Make a KILLER Website in 20 Minutes!

1. Getting Started: having a website for your business or for your personal projects is a way to add credibility and reliability to the first impression for perspective clients. As a photographer, I use a website called Squarespace to design websites, and that's because it's super easy and painless. If you don't know any coating, that's completely fine, because with Squarespace, you don't need any professional coding experience. Any coding experience at all, actually. And so if making an easy website is what you want to do, either professionally or just for yourself. This is the class for you and this class. I'm gonna teach you the importance of a website and what it can add to your business, how easy it is to set up with score space and then after that, some promoting tips that you know how to get your website out there. Two people that want to see it well, without any further ado, let's get started and create a website in 15 minutes or less. 2. Setting Up & Getting Around: so welcome. What you're gonna need for this course is a laptop. That's basically it. Let's hop online and see what we can dio so right off the bat. If you look at their website squarespace dot com, you'll see you make your next website free trial. No credit card required. Get started. So this is where you want to start. So if you need a domain name and don't already have one, you can use their tool at the very top to type in an example domain. It's gonna put example domain 123 and you can see that you can actually buy the domain straight from Squarespace at really cheap rate per year. So that's a really great way to get started. But without even doing that. If we just go down here and click get started, we can see an example of all of their templates on their website. So all of these templates are basically designed for you to drag and drop your content so that you don't have to do any of the hard work. Some of the website layouts are completely already set out, and only have to do is drag and drop what you want. So the great thing about Squarespace is you have a variety of templates for whatever your business is. So, for example, say you're selling some items you can make an online store really easy. With all the templates that they have. You can just drag and drop whatever you have into the template. Same thing with if you're a musician, they have some templates for music. You can just drop in your event or your music and promote yourself that way. I'm a photographer, so let's start with photography. If you go ahead and click into it, you can kind of see what the template looks like. Personally, I like this one issue Moto. So let's go ahead and start with that one issue. Moto just hit. Start with Issue Moto. Welcome to your new squarespace sites. So a great welcome. You can add some example information. This will be good for your search engine optimization your s CEO like what is it? Is it for a personal site? They said, or I'm just gonna go ahead and skip this. You can do this on your own time. If you really need Teoh 3. Crafting Your Pages: All right. So we've already got set up with what it looks like right now. But if you want to change anything here is we're gonna go left side. We need this pan. So in the poll that says pages weaken, see the pages that are already added as demo is inconceivable. Great demo. Next to them, that means that we have to create a page like this in order to make this page. So let me show you how to do that. Go ahead and click on the menu. I'm an example. Create me so they create just like you're off to start. So what you need to do now is add your content. I've got some pictures on my computer, so let's go ahead and just drag those over easy as drag and drop. 123 These are going to go ahead and load up in populated page for us. Now, the name of the page. So this is gonna show that there's an air. But if we go back, refresh it. And as you can see, as those photos upload their already gonna popular for us. So that's a great thing. So after we go ahead and refresh our page. We can see what we have on it. So let's go ahead and click latest, and we'll see the page that's made for it. Bam! We already have something that looks a really professional right off that that I mean, it's kind of impressive if you maximize it, you can see this would look great if someone just went to your website and saw this right off the bat. So that's great already. But let's say you want some more pages. Well, clearly, you're gonna want an about page, so it's really easy to do that, especially with these templates that are already set up. So go ahead and hit about. That's gonna bring up the page and hit edit, edit the page content again. We have to create one because it's not going. Teoh. Allow us to edit the template unless we have a page made, so we'll remove the example content. You can use Getty images, but if you already have an image, which I believe I do have one of myself, I guess we'll just have to go with this one. Well hit Apply can write a little caption. I am a photographer from Denver. My name will be here. My name is in Denver. My name, Miss Storm. Go ahead, add my name there, Storm Pierce, and then a little bio about yourself. You can go ahead and type that in. So I've already added some information that I need for this. About Paige. I'm gonna go ahead and just hit saves. You can see what it looks like already. So now you've already got an about page and that's good to go. Now, let's say you're interested in making a gallery. For example, if we go over here and I show you what my website looks like already made from squarespace , you can see. Then I made a page with a bunch of galleries. These galleries kind of showcase my work, some past work that people can go ahead and see to see if we're a good fit and you can just see they have these titles Diesel scroll, herbal galleries. I really like that clean look. So here's how to make something like that. If you just want to showcase your work, getting over here and hit page and I'm gonna go ahead and put gallery, you can start with these layouts, which I'll show you what those look like. For example, this one has a little title photo or some media and then some text that you can edit as well as a social bloc, which you'll have to edit your social links. And there's other things like, for example, maybe a contact US page. You can go ahead and use that template to just go ahead and drag and drop what you want the text to say, and then this will send it to your email. You can even set up an email with Squarespace, but we're gonna go ahead and make that gallery page. Let's start with a blank one. It's start editing, and here's where it gets fun. This little icon right here, this bubble is your friend. It's gonna let you add text, quotes, images, video media, galleries, you name it. I mean, you can have anything you want. Let's go ahead and add text and we'll add a title. Some of my best work gonna go ahead and put that in the middle, and we're gonna change this to a headings that it's bigger and make it bold. Bam! All right, And then let's go ahead and at another bubble, and this one's gonna be our carousel gallery. Okay, so now that work in this bubble here we can upload our images. So I've got some images here that I've taken. Just gonna go ahead and drag these end. And as you can see, they're all going to start populating here. I'm gonna hit. Apply now, all those upload, I'm gonna add a little bit of information. So the information is going to be some of my best shots from 2016. Here's to another great year exclamation point. And we'll just wait for these top load here now, as soon as these upload, this block will start to populate. So let's go ahead and add one more gallery just so you can see the difference. That's a carousel can actually, at a grid or anything else you'd like. This grid is going to be, Let's just say for enlightening because that's right there. Go ahead and do that there and on top of the gallery. Blackwell at a text that says Lightning shots for inspiration. Man, I cannot type Go ahead and put that into the middle. Make that a heading as well make it bold. All right, now we'll just wait for everything to populate. If you're not seeing any of your work, go ahead and hit save, and that should refresh your page, and you can get a good idea of what it looks like. So now will view it in full screen and bam some of my best work. Click on it and you get to see some of the photos. There's, uh and then here's a little gallery on the bottom. Now the cool thing is, you can edit all of these things. So if we go ahead and and at this gallery, we can edit if there's like a little arrow to move around, the design of it up here automatically transition between slide show next previous controls . Where do you want the gallery to be? It apply. You can also change the gallery type right from here. So say you don't like the carousel anymore. You can make it a stack gallery, and that just adds all of the photos to a stack. So if you want it to kind of scroll down the page like that, then there you go. So we already now have a home page, as you can see, and an about page and a gallery page. So so far we're doing pretty good. Um, but say this is kind of bothering you. See how there's so many things up top and it kind of is cluttered. Let's say you don't want all of that right there, and let's say you don't want the about or the blawg to be there. If you go over to the left panel again, drag it down to not link. These are going to be the pages that are still available on your Web site, but they're just not linked up here. And so then, when you type it in, say somewhere else, you can add a link to that page. I would say we're on this page here. We want to add a link to the about page, Go ahead and hit the bubble go down content link, and we're gonna add about hit apply. And now when they go to this page, that can hit about, and that will take them to that page. So it's really easy to design this website, switch things around without having any coding experience. That's what I really like But let's say you want to sell some of your work. How can you do that? Let's get into it. 4. Making MONEY From Your Site!: so we want to sell some of our photos. How can you open up an online shop with Squarespace again? It's super easy. Let's go to this left pain again. Remain navigation in an products. New products. Let's just call it my products. Inter. It's gonna take us to the product page. Obviously, we have no products. What do we do? We can either click in the middle of the page or click the plus sign over there. Do you have physical products? Do you have digital products or do you have a service? I'm gonna go ahead and put digital. Let's say I want to sell some wallpapers so you're able to upload the image of your product . Let's say just this photo of these buildings here, I'm gonna call it building wallpaper. The price is going to be $15 normally, but it's on sale today only for $8. The file itself is what you're selling. So it's the high quality image. Additional information. This is a high quality. Let's just pretend that says quality image from Denver, featuring the skyline between trees perfect for your desktop. Let's, uh, we can add a form, which is they can fill this out and sign up if they need Teoh options. We need a thumbnail. We need what they're going to see so that they're interested in it. I'm gonna call this custom link my products slash Denver tree picture. It's a featured product save and publish. And now our products page. It's gonna have this product and let me show you what that looks like. Go to my products. Bam! There it is. $8 on sale. Click it and this is what your customer will see. Bam! I can buy this. It's a high wall ity image from Denver's featuring the skyline add to cart. And now I'm gonna buy this image. And now on going to be happy. This is a really easy way to keep your customers happy. There's no hassle. And it's super easy for you. So yeah, I'm gonna show you one more thing you can do on this website. And that's at a block. Uh, if you hit, create adding a bog, it's super easy. Go ahead and hit this plus sign. That's gonna add your first post my first post. I was so excited last week when I went to the Caribbean be in? I forgot how to spell that. Go ahead and click spellcheck at a block. Here are bubbles. Are our best friends here going to go ahead and out of video if you wanted to. You. I'm gonna go ahead and just add an image. Sorry, it's not in the Caribbean, but this image will be of something that looks pretty. Go ahead and hit. Apply this tag is going to be Caribbean 2017. Amazing trip category Travel Comments on published. Let's make sure this image saved. I don't think our fake image saved. Got to make sure that works. Here we go. Sometimes you do have to wait. Uh, you know, I get kind of excited sometimes, but all of a sudden we have this great block post Baba Baba, my first post. And just like that, you hear a whole set 5. Promotion + Class Wrap Up: to wrap up. I'd like to show you a couple things that you can do to make sure that your website is all said. So A few settings you'll want to know is your domain name. You can get a domain. You can use a custom. Domi. You can also set up an email account. You can connect an account or buy one. If you hit connect here. This will prompt you to create your own. So say your website name. Your new domain name is Michael website. Your new email account could be a storm at my cool website so that you can put that on a business card. The next thing you can do here is S e o. You really want good social search engine optimization. You can enter a description so that that's what pops up on Google title format. These are things for users that are heavy, but there's some tutorials on their website. If you really want to drive people to your website really well, there's blogging information. There's payments. Check out how you get paid things like that. Let me show you one more thing that you can do to make sure your website is personalized. So if you go into your settings here, if you go into settings and then you go down to connected accounts, go ahead and connect yourself a A or many social network accounts, because that way people will have your links on the bottom of your website as well. Now, the cool thing is, you have a 14 day trial for squarespace, so there's no hassle. You don't even have to enter a credit card. As you saw, I didn't enter any information, and you can even pace this site and posted on your socials. And people can see your site without having Teoh pay for anything. So that's great. A really great idea is to promote your site on every social network your have. I mean, if you have friends, if you have family, if you have neighbors, which all of us do share these with people that you know because it's the greatest way to skyrocket. Your engagement is to kind of, you know, slip it into the people that are already in your spear. So I hope that this tutorial was useful to you, and I'd really like to see some websites that you're able to create their really easy to do . We can probably do it in 20 minutes or less. Um and I'm just really interested to see what you come up with. So please post that in a project below. And if you have any questions, I'm also here to help you out, So thanks for watching.