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To advertise effectively in the modern world, every business should have an effective presence on the World Wide Web.
I am a retired Art, Design and Information Technology teacher. My wife and I now operate a small holiday cottage rental business on the Isle of Skye. Small businesses like ours generally have a limited advertising budget, so when it comes to having ones own website, a ‘do it yourself’ approach is popular. This tends to lead to some woefully poor website design, and sites that possibly do more to drive customers away than attract them!
However, I have designed my own site for our business – www.skyeholidays.co.uk . I spent a lot of time looking at other similar sites, to see what information people included, and how they presented it. It was clear that many, good photographs wouldbe important, so I worked hard finding an attractive and effective way to present my photographs. |
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Having the right software is crucial. My first website was created using Microsoft FrontPage. I was already very familiar with other Microsoft Office applications, and found FrontPage relatively easy to use, though I soon discovered that features like the picture gallery didn’t display correctly in non-Microsoft browsers. I would still suggest that FrontPage is an adequate tool for a beginner to use to create a simple website, however. |
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| But my website plans were a little more complex, so I bought a copy of Dreamweaver. I then started the climb up a mountainous learning curve to get the ideas that I had in my head onto the screen. Dreamweaver is not software for a novice user! But the software comes with video tutorials, and there is a mass of free help on the web, so I eventually made it up to the foothills and managed to put my new website together. |
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As a self-taught beginner at website creation, another challenge was getting my new site to be seen by my potential customers. Having reached my foothills in coping with the software, I could now see that what I though was the top of the learning mountain, was in fact only a ridge on the climb. Understanding Search Engine Optimisation is another, higher peak to head towards. And this is a peak that keeps getting hidden behind moving clouds – the rules frequently change!
Finding sources of accurate help and information is so useful. I have not resorted to reading the many reference books which purport to teach ‘dummies’ how to use complex software or tackle SEO, preferring to search for solutions on the web. |
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I have found polite and friendly forums to be a great source of suggestions, and I am delighted that Compila have launched Compila Exchange. I am sure I will be using this to guide me further up my learning mountain in the future.
Richard Dorrell
Dunvegan, Isle of Skye |
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