Build a website with TypePad Pages

A COUPLE of weeks ago I wrote about the new Pages option in TypePad that lets users create stand alone pages that looked less like a blog and more like a normal website, see Stand alone pages in TypePad.

In that piece I wrote that it wouldn't take much to create a "normal" site that didn't have a blog's characteristics but still offered useful information, say for a start-up business.

Well take a look at Pansion Stephen, a holiday home in Medjugorje, a site I put together for a client offering stays in Croatia.

If this is something that appeals this is what I did:

The first thing of note is that you don't need TypePad's Pro level membership option to do this, although the Basic option does restrict you to one site you can still have a blog and a Pages site, although you can't map the domain.

Preparation
Start by getting together a few articles and photographs for your site, then dive into TypePad and start a new weblog, pick one of the standard designs that appeal and instead of starting a new post start a new page.

This is just as simple as starting a post, type in the title of the page, copy and paste the words you have prepared into the Page Body window and load up any pictures you want to place on the page.

TypePad will automatically create a file name based on the title, but you don't need to stick with it if you don't want to.

Then rinse and repeat for however many pages you want on your site, for a quick and simple website around five or six will suffice, but don't forget an About Us page (just a little bug bear of mine).

Home page
One of these pages is likely to be your home page and thankfully TypePad makes it easy for you to ensure visitors arriving on your site see this; click on the Configure tab and then Preferences.

At the top of the page you'll see the option to pick one of your pages as the front page of your site, similar to the index page of a regular website, once you have set this then head to the bottom of the page and save your changes.

TypeLists
Naturally you are going to want to feature links to the other pages on your site and again you have a couple of options here.

The first is to use the built-in sidebar module provided by TypePad that lets you order pages by title or time they were created, but you could also set up a Links TypeList and copy and paste the address of each page and this would allow you to easily pick and choose the order of links.

Don't forget to include an email address on your site as Pages don't feature a comment form, and you many want to place a statistics counter in a column to measure site visitors.

Final thoughts
Of course there is nothing stopping you having a blog as well and you could easily provide links between the two sites, but for a quick "normal" website this really is a simple option.

As a little aside, you could easily offer a cheap and cheerful website design service for clients using the Pages option with one of the more expensive TypePad account options and you've even got a selection of templates to show off for people to pick from.

Take a look at Pansion Stephen to see what you can do.

Update: A short time after posting this piece I crossed another that highlights how to put together a website using TypePad Pages, see You can build a website in TypePad.

Comments

[Lexie]

Thanks for the tips, especially the example.

With regards to the "cheap and cheerful website design service," what is the range, based on experience, you would recommend charging for building a site w/Typepad?

Thanks, so much, for your time.

[Craig]

Tough question to answer that as website designers can charge wildly different prices for very similar sites.

You could always masquerade as a potential client and ask a few local designers to quote for a five page site.

A Pages site is really something you could put together very quickly once you've done a few, so then you are charging for your knowledge and not by the hour.

You could even charge a premium for offering a 24-hour turnaround!

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

Nice job and great instructions. Thanks for sharing your experience. For the person asking about what to charge, that of course depends on a whole range of things: what kind of service are you going to provide? how much training to teach the client how to use their site? how much strategy and optimization? what's your expertise? are you a designer? will there be any customer work on the design?

There are a lot of factors that go in to pricing a service. Try not to go with an hourly rate or you'll end up not getting paid what you're worth.

[Lexie]

Thanks, Craig and Denise. I figured it might be hard to quote a range. I guess the other factor would be how much I think I'm worth, of course taking in to consideration experience, market value, etc. Thanks, again, to both of you.

[Writer Vixen]

Craig, "Beyond Bliss" is beyond fabulous! Thank you so much for the beautiful example and the excellent instructions.

You rock. ;)

[Craig McGinty]

Glad you found the piece useful Writer Vixen.

All the best, Craig

[Tom Krieglstein]

I built many of the pages on www.isud.org from typepad. It was an easy solution to do some of the program heavy stuff I wanted to.

[Craig McGinty]

Hi Tom, that looks really smart and seamlessly brings static pages together with a blog.
Many thanks
Craig

[Betty Byrnes]

I know it's been a while since you posted these instructions; but I just found them and really appreciate the simplicity!

I have a TypePad blog and decided I want to try a website. I am sure all the information I need is in the Knowledge Base; but finding it is another thing!

It seems that anytime I try to find instructions, they come in so many little unconnected pieces that I get a bad case of frustration trying to follow all the links and finally figure out what to do.

That's how I found you - a Google search for "how to build a TypePad website."

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[Craig McGinty]

Hi Betty, glad I could help :-)

All the best, Craig