New Project: Learning How to Build a Wordpress Website

I'm so excited to share with you a new project!  For a while now, I've been thinking about having a complete website home for Athena's Armoury & Apothecary.  Sure, I've got shops on Etsy and Artfire, I'm on flickr, and then there's this blog, of course, but I want one single place to have it all.  I want to be able to share articles with you that would have a permanent home in addition to having a shop and blog.  I want some place to have it all together, that I can design myself to have the same branding across all platforms.  But I don't know a thing about html, designing a website, nor can I afford to have someone build it for me.

Recently, I attended an Indie Biz Chicks webinar featuring Angela Wills from Marketers Mojo about how to build a Wordpress website.  Angela's straightforward demo made Wordpress look incredibly user friendly and I started thinking about using it myself.  At the end of the webinar, Angela very generously offered those of us attending, a discount on her  Website Design Mojo e-course.  I thought it was still a little pricey for what I can really afford right now (not a comment on what's included, but rather on my finances), but then I started doing some research.  I couldn't find another e-course that includes anywhere near the amount of products/services that Angela's Website Design Mojo contains.  Additionally, with what is included in the course, not only would I have a website in the end but I would also be learning new skills.  Skills that eventually, I may be able to use as services for others.  Lastly, the amount of this course is literally a fraction of what it would cost to hire someone to build a *basic* website.  This e-course would be an investment in my future, so I decided to go for it!

This is only week two (the course is six weeks long) and I've already learned so much!  Angela's videos contain so much information, she replies to e-mails super quick, I've learned from other people's questions in our weekly group webinar, and Wordpress itself is super user friendly.  I'm LOVING this course.  There is a TON to take in, which occasionally gives me brain fuzzies but that's okay.  I'm learning a lot and having fun doing it.

One of my first orders of business for me was to create a landing page.  My domain name is on the business cards that I've been giving out for a few years now and was originally just being redirected to my Etsy shop.  I wanted to make a landing page for my domain name so that I could continue to play with the website on the back end and my customers could still find me online.  If you go to the Athena's Armoury & Apothecary website, here is a screenshot of what you will find:

It isn't too fancy, but it accomplishes exactly what I had in mind.  I may have to revise the progress and due date (as of now, I have it set for November 1, 2011), as things go but it's my goal to have the site live by the end of the year at the very latest.

I'm so excited about this new venture and can't wait to share it with you!  Stick around this blog for updates on how it's going and, doubtless, there will be some kind of grand opening sale when it goes live.

Getting Started Building Your Website

By Gari Anne of Bead Lover's Korner

Deciding to create a new website can be a little daunting, but just like anything in life it is the challenge ahead and the goal at the end that leads you to experience and knowledge of things that you would ordinarily only dream of doing. Many years ago I decided to open an online business on EBay selling beads and other items that I thought were cool. That worked pretty well and eventually I needed a website, too. I am now on my 3rd website, and each time I upgraded to something a little better to stay in step with technology and incorporate more functions. If you are selling products, the shopping cart and how it is connected to the payment gateway is very important, as well as ease of use for the customer. That is where I become stupid, it is tricky and I really don't have time to learn that end so on this third website I hired an agency with design, technical and promotion experience to help me out. Most developers will only set things up and load maybe 50 products. After that they teach you and you have to do all the work, unless you want to pay them a whole lot more money. Really you are better off doing it yourself anyway, because you know your product better than they do.

I learned a few things from these three different website experiences, and the most important thing I learned is that while you need someone to help you with all the technical mumbo jumbo and programming, many times you are better off doing it yourself. Once you find this person to help you out, hook everything up correctly and pay their fee, you can never find them again! Then you're in a real mess and there's no one around  so you just have to wing it and figure things out for yourself. Everyone knows someone who knows html or programming but they are like Gnomes hiding under a rock or in the trees. When you go looking for them again, they have up and vanished!

A lot of websites today come with built in editors that will do the html for you. But it's always a good idea to know a little of the basics like how to make things bold, make something italic, etc. Lots of times those editors get all jumbled up with different things everytime you change something, so you can just view the code and take out all the extra stuff if you know what to look for.

Basic html examples:
For more instances this is a great source http://www.ncsu.edu/it/edu/html_trng/basic_commands.html 

<p> causes a line break and adds a trailing blank line for paragraphs, to end a paragraph use this at the end </p>

<br> causes a line break with no trailing blank line if you just want to bring something down one line

This is a <b>boldface</b> tag.
This is how boldface appears.

This is an <i>italic</i> tag.
This is how italics appear

After those few things it's all pretty easy if you take things in steps. If you try to do everything all at once it is very overwhelming! Here are a few other things to think about:

Domain names and hosting: Match your domain with your brand. Most hosting companies can help with your domain name, but be sure to get a hosting company that has real people working there so you can talk to someone if you need help.

Branding: Use the same colors, logos, design (if possible) in all other areas like Facebook, Twitter, Etsy, Blog etc. This way the customers are used to seeing the same things and will know it's YOU!

Image: Decide what kind of image you want to portray to the world, what kind of customers do you want, what do you want the customer to feel when they see your front page? Do you want them to read or buy? Think of things like that to help put together what your image will be in their eyes.

Photos: Invest in a good camera and photo editing program, it really makes a difference in the quality of the picture and what your customer sees. Etsy has some great write ups on photography. A picture REALLY is worth a thousand words!

Image names: If you are selling products and you have a LOT, be sure to start using a good image naming system so that you can find the pics when you need to. I use the manufacturer's product code along with a prefix that I assign to them. Example: BI-BS202 -  which is used for the image and the item code. Image management can be time consuming if you don't have some organization in the beginning.

Organize products: Do an outline or spreadsheet to help decide how to organize your products so the customer will have an easy time finding what they want. You may change your mind later, but if you have an outline in the beginning it makes it easy to know what you have, how products might work with each other as cross selling, etc.

Product Descriptions: You can do it however you want, but I think it should be fairly short. When people are shopping on the internet they usually know what they want and will only skim your descriptions.

Security: Make sure your site is secure from hackers, malware, and that encryption is high so there is no risk of your customers information getting into the wrong hands.

Marketing: In my opinion pay per clicks are a waste of money unless you have the time to sit and really figure out how the company presents your ads. I think Facebook, email marketing and good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are your best bet. Word of mouth is the best advertising of all!

Gari Anne, thank you SO much for sharing all of these great tips!!  I for one know next to nothing about html and really appreciate you taking the time to explain some of the basics.  Your website looks really great!  Check it out:  Bead Lover's Korner website, Bead Lover's Korner blog, and Bead Lover's Korner on Etsy.  Whew!  =)

Next week, we welcome back AJ from ErtheFae's Meandering Thoughts for another installment of ErtheFae's Faerie Lore.