What is the best software for helping you to build your website?
I suggest ranking by best user interface, ease of adding/uploading text, images, videos, etc., easy to understand instructions.
For the more experienced among us, what is best for the beginner? Please join in with your suggestions for this and other topics. What does anyone think of the idea of setting up a page for the main 3 or 4 programmes, such as Wordpress, Dreamweaver, etc., where hints and suggestions could be added?
Have you any info on the age groups, countries, interest, etc?
Anyone who wants help in producing a site, a logo and/or graphics, please contact me.
Also reposted from the wall.
I have posted a video in my new Social Media Group. The video is about how social media is changing significantly how you should think about reaching your target audience. Please see video here.
I hope when you're there that you will also take the opportunity to join this new group.
I have reposted this from the forum wall to this discussion thread where I believe it should have been posted in the first place.
Hi Sheila,
this is a rather comprehensive matter to start discussing on a lovely Saturday afternoon :)
Here are a few stats about Facebook
- 800 mullion users
- 84% use Facebook everyday
- 58% has 'liked' a Facebook Page (Facebook for business)
You can have a website and make it SEO friendly with all the right keywords. However, unless you constantly ad content it will remain static. A Facebook Page on the other hand will not be static as you should always add content. Having all your friends like the page is fine however unless they are willing to like, comment on or share new content it really doesn't matter.
Having a SEO friendly website is only one part of SEO - namely on-page optimisation. You would also need off-site optimisation which would include link building, press releases, articles etc. etc. This is where blogging comes in. If your blog is part of your website then each new blog counts as fresh content on your website and helps the rankings.
Your Facebook Page will also helps as it links to your website for example.
Google search really only plays one role which is to provide the searches with the 'sites' with the most relevant current content. If that's a Facebook Page then that Page will rank at the top. I have seen Facebook Pages on page one of Google.com.
Social media helps your off-page optimisation tremendously.
Yes, people also search in social media for information.
Social Media Marketing Strategy involves engaging people on online social networks to generate exposure, increase traffic, improve search rankings, build strong brand advocates, generate quality leads and grow sales.
You can find more information on my blog and my Facebook Page.
I hope this helps.
Jorgen
ps. Given the very narrow topic of this group I have just created a social media group to cover all social media topics.
hi everybody. if only dropping in a few words in another language, perhaps french into english, wordpress is great because it accepts the old DOS codes (code sheet 850 multilingual (Latin I) for instance) so that you basically type in english but when you need an accent such as á then you only need to press Alt and type 160 to get the character. one or two softwares I have tried do not like changing language too much and certainly do not like the old dos codes, so because I am nearly always going to have two to begin with and may go up to six, wordpress tends to be head and shoulders in the lead. designwise it is bog standard too, so given that people try to be too clever and produce a few things the dog might have thrown up in their enthusiasm it contains us a bit which has many advantages.
Despite our gite/courses site being mainly in English all our clients last yera were French and Spanish. However, I am redesigning the site so it that will have three separate buttons on the home page to enable visitors to click through to the appropriate language section. With Moonfruit basic package of 12€ a month you get 5 websites so that may solve the problem. 20€ and you get 10. This is the best offer I have found as it also gives you 2 domaine names and links to Facebook which I guess would mean on the French Facebook site as well and direct links to Twitter. These prices include domain name registration, a years hosting and e mail.
It's easy to have a bilingual website, I have two directories /en and /fr with two sets of pages. Default language is English but French will be displayed if it detects user is using French.
My worry is whether this is the best thing from a SEO perspective so am currently considering leaving the French version on the .fr domain and moving the Englisg content to a .com domain.
I also have a Wordpress site that is in 2 languages, each post is in both languages.
There may not be one exact answer to this. Also it depends what your service provider will offer. Some will offer you the option to have a shadow or sub-domain, so aside from the cost of a year's hosting for one domain, all you would have to pay for would be registration of a second domain name. At the moment, I am paying for hosting for my French domain, and have a separate account for the English domain because the English domain was set up primarily to market my husband's paintings.
Hopefully, as Neil suggested, maybe a member with more knowledge will be able to help here.
In fact I want to have a website in French and English as I am planning to set up as an autoentrepreneur and want to attract clients in France and in English speaking countries, which is why I asked this question
I have .com for our gite/holiday courses site when it was set up 10 years ago and .eu for my design site. I think if you have .fr people would expect the site to be in French. .com at the beginning was seen as mainly American but I don't know how it is perceived now. As I wrote before, maybe having words in French on the home page will get the search robots to register on French sites plus the meta tags in French but maybe someone with more knowledge here can give more information on this.
If you want both French and Anglophone visitors to your website, should you have a .com or a .fr domain?
Thanks Neil. There's a little SEO plug-in for Wordpress which I have installed, and will look at putting some meta tags in French language. Will have a look at duckduckgo this evening.
No restriction on the graphics i.e jpg and png files. Incidently, I am using duckduckgo.com rather than Google for searches as I'm fed up with all the ads and other stuff.
Meta tags in French is the answer plus some words or even a separate page. I am redesigning our Breakaway site with separate English, French and Spanish sections. If you really want to cover all the bases register your site in all the domains, if available.
Thanks Steve. Will have a look into it.
You probably wouldn't have to have it in French if you were happy to do the install yourself. I have 1 site on 1+1France that uses Wordpress in English but I can't remember how I did the install.It isn't that difficult in any case.
Hi Steve. Went for the Irish one because I was already doing business with them and good a good deal, including Wordpress and Plesk. However, will most definitely consider a .fr domain. After all, first booking received through .fr would more than pay for a year's hosting costs. Presume that means I would have to use Wordpress in French? No problem, once I get the hang of it in English first! :-)
Actually a lot of hosting companies now offer 1 click Wordpress installation for free or a small fee.
Only limitation in the graphics you use is making sure their size/proportions fit the template you want to use.
Why didn't you gor for a .fr domain if you want to attract French visitors ? It's not just the Search Engines, a lot of French people will click on a .fr in preference to a .com
Steve
Thanks for that Neil. I'm already using a hosting company from Ireland who already hosted Henry's page, but I selected a .com rather than a .ie, so hopefully my new site will be found by French people searching on Google.fr. Bizarrely, having spent a couple of days adding content, images, etc., when I searched on Google - THERE I WAS - 5th in the list but 2nd if you discount the paid for links in the pink part, but it was my Facebook page for the business, not the website. Onwards and upwards. Just wonder if using Wordpress and a template restricts what kind of graphics you can use?
I have used Rapidweaver for many years to build sites from scratch but have recently found moonfruit.com that can register your domain, host your site and provide e mail as well as templates all in one package. Wordpress is extremely good and flexible but can be confusing and, I think, is over specified for straightforward sites. You have to find a hosting service first then download the software. Others I think worth considering are virb.com and wix.com. A link to an overview of free site builders: www.beautifullife.info/web-design/15-best-free-website-builders/#more-4493
All of these are template based with customisation features but the way to make your site stand out is original graphics and photos.