Setting up a free websiteNOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK!

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HSE Community Games

Why does your Area/County need its

own website?

Well, in fact it doesn’t! We have set up www.communitygames.ie to host pages for Counties –i.e.: www.communitygames.ie/kildare and by sending emails to sinead@communitygames.iewith photos, calendars and your news we can update your County page

However, setting up your own website is EASY, FREE (practically – it’s about €10 euro a year to register a domain name) and a great way to SHARE your stories and ENCOURAGE more people to volunteer at your events.

You would have total control over what to share and when to share it (as long as you adhere to our Data Protection Policy and Privacy Statement)

On a personal level: You can add it to your list of Achievements and help hundreds of children in your Area know about and participate in Community Games events - which as we all know is a great way to help kids make new friends and form healthy lifelong habits

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Just how difficult is it to set up a website?

It’s always a challenge starting something new but I promise you that it’s more than

doable

If you know how to save files and drag and drop then you can create a website

You don’t need to be overly ambitious at first – 4/5 pages is enough at the beginning –

you can always add pages, and more importantly you can delete pages if you have

to!

HOME, ABOUT, EVENTS, PHOTOS and CONTACT are 5 good pages to start with

You don’t need to be too arty – the good thing is that what I am about to show you is

all done on templates – you just choose the one you want!

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Step 1 – Pen and Paper

Start with a pen and paper and decide what you want to share on your website.

How many pages do you want? What information do you want to share with your

Area? What colours would you like it to be? What are the names of your pages

Talk to members of Community Games in your areas – what do they want to see on

your webpage? Would they be able to contribute stories and photos to help build

your website?

Timetable some time each week to update it – an out of date website is no good.

One hour would suffice (an update could be a link to a news item in a newspaper or

a quick blog)

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Step 2 – Getting Started

Choose a FREE website creator online for example:

www.wix.com

www.weebly.com

For the purpose of this demonstration I will be using www.weebly.com

Choose a name for your website i.e.: www.kinvaracommunitygames.ie

Ask your treasurer for €10 euro to register this domain

NB – You don’t HAVE to have a domain name and can in fact use a free domain name

but it is good practice and better for SEO if you do have one

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Step 2 – Getting started

Go to www.weebly.com . Choose: “Sign up Free”

and enter your name, email and a password.

Once you have done this you can log on

whenever you want at the top right hand corner

It will now ask you “What’s the

Focus of Your Site?”, choose “Site”

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Step 3 – Getting started

Now you get to choose a theme. There

are hundreds to choose from and you

can customise and change them in the

future, without affecting your content –

ie.: instantly updating your website

Click into the theme you want and

choose the colour scheme. Then click

“Choose”

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Step 3 – Getting started

You will now be asked to Choose your Website

Domain. Choose the first option for the moment

“use a subdomain of Weebly.com” I will show you at

a later stage what to do when you register your

domain (at a cost of €10 annually about).

At this point, I would suggest you watch

the video! It’s very short. Then go to

“Build my Site”

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Step 3 – Getting Started

Go to www.godaddy.com and

search for the domain you want

If your domain is available simply choose

“continue to cart” (ignore all extras!)

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Step 4 – Building your Website

You are ready to start

entering content and building

your website!

You will see that there are 5

tabs across the top – Build,

Design, Pages, Store, Settings.

The main ones you will use are

Build and Pages

In this image we are in “Build

Mode”

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Step 4 – Building your website

When you are in Build Mode you can directly

edit any pages you have set up by clicking on

them.

You simply drag from the left hand side to the

right hand side – you can enter text, contact

forms, columns, photos, maps – anything you

want!

When you type in text a grey box will appear

above it to edit it.

Probably the most important thing in this grey

box is the hyperlink symbol! You use this to link

to other page, websites or email addresses or

to download forms.

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Step 4 – Building your website

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When you are in Pages Mode you can create

and edit new Pages

Choose Add Page and then the type of

page (I always choose Standard Page)

Then type a name in the right hand column

Choose the Page Layout – the “No Header”

one is the best except for the Home Page

If you don’t want the page to appear along

the top choose Hide page in Navigation

Menu (you can always uncheck it if at a later

date you want it to appear

Click Save and Edit

Practising what is Preached

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I am now going to create a 3-page

website from scratch in less than 10

minutes!

Step 4 – Make sure you adhere to Data

Protection Laws

The laws on Data Protection are quite strict

Your website needs to have a Data Protection Policy - we have one on our website

that you can use: www.communitygames.ie/policies

Do not put up pictures of children with their full names and/or addresses – i.e: you

can put up a picture of a girl playing Ptich and Putt with the tite: “Ciara in full swing”

but you cannot caption the same photo “Ciara Buckley, from Cappoquin playing

Golf” Make sure the pictures focus on the sport/activity and not the children

Do not put up pictures of children in Leotards or swimming togs – unless the focus is

again on the sport

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Step 5 – Publish and SEO

www.weebly.com makes it very easy to publish and update your website.

When you are in build mode on the website there is a button on the top

right corner called “Publish”. Simply click it and your website is live!

When you create a new page or update a page you can put a link on

your facebook page to let people know

SEO – This is simply making your page visible when people search for it on

search engines – weebly makes this very simple for you – simply go to

settings and put in your title, description and tag words (meta tags) -

these are words you think people will use when searching for your website

i.e: Kinvara Community Games, Sports in Galway, Children Activities etc.

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You are now a WEBMASTER!

It really is as easy as that.

Play around with it

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes – you can easily delete or edit something

Get feedback – ask people to test it out for you, sometimes a link might not be working

properly or some things might be spelled incorrectly

If you need any help or have any questions – email me: sinead@communitygames.ie

Weebly have lots of www.youtube.com tutorials as well

We look forward to seeing your website live and are happy to link to it from our website!

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Resources

www.weebly.com - create your website

www.ipiccy.com – edit your photos for free

www.clippingmagic.com – photoshop images (VERY easy to take out

backgrounds – but it does cost 2 euro a month)

www.google.ie/analytics/ - for Search Engine Optimisation

www.godaddy.com – this is for registering your domain. Just search for a

domain name and purchase it for about €10 annually. When you go back

to the SETTINGS tab in weebly you can now choose to publish your site to

this domain name ie.: www.kinvaracommunitygames.com

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