Ginny Frost
First, sign up
for an account. Since the app works through Square, you can use your Square
password to sign up. I’ll be completely honest. I had a very hard time getting
into my account. I reset the password multiple times and could not get started
for over an hour. Be aware you might need to work to get the account.
Once you get
logged in, the app asks what you are selling. If you are not selling, hit the
None of These Apply button. Because I have a Square account, it automatically
linked my information to accept payments through the site. If you aren’t using
Square for book signings and such, you can skip that step. Again, it pushed to
set up a catalog or to sell items. Skip down to Design in the Get Started list.
The next screen
asks for a design—basically a color choice. I, of course, picked purple. The
preview page showed what my site will look like. As my account is linked to my
Square account, the site pulled in the products I already have on my account.
Hit the Customization button on the top right to tweak the site to your
personal needs and information.
Set your domain. There
are three choices—find a custom domain, use one you already own, or use a
Square subdomain. The “find a custom domain” option allows you to put in possible
website titles and see if you can purchase them. The “use one you already” own
allows you to link to a previously purchased domain. I have one, but for this
post, I’ll use the last option—use a Square subdomain. That means my site name
will contain “Square” in the address, much like when we made sites on
WordPress. After you find a good Square domain name, press Change, then exit
the window.
First, let’s
design your home page. After finishing with the domain name, you should see a
page with menus on the left and a preview of your site in the middle, showing
your home page. Click on Header to customize the information there. First is
your logo. If you don’t have one, type in a name for your site, something like Ginny
Frost, author but you know, customized for you. Choose a size and a color
on the menu. You can change the style of text, but not the font without
choosing another design template. Click on the preview and type.
Note: I’m using
Firefox to create the site. I found the cursor would not move with a click to
change the text. I had to use the arrow keys to move the cursor. Also, it
seemed to be easier to use the mobile version on the screen. The button at the
top of the screen lets you switch back and forth. (It looks like a black rectangle,
i.e. a phone.) Editing with the mobile preview allows the submenus to show
along with the main menu. I like to see all my options. (Just in case you are
working and are like, “where’s the main menu?” Close the submenu to get the
main menu back in the desktop preview.)
If you have a
picture logo ready to go, click on the down arrow next to Text. Click Image.
Press Add Image and drop and drag your logo file to upload it. Weebly will
automatically put the image on the header. Click on the image and hit the Done
button. Adjust the size by pressing the edit size button. Drag the circle to
make it larger or smaller.
As this is your
header, you’ll probably want the logo to link to the home page. Keep that
option. I would recommend sliding the Button option to the “on” position. This gives
you a three-bar menu option in the header for easy navigation to all pages. Next,
choose your icons. They default you with a cart and a magnifying glass. These
may not work for you if you don’t plan to sell off the site. Uncheck the box if
you aren’t sure. You can always go back and edit.
Last, you can
customize colors, the background, and layout. The header can show all the time
or it can appear when the customer scrolls up. For your background, you can
choose a different color or an image. Uploading the image is the same as
uploading your logo.
Onto the Main
banner! Click on that option on the left. You’ll get a new submenu. You can
turn off the banner if you don’t need it by using the slider. To customize the
banner, add an image for the background, add a tagline, a headline, additional
text, and buttons.
At the bottom of
the menu, you can customize the layout of the elements. However, there are few
options. For example, I could not switch my headline and tagline to have the
headline first. Other options for customization include color, alignment, size,
and background. With background, you can again choose a color or an image.
As this is the
home page of your website, you will absolutely need a sign up for your
newsletter. (No newsletter yet? Check out my
blog posts on MailChimp.) Click Email newsletter for a new submenu. Add a
section title and section description to tell readers/customers why they are
entering their email. Text can be changed in those two fields. To customize the
button, press the subscription option. Here’s where it might get tricky. I’m
new to Weebly, so bear with me. It appears you can only gather email addresses
with this button. You will need to custom import them into your mailer as you
do with Book Funnel and the like. (I’ll do some more research on this one.)
Next on the home
page is the footer. Here you can add an additional newsletter sign up, place
your social media icons, and logo. Again, most of the customization is the same
as above. For the social media icons, click on that option and choose Connect.
The pop-up menu gives a wide variety of options for links including email,
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Vimeo,
Yelp, and YouTube. Enter your links to the socials you want and be sure to check
the box. For payment methods, we first need to set up accepted payments. That’s
next week… possibly… because that sounds scary.
Last is Footer
Branding. Basically, it’s Square’s logo at the bottom of the page. If you’d
like to remove it, you will need to upgrade your account.
Next week we will
learn to add pages, customize content, and maybe even set up a store.