First, sign up for an account. Since the app works through Square, you can use your Square password to sign up. I’ll be completely honest. I had a very hard time getting into my account. I reset the password multiple times and could not get started for over an hour. Be aware you might need to work to get the account.
Once you get logged in, the app asks what you are selling. If you are not selling, hit the None of These Apply button. Because I have a Square account, it automatically linked my information to accept payments through the site. If you aren’t using Square for book signings and such, you can skip that step. Again, it pushed to set up a catalog or to sell items. Skip down to Design in the Get Started list.
The next screen asks for a design—basically a color choice. I, of course, picked purple. The preview page showed what my site will look like. As my account is linked to my Square account, the site pulled in the products I already have on my account. Hit the Customization button on the top right to tweak the site to your personal needs and information.
Set your domain. There are three choices—find a custom domain, use one you already own, or use a Square subdomain. The “find a custom domain” option allows you to put in possible website titles and see if you can purchase them. The “use one you already” own allows you to link to a previously purchased domain. I have one, but for this post, I’ll use the last option—use a Square subdomain. That means my site name will contain “Square” in the address, much like when we made sites on WordPress. After you find a good Square domain name, press Change, then exit the window.
First, let’s design your home page. After finishing with the domain name, you should see a page with menus on the left and a preview of your site in the middle, showing your home page. Click on Header to customize the information there. First is your logo. If you don’t have one, type in a name for your site, something like Ginny Frost, author but you know, customized for you. Choose a size and a color on the menu. You can change the style of text, but not the font without choosing another design template. Click on the preview and type.
Note: I’m using Firefox to create the site. I found the cursor would not move with a click to change the text. I had to use the arrow keys to move the cursor. Also, it seemed to be easier to use the mobile version on the screen. The button at the top of the screen lets you switch back and forth. (It looks like a black rectangle, i.e. a phone.) Editing with the mobile preview allows the submenus to show along with the main menu. I like to see all my options. (Just in case you are working and are like, “where’s the main menu?” Close the submenu to get the main menu back in the desktop preview.)
If you have a picture logo ready to go, click on the down arrow next to Text. Click Image. Press Add Image and drop and drag your logo file to upload it. Weebly will automatically put the image on the header. Click on the image and hit the Done button. Adjust the size by pressing the edit size button. Drag the circle to make it larger or smaller.
As this is your header, you’ll probably want the logo to link to the home page. Keep that option. I would recommend sliding the Button option to the “on” position. This gives you a three-bar menu option in the header for easy navigation to all pages. Next, choose your icons. They default you with a cart and a magnifying glass. These may not work for you if you don’t plan to sell off the site. Uncheck the box if you aren’t sure. You can always go back and edit.
Last, you can customize colors, the background, and layout. The header can show all the time or it can appear when the customer scrolls up. For your background, you can choose a different color or an image. Uploading the image is the same as uploading your logo.
Onto the Main banner! Click on that option on the left. You’ll get a new submenu. You can turn off the banner if you don’t need it by using the slider. To customize the banner, add an image for the background, add a tagline, a headline, additional text, and buttons.
At the bottom of the menu, you can customize the layout of the elements. However, there are few options. For example, I could not switch my headline and tagline to have the headline first. Other options for customization include color, alignment, size, and background. With background, you can again choose a color or an image.
As this is the home page of your website, you will absolutely need a sign up for your newsletter. (No newsletter yet? Check out my blog posts on MailChimp.) Click Email newsletter for a new submenu. Add a section title and section description to tell readers/customers why they are entering their email. Text can be changed in those two fields. To customize the button, press the subscription option. Here’s where it might get tricky. I’m new to Weebly, so bear with me. It appears you can only gather email addresses with this button. You will need to custom import them into your mailer as you do with Book Funnel and the like. (I’ll do some more research on this one.)
Next on the home page is the footer. Here you can add an additional newsletter sign up, place your social media icons, and logo. Again, most of the customization is the same as above. For the social media icons, click on that option and choose Connect. The pop-up menu gives a wide variety of options for links including email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Vimeo, Yelp, and YouTube. Enter your links to the socials you want and be sure to check the box. For payment methods, we first need to set up accepted payments. That’s next week… possibly… because that sounds scary.
Last is Footer Branding. Basically, it’s Square’s logo at the bottom of the page. If you’d like to remove it, you will need to upgrade your account.
Next week we will learn to add pages, customize content, and maybe even set up a store.
