Who should attend the Webshop?

This program is designed to provide a web site solution for small businesses, entrepreneurs, professionals and companies in need of a site that they control without spending an arm and a leg. You won’t magically become a “web developer”, in fact, you won’t be doing any web development. This course will walk you through connecting a series of tools that when combined in the right way, leveraging the right features, delivers an ideal solution for any small business.

You don’t need any special software to install and configure your site along with the guidance on the projected monitor. Ideally, as an attendee, you will follow along and complete the installation and configuration of the elements during the course, even though you do have the option of taking notes to complete the steps of the program on your own schedule.

At the end of the day, the look of your new site will be professional and contain your brand and basic content, such as, About Us, Services, Contact Us, a couple pages to get you started. You will likely add more content later and maybe even make some design element tweaks down the road, whether on your own or with the help of a designer. None the less, the solution that you will have in place will be a foundation to build upon.

more about who this workshop is for, and not for…

How hard is the process?

How hard is the "easy" Webshop?Once you have the answers you need and know this website workshop is for you, you will need to plan to attend yourself, or delegate attendance to a qualified member of your team. Here are a few comforts that the Webshop attendee should have to get full benefit:

  1. with the laptop computer you intend to use at the event.
  2. with the internet and using your browser. (ideally Firefox)
  3. with making online purchases.
  4. with downloading and accessing or opening files from the internet to your computer.
  5. with using web-based applications, like web-based email, Google, YouTube, other web systems and Facebook.

These skills and exposures will help you, or the person you select to attend the Webshop on your behalf, feel at home in the CMS, domain registration, configurations and web based downloads and installations.

What to bring with you?

If you want to follow along on a laptop to participate as the program is intended, here are a few ways to prepare beforehand to make the most of your experience on the day of the event:
Laptop, mouse, power cord, etc...

  1. Have a familiar laptop that has a working power adapter and WIFI connectivity.
  2. If you have a pre-typed About Us page and Contact Info that can be pasted in to pages it will avoid wasting any workshop time on data entry.
  3. If you have them, bring a few supporting images in digital form on your computer.
  4. If you an existing logo, bring it in a vector format if possible, or a transparent PNG. If you don’t have a logo we’ll use a word mark initially and you can easily import it later using the workshop instruction.
  5. Install the latest Firefox web browser for browser consistency during the onscreen walk-through. (firefox.com)
  6. If you already have a domain that you want to use see below to make sure you have access as needed.
  7. Bring a note-taking supplies to help you retain URLs, user names, passwords and other information related to the several online accounts we’ll be creating.
  8. Make sure you’ll have an active credit or debit card on hand to charge $50-$60 for domain and hosting as needed. (This will be a web based transaction.)
  9. Lastly, for this list anyway, be sure to remember your power adapter.

When is domain registration required?

If you don’t have a domain for your business already, we will be walking you through the process. If you want to search your desired domain to see if it is available you may do so here at path-seeker.com. You will be walked through the registration of your preferred domain(s) at the Webshop. You don’t have to register it in advance, but you should show up with some ideas.

If you have a domain already, we can usually work with that. There are a few things that you will need to have on hand to make use of a previously registered domain.

  1. You need to be the owner of the domain.
  2. Access to the account with the registrar where the domain is registered. (i.e. path-seeker.com, names.com, internic.com, godaddy.com, etc.)
  3. Administrative permissions on the above registrar account, for the purpose of conrolling the DNS settings of the domain.
  4. The willingness to point the domain to this new site during the setup phase of the Webshop. This will likely take offline any other site on this domain.

There are a few situations that will cause you to not be able to use a domain for the Webshop, in which case you can register a new domain to use at the Webshop.

  1. You don’t own the domain you want to use.
  2. You can’t get access to the account where the domain is registered.
  3. You can’t get the necessary assistance or access information from a 3rd party that is currently in control of your desired domain.
  4. Your current site, even though being rebuilt, cannot come off line, no matter what.

Keep in mind, even if you are effected by one of the above situations and you setup a site on a temporary domain at the Webshop, you can still change the domain later without starting over. It’s a pretty basic settings change, so don’t let it slow you down. A temporary domain will cost $20 and will give you ownership for 1 year from the date of registration to get moved into your permanent domain before having to renew the temporary domain for another year. Domains are registered and renewed in 1 year increments.