Create a Good Website With Homestead
So you decided that you need a website for your business. The prices for a good website are high and in this economy its hard to pay $1,500 for a professional website that would appropriately represent your business to the new audience.
So here’s what you can do. Homestead offers some good plans for businesses like yours. For a small monthly fee you can have a professional website for your business, domain, and a great support.
Here is a little guide on how to build a website with no struggling. You don’t even have to be a programmer or a web-designer!
In this guide we will start with a free trial so you can follow along. Later on you’ll be able to upgrade to a paid service, if you would like to stay with them.
Step 1: Register for a free trial. In this step you’ll need to enter appropriate information in order to have account setup. Just fill out the fields. (Phone number is required)
Step 2: Choose the design that best represents your business theme. Browse by categories (on the right), and through pages (bottom).
Step 3: Preview your design. The text and images are just samples. You will be able to edit them later.
Step 4: Choose a domain name for your business. Check for availability. If it’s unavailable, try something else. Try to keep your domain address as simple as possible, so that it would be easier for your customers to remember it. You’re building a brand and online presence for your business. When done, click “Continue to website packages”
Step 5: Choose a package that would suit your needs. Don’t go too far right away. You will be able to upgrade anytime later.
Step 6: Complete registration. Don’t be afraid here. This is needed just to register your account. You are going for a free trial and you won’t be charged anything until your trial period is over. You’ll see your package options on the right. Make sure your billing and payment information is correct. NOTE: The promotion code might not work sometimes. you can just erase it and leave that field empty. You will still be registered for a free trial.
Step 7: Now you’re a registered website owner! Let’s go ahead and start editing your website. Click “Edit Site”. It’s the blue button under “Your Websites” section.
Step 8: You are a designer now! Make your website look as you would like it to be seen by your customers. (Now see the attached image for more help; see the highlighted area) The top left drop-down box lets you choose which page to work on. Click on any object that you would like to change. If you would like to change your logo, click on it, and in the right side panel you will see options. Choose if you want text or image; upload your own logo image. The tour box will walk you through the 6 steps on what you can do to edit your website. (If you want it to show up again, click “Help” in the right top corner of the page and choose “Take the tour”)
Step 9: Done? Time to publish! At the top panel press “Publish” (again, its the blue button). If the next message pops out asking to name your page, name your page something like “Joe’s Plumbing | San Francisco, CA 94255″ This will help you get a better visibility by search engines. Click “Publish”.
Step 10: Hooray! Your website is now published! A new window popped out and you see your website just as your customers will see it. At the top you can see how many visitors you already had since it was published(only you, as a owner can see the statistics), and you will also see your website address (highlighted in the attached image).
Step 11: Share with your friends! You can close or minimize this window and you will see a message asking to share. Given is your website URL address which you can now share with anyone you want. NOTE: This is just a temporary address that you will have during your trial period. After your trial period is over and if you decide to stay, you will get your own domain (one you selected during registration).
Gadgets and Apps for Business Owners On the Go
Thanks to better mobile networks, a new generation of touch- and voice-enabled products and fresh interest from profit-starved automakers, the vehicles we drive to work every day are becoming the places we do work every day.
Meet your new business partner: your car.
“Very soon, really any business or employee who wants it is going to be able to interact with their vehicles in new ways,” says David Haight, vice president of business development at AT&T’s emerging devices organization, which is based in Atlanta.
Considering that these days there aren’t enough ways–or places–to make money, here’s our roundup of smart car gadgets and apps for a small firm. Get these work tools in roughly this order, and that car or truck of yours could become the most profitable asset you have.
Price: Free
What it is: Basic, yet powerful, in-car navigation built right into an Android smartphone.
What’s smart: Most reasonably powerful portable devices running code like Google’s Android OS, Apple OS, BlackBerry OS or Windows Phone have mapping and location-based tools built right in. But Google Maps Navigation is the car-friendly, by-turn instruction tool to get. Its voice recognition and detailed nav functions make it the best free upgrade over, say, basic Google Maps.
What’s not so smart: As powerful as these entry-level tools might be, they won’t hold up under consistent use. Remember, you are navigating on your multitasking smartphone, which gets and makes phone calls, streams music and handles your work e-mail. Even with moderate use, say 20 minutes a day, all that app juggling while driving gets old fast.
3 ways you can think like a customer
We are all customers of a business. In that role, we’re all able to see things that are apparently invisible to the owners, operators and managers of that company. Take the local grocery store as an example, has it not long puzzled you why the shortest lines (Express Lanes) are given to those who are buying the least? It’s the store with the fresh donuts sign out front and coffee stains on the floor inside. Whether it’s a store, a car rental company, a hotel or any other business we frequent, we’re able to see things they can’t seem to see. So, why is that? I think it’s this simple. In our business, we grow so accustomed to what we do, to what we sell, to whom we serve – it all becomes so familiar, that we forget what it’s like to see our company through the eyes of a customer, particularly to see ourselves for the first time.
So, I’m challenging you to get an outside-in perspective and here are three quick ways you can do it this week.
How to restore Most Recent news feed in Facebook
“You can access your Lists from the left sidebar of your news feed” (Credit: Matt Elliott)
Do you count yourself among the multitudes who dislike Facebook’s latest revision, mainly because it took away the ability to toggle between Top Stories and Most Recent in your news feed? Regarding the new news feed,Facebook explains, “If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, the first things you’ll see are top photos and statuses posted while you’ve been away…If you check Facebook more frequently, you’ll see the most recent stories first.”
Blogging for startups – Save money, Increase traffic and Profit
I see you are ready for the real deal. Ok, so I cannot be held responsible for all the great information and loads of traffic you are going to get from this point forward. Well maybe just a little, we want to see how far our sumo-lings can take this information and start making even more money.
Only $39! Where else will you get this?
Buy it now and receive free bonuses (details below)!
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After Hiten, founder of KISSMetrics, calmed down and we untied him, we were able to reason with him. We convinced him that giving out this information would be good for everyone. Plus he would become an even bigger rock-star than he is now. He finally agreed. (He wouldn’t sign his autograph for me though.) (sigh)
What happened over the next hour was so simple yet so profound that we walked away thinking, we should do this more often, Hiten didn’t find being tied up too funny.
