SECTION ONE
1. Welcome to your website
Welcome to your Postnuke-enabled website. You have just jumped in to the vast realm of the World Wide Web with your very own presence! You undoubtedly will have some questions along the way and may even stumble and fall. But in the end, you will have increased your communication level with your target audience and possibly even learned something in the process!
The Purpose of this guide is to escort you along the process of learning how to become a website administrator and to hopefully answer some of the many questions you will likely have along the way. The guide will endeavor to be as concise and thorough as possible. As you learn more, this guide can become a handy reference tool for you as you seek to expand your site.
This guide does not cover the installation and initial configuration of Postnuke. It is assumed that you have a working installation of Postnuke.
This Guide is not exhaustive in terms of explaining everything. It merely explains the most important things. If you wish to do more, you are encouraged to research topics on your own. Join the Postnuke community at http://www.postnuke.com/. From there, you can join the forums and learn quite a bit. In addition, there are many sites on the web that will provide you with more information. A search of the aforementioned forums or a simple Google search will give you more information than you could read in a year. See section eight for more.
What is the purpose of a website? What is the purpose of any website, not just this one? Most sites on the Web do one or more of three things: 1) Provide Information 2) Develop a Community and 3) Sell products or Services. Which of these things do you seek to achieve with your site?
There are thousands and thousands of completely ineffective sites on the web; many of them are like a virtual ghost town. Why are they ineffective? It is likely that they have not developed clear goals and because of this have either tried to do too much or done too little. If your site is to be effective, you must develop clear goals and stick to them!
The Web is an instantaneous medium. The web is not a book or a newspaper. The web is not a town-hall meeting. The web is not a brick-and-mortar storefront. Web-users want something and they want it now - instantaneously.
Running a website is work. It takes time. In the formative stages of the internet, websites would take literally thousands of hours to create and maintain. This required full-time personnel with advanced knowledge and skills. Normal people don't have that kind of time or expertise! How is a normal person to create and maintain a presence on the web without paying too much? That question will be answered in section 2.5 below.