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Follow
These Easy Steps to Get Started on Your Genealogy Website |
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Here is the sequence of things to do to get started
on your genealogy website. Just click on the title
of each item to be taken to the corresponding web
page to complete that item. |
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Create
an Account (Click Here) 
If you haven't done
so already then start by creating an account with
us. There is no obligation. Your information is
protected and we will never sell or abuse your e-mail
address or your account information. |
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Obtain
A domain name: the www address (Click Here)
This is the website
network name that people will use to access your
website. You might select a non-commercial domain
name such as www.yourfamily.org for your genealogy
website. Once you obtain your domain name, it's
yours for life (all you have to do is pay the
nominal yearly fee.) |
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Note
- Free with Every Domain (Click Here)
When you register your
domain name, you get many free services
including free ad-supported websites (both
a regular website and a blog website).
These free versions of the website products
listed below are a great way to get started
for the small yearly fee of a domain name!
Once you get your feet wet
and learn the basics of website technology,
you may not want to continue to have an
ad-supported genealogy website since this
may not send the message you want (after
all, genealogy is a serious, scholarly avocation).
At that point, you can easily upgrade
to a regular website by paying a small monthly
fee.
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Obtain
a website (Click Here)
If you prefer to not
have an ad-supported website, you can pay a small
monthly fee for a regular website. There are two
ways to go when obtaining your website depending
on how involved you want to be with the technical
implementation. For minimum technical involvement,
you can select our Website
Tonight tool®. This website product provides
a template-driven website authoring service to build
a website using friendly dialogs. Then, behind the
scenes, all the technical implementation of your
website is taken care of automatically. This is
the perfect way to get started. With this product,
you can build the structure of a professional website
in a few hours and you don't need to know anything
about building websites to use this tool.
Or you can have a standard
standard
hosting plan. This is the form of website
that is typical of most websites on the internet
. You will be responsible for all technical aspects
of the website but this has the advantage that
you are in total control of your website. Our
standard hosting plans come with a lot of useful
features such as more e-mail accounts as well
as much more disk space. It's actually not
that difficult to build and maintain a website
using a standard hosting plan. In fact,
you can build your site using Microsoft Word which
you probably already own and know how to use as
discussed next. |
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Obtain
a Website Authoring Application
If you choose
a standard standard
hosting plan for your website (i.e., instead
of our Website
Tonight®. websites) then you will need
to obtain a website authoring application to construct
your website. You purchase the website authoring
application separately. The author of the
website uses the website authoring application
to design each web page which is then generated
into HTML by the website authoring application.
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Note
- You may already have an excellent
Website Authoring Application:
Microsoft
Word:
We recommend
you use Microsoft Word as your website authoring
application to get started. Microsoft
Word can work in HTML as an alternative
to its standard ".DOC" format.
Not only is Microsoft Word probably already
installed on your computer, but you probably
already know how to use it. Also,
with the content of the genealogy website
in Microsoft Word, it is a straight forward
project to turn it into a genealogy book!
Microsoft Publisher:
An alternative to Microsoft
Word is Microsoft Publisher. Microsoft
Publisher is an inexpensive but powerful
desk top publishing program that has a very
easy-to-use website creation capability.
It is the ideal website authoring application
to create a genealogy website and the one
we recommend above all others. Microsoft
Publisher has the great advantage of allowing
you to design your website completely in
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).
You can place the content of each web page
of your website precisely. Also,
you can turn your website into a genealogy
book easily with Microsoft Publisher in
a straight forward project |
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These
Optional Products Make Genealogy Websites Easier &
Better |
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You should
consider the following products to supplement
or enhance your genealogy website. All of these
are optional but they are all great additions
to a genealogy website project. |
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Get
Internet File Storage with an Online File Folder
(Click Here)
This is a great
complement to your genealogy website and is very
useful on a genealogy research trip. With
an Online File Folder, you'll be able to upload
(or download) any files via a standard web browser
such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator
from any computer with internet access.
Using the user friendly interface,
you'll be able to easily upload files from home
to have them available when on a genealogy trip
(i.e., from the computers in a library). Or you
can easily upload files from the library (i.e.,
those great files available only at that library)
then download your treasures once you're back home.
AND this is also a great secure offsite storage
location for those irreplaceable family history
files and folders or your financial records. |
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Your
First Genealogy Website Could be a Quick-Blog website
(Click Here)
A
blog website is the latest in the social networking
applications in which you can exchange information
with your fellow genealogists in near real-time.
If you prefer to not have an ad-supported free blog
website that comes with your domain name (see
details) then for a small monthly fee
you can purchase one of our Quick-Blog web accounts.
A blog website, whether free or paid for, is a great
starting point for a genealogy website. It will
put you instantly online with a first version of
your genealogy website in which communications with
your fellow genealogists is critical. You can put
any content such as text or images on your blog
website and at this early point in the project,
the content doesn't have to look good or be in final
form. Our Quick-Blog service, both free and paid
for, requires no web technology expertise to setup
and use. |
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Get
Listed in the Search Engines Quickly with Traffic
Blazer® (Click Here)
Your
fellow genealogists will find your website using
search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN.
However, you have to conduct a campaign to get
your genealogy website listed in the search engines
with the keywords and phrases that are important
to your genealogy website. This process, which
is called "search engine optimization,"
is a time-consuming campaign of refining the website
so that it is in the best possible position to
gain a high search engine ranking. Our Traffic
Blazer®.makes the campaign easy to complete.
Traffic Blazer® will help you optimize the
contents of your genealogy website so your website
is in tip-top shape when the search engine spiders
visit your website to index it. Also, Traffic
Blazer® submits your website to all the major
search engines and helps you monitor your campaign.
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These
Optional Products Protect You |
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You should
consider the following products for additional
protection of your information on the very public
internet. |
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Protect
your Private information with a Private Domain Registration
: (Click Here)
Normally, domain
name registration results in your information being
recorded in a public registry. This means when you
register a domain name, your name, address, e-mail
address, and phone number are made available by
the public registrar to anyone who wants to see
them (this is the point of registering a domain
name). You can protect this information with
a private domain registration. For a small
yearly fee, we will serve as your surrogate giving
our information in place of yours and you don't
have to reveal your personal information. You
still have all the benefits (and duties) of domain
registration and anytime you have to be informed
of matters relating to your domain name, we will
contact you. |
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Protect
Your Work with C-Site Copyright Protection: (Click
Here)
Anyone who visits your genealogy
website can download your work and claim to be the
author – and without a federal copyright,
it’s difficult to prove otherwise. With
c-Site®, we’ve made it easy for you to
protect your website contents with a federal copyright
– the indisputable legal proof you need to
claim ownership of your work. For a small one-time
charge, our experts will serve as your liaison with
the Copyright Office and we will prepare your application
as well as file it. |
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