Is it fair to fire your website guy or gal this Christmas?

Dec. 13, 2010 - PRLog -- At 10am on a Saturday morning there was a good turn-out for this presentation. About 25-30 people squeezed into an upstairs room at the AIKB offices in Goureac to watch Sadie-Michaela Harris demonstrate how easy it can be nowadays, even for absolute beginners, to design, build, and host a professional-looking website on the internet.

Sadie covered the three main steps involved in getting a website online. First, she briefly explained how to register an internet domain, recommending the American company Dynadot as being inexpensive and reliable. Next, she moved on to the question of web hosting: whilst it is typically possible to purchase hosting as well as domain names from the same company, her advice is to use a different company for each to avoid having "all your eggs in one basket". To that end, she recommended another American company for web hosting called HostGator

In common with most (though not all) web hosting companies, HostGator provide their customers with a simple-to-use configuration interface called cPanel that allows you to set up your web server by ticking boxes and clicking buttons. In addition, they include the "Fantastico" service which automates the installation of website building applications, notably the WordPress blogging software. As Sadie observed, one of the amazing things about all these pieces of software is that they are entirely free to use.

Obviously people are free to choose whichever domain name registration and hosting companies they prefer: Sadie's main recommendation was that you pick one which offers cPanel and Fantastico.

Sadie then spent some time on the main part of the presentation which was to give a demonstration of how to build a simple but attractive website in only a few minutes by using WordPress. She showed how the page design is done for you by simply choosing one of the enormous number of WordPress "themes" which are essentially design templates into which you add your own content: text, images and even videos. As she also demonstrated it's even possible subsequently to redesign your entire website in a few moments by choosing a different theme. Since WordPress was originally designed for bloggers, it provides excellent support for including a blog (or "online diary") on your website. However, it is equally well adapted for creating ordinary "static" web pages.

Sadie also spent some time explaining the importance of "SEO" or "Search Engine Optimisation". In other words, methods you can employ to ensure your website will be prominently displayed when people conduct searches on Google and other web search engines. Again, WordPress helps by offering various "plugins" (add-ons which enhance the basic functions of the software) that can automatically improve your site's search engine visibility.

Overall it was a very informative and thought-provoking presentation which was greatly appreciated by the attendees.

Review by Charles Wiles
The AIKB - Association Intégration Kreiz Breizh is a non-profit making Association. Set-up in accordance with French law in 2003 with the aim of helping ‘newcomers’ to settle into their new life in Brittany.

Sadie-Michaela Harris is a Relocation and Integration Specialist working with businesses and individuals. She is a Keynote Speaker and Social Media consultant  based in France
http://lifestyle-management.eu/business-to-business

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