You know your business can benefit from Facebook. It’s easy to set up a basic page but now what?

In this workshop, learn how to:

- post content so it’s eye-catching (you can customize the thumbnails and writing displayed when you post a web link for example)
- engage your visitors
- change display settings and personalize the look of the page (get rid of those tabs you don’t use, etc.)
- use FBML to add a bit of HTML code to a page, like subscribing to an email newsletter or adding an image
- use “Insights” (Facebook stats) to learn about your fans
- add functionality with applications

and more!

If you have any topics or Facebook questions you want us to cover, comment below or contact us. You can also register for the workshop by clicking here. Only 25 slots so register now if you want to go!

The next workshop will be about how to get your website to be more search engine friendly.

Search Engine Optimization, Wednesday, May 26, 6-8 pm, Maine Grind

Participants will learn how to:

• get inbound links to their website
• do keyword research to improve website copy
• aspects of a website design that can make it more search engine friendly
• evaluate how/if search engine strategies are working once implemented

Matt and Nicole have quite a rocking agenda. To register, visit: http://onedayworkshop.eventbrite.com/

The website design workshop “No Excuses: Get Your Website Up and Running In One Afternoon” will be held 1-4 pm on April 10 at the Maine Grind in Ellsworth.

The goal is to take participants from installing the open source software WordPress to an online website in just three hours.

“For less than a nice dinner out and an afternoon of your time, you can have a functional website on your own domain.” says Nicole Ouellette, owner of Breaking Even Communications and co-presenter of the workshop.

This workshop is aimed at people who have long wanted to set up a website but need a some help to do it.

“WordPress allows folks who don’t know anything about HTML and web design to easily publish a functional and dynamic website that has room to grow. All you need is a computer with a web browser and the content you’d like to put on your site and we’ll help you make it go.” says Matt Baya, Manager of Svaha LLC, the other workshop presenter.

Ouellette and Baya are limiting the enrollment of the workshop to 25 participants so keep it as hands-on and helpful as possible.

The fee for the workshop is $50 and those needing a domain name or web hosting can take advantage of a special deal of one year domain registration and one year web hosting from Svaha LLC for $50.

“While participants will leave with a working website, we also hope to give them the tools to build on their sites once they leave.” says Ouellette. “What is both great and frustrating about a website is that there is always more you can do, and we hope that helping people get their idea off the ground will help more businesses and individuals in Downeast Maine to use the internet to its full potential.”

The next opportunity in the workshop series will be ‘No Excuses: Increasing Traffic To Your Website.’ To sign up or learn more about the workshops, visit downeastlearning.com.

More about this workshop

Participants at this workshop will create a website or blog using the free & open source website management software WordPress (http://wordpress.org).

The first hour will give an introduction to the software, including installation and using basic plug-ins to create the website you want.

The second hour will concentrate on creating content for your website and promoting it using internet marketing and social media.

The third hour will be free time to work on your website. This time will also be used to address specific questions from participants.

It is recommended that participants come to the workshop with:

1) Content for their website (text, photos, video, etc.)

2) Registered domain name and website hosting so their website. Cost for the workshop does not including the purchase of your domain name and web hosting. Special package through Svaha LLC will be $50 which includes domain name registration and web hosting for one year. Registrants will get this coupon code upon registration.

3) A laptop (Please let us know if you don’t have one and we’ll try to provide one.)

Register at http://noexcusesworkshop.eventbrite.com/

WordPress Workshop FAQ

Will we be setting up a shopping cart as part of this workshop?

We are actually not setting up the shopping cart part. Sadly, the details of shopping carts make it unfeasable to make a shopping cart and create the website in a few hours. (We are keeping everyone’s personal sanity in mind here.) The good news is the value of the website part is around $500-$1000 and most web design companies will charge around $500-$1000 to add the shopping cart after the fact so either way, the value is pretty fantastic, though we are a little biased.

We  have talked about a possible shopping cart workshop but that would be a follow-up to this one… after all, we need a website to put the shopping cart on first and foremost!

I have an idea for what I want my website to look like. Will I be able to do it?

As far as design, there are plenty of free WordPress templates to choose from and there are even more paid templates, some starting at $25 so I’m sure you can find something you like. We’ll be sending links to these as it gets closer to the workshop date so they can take a look at what’s possible before we meet.

Keep in mind that you can also do a lot of customizing as far as arranging items, picking fonts, etc. to give your website whatever look you are going for. We are keeping the workshop small in order to help participants create websites with their individual goals in mind.

What should I bring with me as far as content to put on my website?

Written Content: You’ll want whatever text you have written up saved as a .txt document. (Don’t bother with text formatting like making things bold or changing the font; we’ll do that in the workshop and we have to clear formatting before putting text on a website anyway.) Think of the written content as what will be in your menu  (Home, About, Contact, Products, etc.) being in the outline and write the content to go with each section underneath it. Some things to write about might be the history of your business, current employees, list and description of products or services you sell, a bio about yourself, or testimonials from your customers (with their permission, of course). You might also want to gather a list of links you’d like to put on your site, like your local Chamber of Commerce or other local businesses. This way, you won’t have to look them up the day of the workshop.

Photo Content: You will want to bring photos, preferably high resolution .jpg images. We can always resize the photos at the workshop.

Video Content: Hosting videos on Youtube not only saves server space on your site but makes them easier to find via search engine. Before coming to the workshop, set up a Youtube account and upload your video(s).

Have more questions? Comment below, we’ll answer, promise!