Build a FREE Camcorder Club Website (Part 1)

If you run a Camcorder club and don’t have a website, you probably know you are missing out on the endless opportunities to market both your club and your productions.

With budgets down to their bare bones, a club website can be way out of reach if you have to hire a professional web designer.

Would you like a camcorder club website which is easy to set up, easy to add pages, content and video, and most of all, is FREE?  I can imagine the answer is yes to these questions, so lets get started!

With the power of Web 2.0 Technology (this is a web designers term for the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, where users can interact, upload photos,videos etc) making a free, professional and accessible website is much easier than I bet you imagined, and in this series of tutorials, we will look at developing your site into something exceptional and which stands out from the crowd.

In part one, we will look at registering your website and domain name.

Setting up your website

To set up your website, we are going to use one of the professional Web Designers most loved programmes, WordPress.

WordPress was originally set up as a blogging platform, but because of it’s ease of use, the endless amounts of free plugins, and the ability to use free themes, the demand for wordpress has boomed in recent years.  Note the first point, the ease of use, and this is why WordRress is a great platform for Camcorder Clubs who may not have the knowledge of building a website from scratch.

Enough talking, lets get started…

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1. Head over to WordPress.com
2. Click the large Orange button which says ‘sign up now’.
   
3. The ”Get your own WordPress.com account in seconds” screen should appear, as shown below.
4. In the Blog Address box, type the name of your camcorder club.  This will become your camcorder clubs web address.  For example, if you type in MyCamocrderClub, your web address would be mycamcorderclub.wordpress.com.  Do not use any spaces in you blog address name.  Wordpress will automatically tell you if your address is available to register.

 

5. Enter a Username, this will be the name you type into log in the administration area (where you add pages content etc) so make it easy to remember.  Wordpress will automatically enter a username based on what you typed in for your address.  I would advise you change this!

 

6. Enter a Password.  Remember, use a strong password to prevent unauthorized people from accessing your account.

 

7. Enter an E-mail address. Ensure this is a valid one, as any important information will be sent to this address.

 

8. Agree to the terms and click sign up.  You will then get the screen as shown below.
   

 

9. Complete the information about yourself and click the orange ‘save profile’ link.

 

10. WordPress will now send you an activation email to the email address you specified. Click the activation link in the email.

 

11. You will then be taken to the ‘Your Account is now Active’ page, as shown below.



12. Thats it, you site is set up. You can view your site (although it won’t look that good at the moment) or login to your admin area with the user name and password you set up in steps 5 and 6.

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In part 2 of setting up your Free Camcorder club website, we will look at changing the look and feel of your website by searching through thousands of free themes and you will learn the basic principle of installing a theme on your website.