Lesson 4b: Making Your Online Presence – Part Two

Now that you have started your on line group, we now want to focus on getting a website set up. Why do you need a website? Well because you want to have an area where you can target potential members. The group site is more for managing your members; the website is more for getting potential members interested in joining your group.

Some of the pages you will want to have on your website:

Your mission statement
This will help potential members know if your moms group is the right fit for them.

Your code of conduct
This is just another way to let potential members know what will be expected of them once they become a member. This helps to eliminate any surprises!

A link directory
This is just a page where you will post links to other websites. When you start promoting your moms group and your website, you will want to exchange links with other websites in order to get your name out there and obtain new members. This will be discussed further in the next issue.

Contact information
Be sure to make it pretty clear where new members can contact you if they are interested in joining the group or if they have any questions or concerns. Provide a brief rundown of your application process.

Calendar of events
Another great thing to have on your website, so potential members can see if the group events are something that interests them.

Each suggestion listed above should have its own separate page. It is a good idea to right out each page by hand or on your computer first. You should have everything already written out from previous homework assignments.

Now starting a website and hosting a website has actually become very simple. Below are some places where you can host and maintain your website for free or a small fee, and all of the places listed below are pretty user friendly and it doesn’t require a whole lot of web design knowledge to get your website up and running, pretty much anyone can figure them out:

 Free Webs
 Bravenet
 Geocities
 Google Pages
 Homestead

These website builders are very easy to use, and every one of them offers a free website builder AND hosting, the only downfall is that they will show ads on your website to offset the cost of offering their services for free.

Homework:
Find a website a builder and hosting plan that you are comfortable with. Then ad the pages listed above with the appropriate information.