Free Web Design Advice

Yes, it is true AND it is free.  You have nothing to loose.

If you want to do your own website, quickly and affordable, consider using Blogger to do so.

Are blogger sites cool?  You be the judge.

Blogger Site

Building a website with Blogger is easy.  (Why Blogger?)

1.  GET AN ACCOUNT:  Go to www.blogger.com and sign up.
(If you already have a google or gmail account, all you have to do is log in.)

2.  NAME YOUR BLOG:

1. Give it whatever title you want, probably your business name. (You can change it later.)
2. Pick a blog address (This can be tough.  A lot are taken.  Don’t worry, you can get your own domain name later.)

3. CHOOSE A STARTER TEMPLATE :
You have eight designs to choose from.  (You can change them later without having to start over.)

4. START BLOGGING!

Don’t be afraid to play around and click on all the tabs.  You won’t hurt anything.  EXPLORE!  PLAY!

Here’s even a short video about the process:

ABOUT YOUR SITE:

You have the option to make posts and pages.

POSTS are like news articles.  You will by default have links to them from your side bar navigation.

PAGES are like… well, pages.  You will have links to them at the top or left, depending on where you want them.

As a suggestion, you might want to make these kinds of pages:  About Us, Services, Products, Contact Us, etc.  Provide images and test for these pages.

Regarding your POSTS, you can categorize your posts by “tagging” them.  This might be good if you sell products or services that are easily categorized.  You can tag each post according to the category it goes in.  Don’t worry.  It will get easier.  We plan to offer some video tutorials on this.

WIDGETS:
Be sure to play with adding “widgets” to the side bar.

When you are done setting up your site, you can get a domain name and point it to your new site.
HERE ARE STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS >>

Once you have your blogger account set up and you are ready to go live, you may want to get your own domain name and point it to your Blogger account.  We recommend you get your domain name at www.panthercitywebsource.com.    (They have good sales.)

After you have purchased your domain name, it’s easy.  Print out this post and follow the directions below.

1. Log in to your Panther City Web Source account.
2. Click on “Domain Manager” in the left navigation.
3. Click the on your domain name. 
4. At the bottom of the next page, look for the area that says “DNS”.  It will look like this.  Click “launch”.
   
5. EDIT THE A-NAME RECORD
   In the top section (A Record), you will hover over the IP address (next to the @ symbol) and click on the pencil icon.  Change the IP address to:  216.239.32.21.  Change the TTL to 1/2 hour.
   
6. You are not done.  Click on the “add new” button.
   - Put @ in the first box ,
   - Put 216.239.34.21 in the second box,
   - Change the TTL to 1/2 hour.
7. You are not done.  Click on the “add new” button.
   - Put @ in the first box ,
   - Put 216.239.36.21 in the second box,
   - Change the TTL to 1/2 hour.
8. You are not done.  Click on the “add new” button.
   - Put @ in the first box ,
   - Put 216.239.38.21 in the second box,
   - Change the TTL to 1/2 hour. This is what it should look like:
   
9. Click on the big button that says “Save Zone File.”, Click OK, Click OK.
10. EDIT YOUR C-NAME RECORD
    Now you are ready to change the “C Name” record.
11. Scroll down the page and you will see the section for “C Name”.
12. At the very bottom is a line associated with “www”.  Hover over the domain name and click on the pencil icon.  Replace the domain name with:  ghs.google.com
13. Change the TTL to 1/2 hour.  This is what it should all look like.
    
14. Click on the big button that says “Save Zone File”.  Click OK.  Click OK.
15. UPDATE BLOGGER
    Almost done! At this point, you have a domain name, and the DNS servers know to direct people to Google when they want to see your blog. But Google hosts lots of blogs, so we have to make sure the right one is associated with your domain. You’ll do this on the  Settings | Publishing tab for your blog in Blogger.
16. Log in to your blogger and click on the Settings tab.
17. Click on the “Publishing” tab.
18. You will see this:
    
    Click on “Custom Domain”.
19. You will see this:
    
    Click on “Switch to Advanced Settings”
20. Enter your domain where it says:  Your Domain.
    
21. Ignore the radio button about “missing files”.
22. Fill in the Word Verification.
23. Click “Save Settings”.
24. One last thing.  On the results page after saving, be sure to click the box where is says something like this:
    

All Done!

“But I don’t want a blog; I want a website,” or so you think.  But, the truth is, many, many sites (even big corporate sites) are moving to blogging software for web site development.

Why Blogger?

Blogger is FREE!

All you need is to get a Google account and you can get started.

Blogger has awesome designs to choose from.

Look at this short video on their template designer!

Blogger allows you to have “pages” (like “about us”) and post “articles” (or “posts” as they call them.)  You can tag you posts with any topic title and there categorize all your posts, sort of like Category pages on a traditional website.

Blogger is fast!

By making just a few posts, you can have a website done in about a day.

Blogger lets you add media to your page.

In your posts/pages, you can easily add video, audio or other media.  Or maybe you want to embed a youtube video.  You can do all that and more.

Blogger allows you to point your domain name to your page.

WE GIVE YOU DETAILED INFORMATON ON THAT HERE.

Blogger is Search Engine friendly.

Blogger is run by Google so, of course.

DID WE MENTION IT IS FREE?  What do you have to lose?

Four Easy Steps to Getting a Website with BLOGGER >>

After you build out your Blogger Site, it will be time to make it live your your own domain name.  HERE HOW YOU GET A DOMAIN NAME AND POINT IT TO BLOGGER.