Create Your Own Website!
Would you like to expand your fundraising options and take your fundraising efforts online? You actually don’t need a website to raise funds online (see article link at the end of this post), but if you’ve decided to create a website for your group or organization, following are some tips on how to get started.
Create A Website: Free options
The quickest and easiest way to create a website is to sign up for a free blog at a site like http://www.wordpress.com. Don’t be fooled by the word “blog” – you’ll be able to format it to look just like any website that displays and archives articles/posts. You’ll have a choice of different themes and you can customize the colors and add pictures and graphics.
Your blog will allow you to write messages or articles which will be posted on the site, archived to your liking and it will also have a feature were people can sign up to automatically receive your posts in their e-mail box.
As with any service that offers a free website, your URL (URL = domain = website address) will look something like this: http://yourfundraisingsite.wordpress.com.
You can’t beat the service you get when signing up for a free blog – all software updates are done automatically – and, you’re not paying a dime. You’re free to spend all your time writing about your fundraising efforts and you’ll never have to worry about any programming, or server issues. Other sites that offer free blogs are http://www.blogger.com or http://blog.com/.
If you don’t need any features that sort and archive messages and articles, but just need a couple of pages for example to display your organization’s message, simply search for “free website” on Google.com or Yahoo.com. There are lots of services that will accommodate your website for free. Be aware though that most will display annoying advertising on your site.
Free webspace providers such as Yahoo’s Geocities (http://geocities.yahoo.com/) and Lycos’s Tripod (http://www.tripod.lycos.com/) are very popular, but they lack the features and functionality that commercial web hosts provide.
Bottom line: sign up for a free blog AND a free non-blog site. Then see which one is easier for you to work with.
Create A Website: Paid options
If you’re serious about creating a professional web presence and it’s important to you to have a unique website address, like http://www.yourfundraisingsite.com, than you need to get a paid plan. Don’t worry, there are plenty of plans out there for less than $10 a month. Your unique URL will cost you about another $10 annually.
Besides having your unique URL, you’ll also be able to have any design you like, add any features and also display advertising. Companies that offer free websites generally do not allow you to display advertising. Advertising will help you recover the cost of your website and add to your fundraising efforts.
Having a website with a unique URL will also look more professional, especially if you’re planning to build a site for a larger organization or group.
There are many different websites where you can buy your unique URL or set up your own website. Many companies also offer custom design services. Following is a selection of companies we’ve used before – make sure you do your own due diligence though: Call them and see if they can really answer all your questions; send a message or e-mail them and see how long it takes them to get back to you and what kind of service they provide. Shop around!
Buy your domain and have your site hosted:
To start, you can probably sign up for the smallest hosting package; you can always upgrade later. These companies also offer custom design services. (Note: You do not have to buy your domain and hosting service from the same company.)
If you need help with design and marketing, try SiteSell.com. This company has a great track record of helping to build successful sites with easy to use design and marketing tools and lots of motivation. It will cost more than just hosting alone, but it might be worth it for you if you’re just starting out on the web.
FundraisingIP.com uses the following hosting company because they’ve provided excellent live tech support. Again, please do your own due diligence to make sure you’re signing up with a service you feel comfortable with.
About buying a domain:
Don’t get discouraged when shopping for a domain. Most simple and short domains have already been sold. The key is to find something that’s easy to remember, makes sense, and isn’t too complicated to write, or too long.
Just imagine yourself telling someone about your website:
“You can visit our website at whynotfundraiseforourwonderfulgrouptoday-xyzorg.com”
or “You can visit our website at “yournamefundraising.org”. Which one would you remember?
Note: You shouldn’t have to pay more than about $10 per domain per year or more than $10 for hosting per month to start. Shop around!
(If you’re a non-profit be sure to buy a .org domain. Non-profit or not, you should also consider buying at least the popular .com and .net and .org domains, to prevent others from setting up websites with your group’s or organization’s name.)
Related article: You can raise funds online if your group has a website or not: Raise Funds Online With Or Without Your Own Website! Part 1
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Very beautiful site! Thanks!