"Weebly lets you create a smart looking website in just
a few hours - perfect for showing off a hobby."
It's great fun having your own website dedicated to a hobby
or collection you love, and it's a fantastic way to share your passion with
like-minded people anywhere in the world!
Building your website using Weebly couldn't be easier - it's
the simplest website-building platform we've ever used, and it's incredibly
powerful. Did we mention it's free as well? No wonder over 10 million people
and businesses use it!
I'm confident you'll love the drag-and-drop style builder,
which makes it a cinch to add text, photos, maps and videos by simply dragging
and dropping them into place. There are over 100 professionally designed themes
for you to choose from when deciding on the look for your website. You can
customise whichever theme you pick, so you're left with something that's smart
looking and unique to your site.
Sign up
Head to www.weebly.com and type your name, email address and
a password in the box on the right. Verify that you're human (not a program
that signs up for accounts automatically) by typing the code shown. You'll get
an email from Weebly, which contains your username, a link for resetting your
password, and links to the Weebly Support Portal and blog. Keep this email
safe.
Name your domain
Weebly will now ask for a title, which will be shown on your
website. From the Type of Site menu below, select 'Personal', then click 'Continue'.
A window will appear asking you to choose your website domain - select 'Use a
subdomain of weebly.com' and type whatever you'd like your URL to be - a red
cross mean it's taken, and a green tick means its available. Click 'Continue'.
Theme your site
You'll now be taken to the Weebly editor. Before we start
making the site, we need to decide how we want it to look. Click the 'Design' tab
at the top and then select 'AII themes' from the menu on the left. Browse
through the themes, clicking the orange 'Preview theme' button for a better view
until you find one you want to use, then click the 'Use theme' button.
Perfect the basics
Now you can get your site's title and banner looking good.
Click 'Design > Design options > Site title 'to change the look of the
text. To personalise your banner, hover your cursor over it, then click 'Edit
image' and select the cross to delete it. Click 'Add image' from the top left,
choose a photo from your PC and click 'OK'. Position the image, then use the
tools on top to add effects.
Design your homepage
Your homepage is the first thing people will see, so you'll
probably want to add some information about you and your hobby, and perhaps
some images. Click the'Elements'tab, then drag and drop the text and photo
boxes into your page and move them around until you're happy. Add pictures as
in Step 4 and either type text straight in, or copy and paste it from
elsewhere.
Add more pages
Now that your homepage looks the way you want, it's time to
add some more pages. Click the 'Pages' tab at the top of the page, then click 'Add
page > New page'. Now type the new page's name in the Page Name bar and
click 'Save settings'. Your new page will now be visible in the navigation bar
on your homepage. Repeat this process until you have all the pages you want.
Populate your pages
Now you've made all of the pages you want at the moment, you
can go through them and drag and drop the different design elements into them,
as in Step 5. Click on the 'Multimedia' menu in the top left and you'll be
presented with a whole new set of drag and drop elements, including a photo
gallery, slideshow and YouTube video clips - just click and drag these into
place.
Add a blog
Add a blog page to your site and you'll be able to add quick
updates about your collection or hobby. For example, you might want to add a
post if you've seen something cool online or are part way through fixing a car.
Click the 'Pages' tab at the top of the page, click 'Add blog' then click 'Save
settings'. On your blog page, simply click the orange 'New post' tab to add updates.
Optimise for search
To make sure people can find your website though search
engines, you need to do some SEO work. Click the 'Settings > Search engine
optimisation (SEO)', then give your site a description - for example: radio
control cars: racing, fixing, collecting. In the Meta Keyword box add words
that describe what your site is about - for example: cars, RC, off road and so
on.
Make it live
Now you've made your own website to show off your hobby, the
only thing left to do is make it live! Click the orange 'Publish' button on the
top right of the tool bar at the top of the page. Choose 'Use a subdomain of Weebly.com
> Continue' and you're all done. You now have a fully customised website
with multimedia, a blog and a range of pages - well done!
No comments:
Post a Comment