Q. What style of site will we be building?
The course focuses building a general business/organization website. The platform we will be working with supports dozens of plug-in apps and thousands of modules to expand the site. The course will focus on those popular on business websites.
Features focused on include:
- Standard page management
- Contact page with a contact form
- Blog
- FAQ
- Events
- Newsletter
- Search engine optimization
- Social media integration
We will be using pre-designed themes for the look and feel of the site.
Q. What if I am an organization other than a business, such as a non-profit or association. Will this course help me?
The style of site we will be building in this course is ideal for many types of organizations including non-profits and associations.
Q. What if I need features beyond those covered in the course?
There are two focuses for this course, to help you build a website quickly and to build a base for effective marketing. We have streamline site building around the standard features of the Open Enterprise platform. The sites we will build are based on a very robust and expandable content management framework called
Drupal. This course is an introduction to content management and site building and as such will not cover advanced features and customization. However, LevelTen does offer additional training, consulting and web development services. Additionally, there are hundreds of thousands of Drupal users worldwide. Many of these can help with advice or are available for hire.
Q. What technology will be used for site building? / What is Open Enterprise? / What is Drupal?
The primary site building tool is the Open Enterprise distribution of
Drupal. Drupal is the world's most popular advanced open source content management system (CMS). Content management systems are powerful site building web applications that allow non-programmers to manage site content and deploy advanced Web 2.0 features.
Drupal is a free open source CMS. It is used on millions of sites including blogs, social communities, non-profits and businesses ranging from SMEs to blue-chip brands such as Sony/BMG, WhiteHouse.gov, Fast Company, Warner Bros., Popular Science, NASA and many others.
Unfortunately with Drupal's vast power also comes a significant amount of complexity. Open Enterprise is a special distribution of Drupal that greatly reduces the complexity of Drupal while maintaining all of its power. The distribution greatly reduces the time to get a small to midsize business or non-profit interactive site launched.
Q. Do I need to bring a laptop?
Most people prefer to develop on their own laptops, so we invite you to bring one if you have it. If you do not, just let us know and we will provide one.
Q. Do I need web hosting? / Do I need a domain name?
No. You don't need to pay for hosting to build your site. You have two options of where to build your site, on your local computer or with a free hosted development account. You will need hosting to take your site live on your own domain. We will provide recommendations for hosting solutions.
Q. Is there anything I should do prior to the workshop to prepare?
During the course we will be entering content into your site and building site navigation. You may want to think through your site navigation and have the content already written prior to the class. You will be able to change your navigation and add content after the class so don't worry if you don't get everything perfect prior to or during the class.
Q. What costs are there beyond the cost of the training to complete the site?
There are no extra costs from LevelTen. You will need site hosting and a domain name via a provider of your choosing. On the low end you would need to spend about $110 / yr on hosting and domain name registration.
The hosting we recommend costs $25/mo, although high traffic sites might need more robust hosting. There are many free themes available for Open Enteprise, however attendees may opt for a professional theme for a one time fee of around $200 to $400.
Q. How well and how quickly will my site rank in the search engines?
This will depend on many factors, in particular how much online competition there is for your keywords and your domain name’s history. In most industries there are a small percentage of websites actively investing in search optimization while the majority of sites have little site optimization. In competitive industries top ranked websites are investing thousands of dollars each month to achieve those rankings. Against these competitors, it is highly unlikely you will be able to out rank them without a similar reoccurring investment in advanced search engine optimization.
Our goal for this project is to build your site to out rank the majority of sites that are not actively optimizing their sites.
The history of your website domain also plays a significant role in how well you will rank and how long it will take. If you have owned your domain for a several years, have many quality links from third party sites to your site (backlinks) and your domain has no search engine penalties; you should start to rank above the majority of non optimized sites within a couple of months. If your domain is new or your existing site has few backlinks, it may take six months or more to see significant rankings.
While each website’s results will vary, by following all the recommended best practices of this course and barring any pre-existing black marks on your domain, most sites should out rank 90% of non-search optimized competition within three to nine months.
Q. Is seating limited?
Yes! The Build Your Own ROI Driven Website course is limited to 18 seats.
Q. What are your refund guidelines?
We try to be as flexible as we can: Sixty (60) days prior to the event you plan to attend, you may request a full refund. Thirty (30) days prior to the event you plan to attend, you may request a 50% refund. Within thirty (30) days of an event, there are no refunds available. You can transfer your registration to another LevelTen Workshop or you can transfer your registration to another individual to go in your stead.
Q. Is lunch included in the price of the workshop?
For the two day version of the course, we will provide bagels and/or donuts in the morning, lunch at noon and a snack during the afternoon break. Coffee, soda and water will also be provided. If you have any special food requirements, please let us know at least a week before the day of training.
For the half day version of the class, food is not included.