Homepage Layout
From HostBaby Wiki
Your Homepage is the most important page of your website, bar none.
From an audience perspective, it is their 'first impression' of you online. It must be welcoming enough for them to stay, and enticing enough for them to click further!
You should always have fresh content on your website's homepage. It's not enough to get folks to come to your site. You want them to stay once they're there, and come back once they leave. :)
The wizard gives you several options for layout for your Homepage. But first, let's do the basics:
Go to http://yourdomain.com/hostbaby2/ (replacing yourdomain.com with your actual domain.
Click on Website, then Homepage Layout.
You'll see the following screen:
The next step will be to choose your layout option from the drop-down box at the top of the page. As shown below, you have several options:
Here are the detailed explanations of each option:
Mostly Calendar
This option will, in addition to any text you enter into the Homepage Layout section, append your content with 3 of the most recent calendar dates you've entered in the Calendar section. This is an easy way to keep the homepage fresh, providing you're playing out fairly consistently.
Mostly Newest News
This option will, in addition to any text you enter into the Homepage Layout section, append your content with 3 of the most recent News entries you've entered into the News section. If your band is not playing out as frequently, or if you are using the Wizard for something other than a band and interested in keeping your audience updated on other aspects of your life, the newest news option is the perfect way to keep your homepage fresh.
Image Only
This option will allow you to choose an image from your Image Bank to be the only content on your Homepage. This option will ignore any text you enter into your Homepage Layout section. We highly advise against using this option if Search Engine ranking is important to you. For more information on why, please see our Search Engine tutorial.
Image Below Welcome Text
This option will allow you to choose an image from your Image Bank to be featured below the text you enter into your Homepage Layout section.
Image Above Welcome Text
This option will allow you to choose an image from your Image Bank to be featured above the text you enter into your Homepage Layout section.
Welcome Text Only
This option will mean no image, above or below the welcome text, no news entries and no calendar dates. Choose this option if you wish to have your homepage content be solely defined by you. Please note: you can use HTML to place images on the Homepage Layout section yourself, so choosing this option does not necessarily mean you can't have images on your homepage. It simply means you'll have greater flexibility in where you place them, providing you know HTML, or are willing to learn.
If you should choose to go with an Image Option, you will have to choose that option from the dropdown menu, and then click Submit.
This will update the screen with a second dropdown option, from which you can choose an image from your Image Bank.
Highlight the image you wish to incorporate into your page, then type some welcome text into your Homepage Layout section, and then Submit.
And that's it! Homepage Layout.
In later tutorials, we'll show you how you can add more fun content to your Homepage with advanced tips and tricks!
