your changes Adding Pictures If you have already chosen a format for a page, you will be asked to add the pictures required by that format as you create the page. If you want to change the number and position of pictures on a page, please go to Change the format of a page first. When you have changed the format you can use the procedure below. If you have selected a page format including one or more pictures, these are added through the next screen. To add a picture from your PC 1 Click on the image on the screen 2 Please note that the screen above is showing a help graphic of what will come up on the next screen of how to view pictures while browsing to help you select the right one. The way to change to ‘thumbnail’ pictures in place of the file names has been circled in red. 3 Click Next 4 Browse for the picture you want. Initially you will be taken to an EasySiteLive library of Fotolia pictures free of copyright that will fit many occasions. For your own pictures, navigate to the directory it is in like My Documents/My Pictures. If you need to source a picture elsewhere, we have included a link Get images from Fotolia. Change the format of a page If you want a different format for a page, you may find it easier to add a new page and delete the original. Alternatively you can follow the procedure below but select Add Web Widget – see below. If you want to move the content of a page however 1 Login and go to the Main Menu 2 Select Edit or Continue working on your existing site 3 Highlight the page you wish to modify in the box at the top left 4 Click Edit Selected Page at the centre bottom 5 Select the content you wish to move, change or edit by clicking the content 6 Click the option you want from the left menu: · move content up the page · move content down the page · delete selected content · edit text Page 7 · change image · move image You can also use Change Page details to change the name of the page here and add ‘web widgets’. Web Widgets include Layout Objects and Special Objects. Layout Objects allow you to add a format for more content. Special Objects offer you the ability to add logos and links to a range of useful sites like Google and PayPal. Change Theme, Style and Colour of your web site 1 2 3 4 5 6 Login and go to the Main Menu Select Edit or Continue working on your existing site Select Change Website Style from the left hand Menu Select theme Select colour scheme Click Next and click Previous to get back to the Edit Menu Create a Contact Page 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Login and go to the Main Menu Select Edit or Continue working on your existing site Select Add new page Select and click the Special Pages at the top Browse down to the Contact form template and click it click Build this page Delete a page 1 2 3 4 Login and go to the Main Menu Select Edit or Continue working on your existing site Select the page you wish to delete by highlighting it in the box at the top left Click the Delete Page button to the right of the box Edit a page 1 2 3 Login and go to the Main Menu Select Edit or Continue working on your existing site Select the page you wish to edit by highlighting it in the box at the top left so that it appears in the main box 4 Click Edit selected page 7 Select the content you wish to move, change or edit by clicking the content 8 Click the option you want from the left menu: · move content up the page · move content down the page · delete selected content · edit text · change image · move image Page 8 You can also use Change Page details to change the name of the page here and add ‘web widgets’. Web Widgets include Layout Objects and Special Objects. Layout Objects allow you to add a format for more content. Special Objects offer you the ability to add logos and links to a range of useful sites like Google and PayPal. Get Visitor Statistics 1 2 3 Login and go to the Main Menu Clcik the far right tab Promotion at the top of the page Click the Check your website statistics button Publish you web site 1 2 3 Login and go to the Main Menu if you are not logged in already Select Edit or Continue working on your existing site Click the button Publish site to the Internet found at the bottom on the left hand side Web Widgets Web Widgets include Layout Objects and Special Objects. Layout Objects allow you to add a format for more content. Special Objects offer you the ability to add logos and links to a range of useful sites like Google and PayPal. Tips KEEP IT SIMPLE. A simple web page or web site will be much more effective. Initially only two pages are necessary: a ‘home’ or first page to say who you are and/or what your site is doing or about and a page telling what someone interested in it can do about it, usually a contact page so that those you have interested can get in touch with you. As far as possible, try to keep your pages to the size of the screen. It is easier for customers to click to a new page than to scroll down. A new page is rather like punctuation marks; it makes it easier to read. When developing your web pages think how the visitor will see them. THINK HOW YOU WOULD VIEW A WEB SITE. You will probably have a clear idea what you want to tell your visitors and what they should see. Irritatingly it may not be exactly what even your ideal visitor will want. Be careful to use as few words as possible. People will read something they are deeply interested in but those only partially interested will not - and they may be the people you want to attract. Page 9 And a picture can be worth a thousand words! THEME, STYLE AND COLOUR Selection of Theme, Style and Colour create the most important impression of you web site to the viewer and is worth a lot of care, even though you can go back and change it. Be clear about the purpose of your web site, whether: family & Friends / business / group or club / CV or hobby If a business web site, Theme and Style ought to be matched with your letterhead, business cards and other aspects or your corporate image. Start small, add later. KEEP WORDS TO A MINIMUM. Visitors mostly prefer to click and move on to another page, rather than to read a long article. Don’t you? Draw up a list of key words that best describe your web site and its purpose, then work especially on those showing where you are different. How Users Read on the Web? They don’t. People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In a recent study John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen found that 79 percent of test users always scanned any new page ..; only 16 percent read word-by-word. THINK ABOUT WHAT SEARCHES YOUR VISITORS MAY PUT INTO THEIR SEARCH ENGINE. Keywords & Key phrases Don’t be too general. General keywords will pick up everyone Don’t be too specific. Try to limit your key phrases to terms that you yourself would use when searching for your services ALWAYS SITE. CHECK YOUR WEB SITE AFTER BUILDING, AMENDING OR ADDING AND PUBLISHING YOUR WEB If after publishing you are still seeing the old pages, clear the cache in your browser by clicking Ctrl + F5. Make sure that any visitor interested in your web site, products and services knows how to take things further. There is nothing more frustrating than finding just what you want, then no being able to order it or find out more about it. Page 10 ADD AND AMEND WEB PAGES REGULARLY. Always be wary of changing Themes and Styles. The appearance of your web site will be part of your visitors’ image of you: if it changes too much and too often their image will be confused. New information and pictures make a web site come ‘alive’. USE A PICTURE INSTEAD OF WORDS IF YOU CAN Always use a picture instead of words if you can. Remember a picture can be worth a thousand words! It is better to add a new page than add to a page. What is only visible with a scroll down will be missed. Keep pictures reasonably small. A large picture will slow the time for a page to load and can drive visitors away. Who you are is almost as important as what you do. CONTACT FORMS CAN MATERIALLY REDUCE SPAM. Spam is a major problem and if you publish an email address on the internet you will attract more spam. A contact form reduces spam. If you do get a lot of spam: Do not use a catchall email address ie one that receives messages to anyone@yourdomain Get our email anti virus anti spam AVAS service DO NOT PUBLISH UNTIL YOU ARE HAPPY WITH THE PAGES YOU CAN SEE IN EASYSITELIVE. Web pages are immediately updated when you Publish. If you cannot see the changes, you need to clear cache! WATCH WHO VISITS YOUR WEB SITE. The information will make it easier to make improvements. Do your web pages answer the questions raised by your visitors? It not, you will be frustrating them! Page 11
© Copyright 2025