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Home Pages with a Welcome - not locked

Forums: Questions and Answers About Building Your Site
Created on: 02/19/13 04:36 PM Views: 1022 Replies: 3
Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 4:36 PM

In another topic thread, Doreene Barrett wrote:

... I can't decide whether it's best to keep the homepage locked or not.
Doreene

Consider a classmate (or family member of a classmate) finding the site for the first time. A site locked down, requiring a password to enter, is not welcoming to the first time visitor.

On the other hand, the goal is to have your classmates register and return often. If you put all your info on the home page and open to everyone who visits the page, there is no reason for them to register.

So mix these two thoughts and what do you get? A first time visitor should see something familiar - a photo of your school or mascot and your school/class name. Add a welcome message at the top and instructions on 'how to join/register' and once they do, they will be able to view the rest of the site.

(This is only about the home page - not concerning the other pages you may wish to have open.)

I began replying to Doreene's post privately. When finished, I chose to post here as I have shared this info more than once. Wink This is how I set up my home page - some of it open for all, some only to visitors, some only to logged in.

IF you find yourself changing your home page often, I suggest giving this a try.

Editing your Home page under Content Area, place Announcements (first) over Home Page Content. My goal was to have the things I plan to keep in place in content at the bottom of the page. On my alumni site and viewable to all. They are:

  • homepage hits;
  • Site is open 24 hours;
  • "this site is free....(info);
  • "The web site time is set to our school's time zone - Central.";
  • Site is funded by (with a link to our thank you to those who gave page. The page is password protected.);
  • site created and maintained by...;
  • hometown weather widget
  • and a short message from the root admin.

Everything else is a separate announcement. Why? Because...

  • You can set an announcement to expire.
  • You can make an announcement inactive and active again later -- giving your home page different look quickly.
  • You can prepare information in advance - for a holiday or other occasion and when ready - simply make it active.
  • You can MOVE the announcements up and down easier than a copy/paste
  • Most IMPORTANT: At the top of each announcement is the "Short Name" and next... "Display To:" with drop down options:* Everyone * Logged in only * Non logged in only. Choose the one that fits what is in the announcement. Example: A WELCOME NON-LOGGED IN is seen by Non logged in only with instructions to register. Have another WELCOME for Logged in only. A new photo of the school may be open to Everyone. Yet, a photo from a recent reunion open to Logged in only. I'm sure you get the idea.

This last item is the answer to not being sure if your home page should be open or totally hidden. The key info is open; the rest is hidden.

There are two things I make sure I do on the page listing the Announcements:

  1. Choose the first option at the top of the page. That is the only option of the four that should be marked.
  2. Make the Announcement Board Background Color the same as the site background color.

All this is shared to be sure visitors to your site are welcomed, yet info you wish to provide only to those registered is hidden.

If you have a large amount of content in the content area, this will take a bit of time and a wee bit of patience. Yet the end result is one I hope works as well for you as it does for me one three sites. Smile

(Last minute add: I've edited this too many times between interruptions and have to run out the door for a minute. If you have a suggestion as to how I should edit this, please feel free to click on EMAIL to the left and send it that way. I welcome your comments!) Smile

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Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 5:46 PM - Response #1

Thanks for all the information, Gwen. I will need to digest it all and decide what I want to do.

Doreene

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Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 6:07 PM - Response #2

My home page is all about our class, which is what they see when they enter our address, I don't change things too often on that page.. But, they have to log on to see announcements, pictures, classmate news, cartoons, videos and etc, which I change every few weeks..

On the home page, it says they have to log on to be able to view the announcements.. I usually have 10 or more log on daily, out of the 75 classmates who have profiles.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 7:28 PM - Response #3

Lynda, Your classmates love your site and keeping in contact with each other! That is great! Smile

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