Let’s Make A
Website
It takes a Village.
SQUARESPACE: Site Builder
It all begins here. I’ve worked on Wordpress, Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace. I like this the best. Choosing a site builder depends on you, however: How website saavy you are, whether you need e-commerce, etc.
For me, however, this does the trick! Mailchimp has a very similar site builder, as well as some “Canva” like features, so you might opt to just use it for everything. Squarespace gives you a two week FREE trial, so I suggest doing your research, and making some website decisions before you sign up.
MAILCHIMP: Email Builder
I’ve used every major version of Mailchimp since they launched, and this is by far the best. They’re livin’ their best life.
If you are a one-person show, using this site is like having a personal assistant. Once you upload any logos, choose colors that work for you, and import any emails you may have, you can pretty much let Mailchimp do its thang. There’s an amazing FREE plan, and it works: But if you have a few dollars to spare, their “Creative Assistant” is sooo helpful. To fully use it is about $20/mo, but again, if you have it, it’ll probably be worth it for you.
CANVA: Marketing Photos
You know all those Instagram/TikTok photo editing apps? Well, that’s what Canva does, but for brands, companies, influencers… & YOU.
Make logos, animated post templates, all your social media artwork, whatever you need. And, yes: It’s FREE.
GHOST PLUGINS: CSS Codes
Disclaimer: YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW CODE.
This is a FREE site, that gives you a ton of options.
All you need to do is scroll through the cool features they offer, and once you find one you like, you just copy/paste the code for it, and put it where they tell you on your website.
That’s it.
SPARK PLUGINS: HTML Code
Disclaimer: YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW CODE.
This is another FREE site, that gives you a another ton of options!
All you need to do is scroll through the cool features they offer, and once you find one you like, you just copy/paste the code for it, and put it where they tell you on your website.
That’s it.
ELFSIGHT: Website Plugins
This site is pretty generous, allowing you to use several of their plugins for FREE. They let you have up to page 5,000 views of any of their apps, each of which you can use up to 3x. Their lifetime use price is pretty up there, but if you’re doing well enough, go for it!
PEXELS: Stock Images
Prior to the year 2020, it was very difficult to find a variety of quality stock photos centering on models in the Black Community. In recent years though, there’s an extravagant amount!
Although Squarespace has a partnership with UnSplash.com, and you can use their stock pics, I’ve noticed that the Pexels.com site has more Black models, and it’s FREE and easy to use. For this site, we as a rule only use photos focusing on people from the Black Community, so this website has been exactly what was needed!
MIDJOURNEY: Art Generator
This site— along with ChatGPT— has been in a lot of headlines. To signup, there’s somewhat of a workaround, because you have to also create an account with Discord.
But once you do… it’s a fascinating world. MidJourney is an artificial intelligence program that will create almost any visuals you can imagine! You start by literally typing in the /imagine *prompt (a computer command, for those who aren’t computer savvy), and the A.I. goes to work.
There’s no telling what style you’ll get, since everything depends on the command you’ve given, but refining those commands is surprisingly FUN. And FREE to use, but only for a few hours, so do your research and know what you want out of it before you start.
DAVID ALEX: Tips & Tricks
YouTube. Essentially free College for anyone willing to use it. (And Youtube just announced a partnership with ArizonaU to create YouTube courses, where you can earn college credits.)
David has a very calm, soothing manner, and he walks you through each step. Easy to understand, focuses mostly on Squarespace tutorials and has dozens FREE videos/tools.