Website Advice Corner!

[Susie Blackman]

I was asked the other day why do I need a website - I said to promote your business, umm keep in contact with family umm I fumbled  and thought, I really don't know why. They understood I was new to this and I said I would definately find out why.Please help with suggestions thanks Susie.

[RachelB]

I think the main answer to this, is that in this day and age a website is a must.

Since the website obtained from GDI is a personal one, and can be used for anything, this should be taken as a huge opportunity for any project the prospect may have had in mind.

Business (Gdi and/or any other)
Family (staying in contact as a lot of families are dispersed. A chance to show latest photos and more to share with family)
Personal (any other personal motivation)

I guess its all in the way you put it across that really matters.

Hope this helps

Rachel Bouchet

[Nicole Taylor]

Hi Susie,

The possibilities are endless! A Website can be used for anything!

They could use it to promote many affiliate programs and have multiple streams of income coming in or they can use it for something personal. No matter what it's being used for, they can always make money with it.

Nicole

[mack88]

Hello Susie!

Just as everyone has stated...the possibilities are endless!  I just finished visiting another Member's site and hope she does not mind me sharing this.  She addressed the same topic on her site:  http://awebsite.ws

Feel free to contact her if needed!

Frank

[RodB]

I wrote this in 1999 

Reasons to have a website
GOOD REASONS
You want to sell something.
You want an online brochure.
You want to provide backup for your customers.
You want to provide information to some interested party

BAD REASONS
It’s the 20th Century and everyone else has one.
My son/daughter says we should have one.
The IT department or marketing says we need a website – but they cannot tell you why.

[GayannaMagcosta]

Here are a few ideas that are missing:

An online resume for prospective employers.

A place to share a favorite hobby or special interest with others

An online listing of your OWN favorite web sites so you have bookmarks
of your favorite sites whereever you may log-on to the Internet.

A place to create a family newsletter.

A place to post a family calendar so anyone in your family can log-in
and see who is doing what when and add their own schedule.

A place to post your artwork or writing.

A place to refer your friends and family to your own movie reviews,
restaurant reviews, gift ideas.

If you have an online business that requires downline building,
you can take the lead and create a web site to support your growing team.

A place to host a virtual garage sale!

The uses for a web site are endless and limited only by your own imagination.

[RodB]

I have no idea if I am preaching to the converted but I have seen quite a few black background sites from GDI members. They are normally dramatic and use white and red text. There are several problems with this.

1)White on black will not print as the text is white.
2)Red and black are the same color for color blind people. So your site is useless to at least 10% of your viewers.

You should consider an offwhite color and yellow as texts on black backgrounds.
Always put critical links in yellow or offwhite so that they can be seen and people can print out the page to call you later.

[gdi]

Thank you, RodB.

Image is so important and let's be sure to utilize our collective
resources to assist each other excel.

Also, Attention all Members, the WebSite Development Board
is a great place to Posts your tips and ideas. Be sure your subject
is such that others can join in with their replies. Let's start some
threads, much like those you find in Marketing, where it is a 'one-stop'
tutorial!

Chip

[Deborah H]

I have black for my background and couldn't see any way to change the text color using site-builder. You points are good ones. Had no idea about the color blind people.
Thank You,
Deborah H

[Shawn Johnson]

Hello, does anybody know of a way to change the background black via html on the templates that have white backgrounds? I tried creating a body tag but it was a no go. Maybe it just isn't possible with the site builder? Thanks

[RodB]

?? There must be someway to alter the background and a body tag is only one way.
Another way is to use a style in the code.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">All your text</span> or <span style="background-color: #FFFF00;">All your text</span> should work fine

 A third way is to modify gdi's cascading style sheet. GDI's code guys love using the "span" tag. From memory their main .css file is called style1.css. Seeing as I am not allowed to post URLS look for an article called CSS Made Easy by Kevin Yank if you want to learn more. Also WDG has a list of all the industry standard CSS properties.

A final way is to insert a background color using the <bgcolor="red" or "blue" or "green"> tag or a background image or a tile image into a big table which will overide the body tag.

[Deborah H]

Oh dear,
Every bit of that was GREEK to me. Much as I'd love to do this. Being brain damaged in the html area is a handicap.
 
Deborah H

[Tatjana Prelog]

Rod, you made a good point as always. I have one black page, but it has to be a bit dramatic though I have the red letters on it, too! Not only that they're the same for color blind people, they are print unvisible in black/white technique, too.

Well, Deborah, I'm a bit late here but maybe I can still help.

Try to edit your text by changing the content from text into html. There you have all the designer options as you would do it with Word. Click the design button below (frist from the left under the form) and edit your text by marking it all or as much as you wont to be different colour, press the font color button and choose the color. That way you also can choose the size of the text, layout, appearence and interface. You can also choose the type of fonts you want to use - all in all the possibility are almost the same as you would do it in Word! I suggest you do a hidden test page (acording to what I've seen on your webpage, you still have a lot of space) and play a bit with all this, test all the possibilities and only after that use all this on your shown webpages.

Well I hope it helps!

Tatjana
 

[Julie Wallis]

I've been playing around with the new site builder and can't decide which size text is the better one to use.
Most of my site is in the smaller text but I was thinking about using a larger one to make it easier to read.

www.harleytours.ws

The page I have been testing the larger text on is the Xmas paty Plans
but wonder if it is tool large.

I would love some opinions on which is the better size to use.

Julie

[mack88]

Hello Julie!

Me personally, I like the smaller font size!  If you notice a huge majority of sites on the net use the same as what you are using.  Now in some cases, larger sizes are used, but only to draw attention to a particular subject or area!

Have a great day!

Frank

p.s.  Maybe you should of initiated a poll on the topic.....