MySnowPro.com: October 2009 Archives

Use Tags to help readers find your content, and show what you write about

By Gregg Davis on October 16, 2009 2:51 PM | No Comments

Each time you write en Entry, get in the habit of labeling it with a few Tags. The tag field is located right below the body field on the editing screen.

MySnowPro will remind you and suggest tags you've used in the past, to make it easy for you to tag each Entry.

A Tag Cloud is a gropup of linked tags, displayed in different text sizes depending on their popularity, or how many entries are tagged with a particular word. In other words, the more entries you tag with the word "Breckenridge," the larger the text will be in the Tag Cloud.

Separate your Tags with commas. You can even use Tag Phrases, which would be two or more words together, making a phrase.

There are great benefits that come from your regular use of Tags. For one, it becomes a navigation tool for readers and students browsing your blog. The TagCloud makes it really easy to find content you're interested in reading. Once you're reading one post with a certain tag, it's easy to find and read other posts with the same tag.

Another benefit is that the Tags become "search keywords" for Google and the other search engines. By placing a group of Tags in every Entry you create, you'll be giving the search engines some words that they can list your site for in the search results. For example, if I search for "snowboard Breckenridge" in Google, the posts that have those two words in them as tags are more likely to be listed high in the search results.

Check out Jonathan Lawson's blog and see how you can click the Tags and navigate using them. And get in the habit of using three or four every time you write a post. It will make your website better in more ways than one.

Your website is already set up to display the Tag Cloud on your sidebar, as soon as you start tagging entries. It's located on the left sidebar, near the top.

Ask Us!

By Gregg Davis on October 16, 2009 12:00 PM | 2 Comments

If you have any questions at all, just ask them here, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible with an answer. If you are a member, you can log in, or use an email address to ask us on the form below.

Many answers can be found in the Tutorials section, under Tutorials to the right, or by clicking the link below.

Tutorials Section

Placing info at the top of your Home Page

By Gregg Davis on October 15, 2009 9:24 AM | No Comments

You can create post on your website, that's not an "Entry," but a "Page," and place it at the top of your homepage. MySnowPro.com has added a feature called "Pages" that can hold static content that you want to stay in one place all the time.

We've made it so that you can create a Page, say, with your contact info and booking information, and have it stay at the top of your homepage above your date-based entries, until you decide to change it. You can place as many Pages at the top of your homepage as you like, and change their order too. Here's how:

On your MSP dashboard, roll your mouse over Create, and click Page. You can fill in a title, and some content including images, a video, or anything you like. You can even place a google calendar with your schedule (more on that in a later tutorial).

Make sure you tag your Page "@home" so it appears in the homepage. You can change the order that multiple pages appear on your homepage by editing their creation date at the right side of the editing screen.

NOTE: If you use more than one tag on your page, separate them with commas. There's more on Tags in the Tutorials section.

Click Save, and you're done!

Adding some Bio information below your name

By Gregg Davis on October 11, 2009 8:05 PM | No Comments

There's an easy way to add some info about yourself below your name on the header of your website. It appears on every single page of your website. You could put your teaching credentials, the name of your ski area, where you live, or anything else about yourself. Here's how you do it.

Log in and roll your mouse over Preferences at the top. Click General and you'll see the name of your website (your name) and an empty "description" field. Type whatever you want here, and it will appear on every page of your site.

This is an HTML (web code) field, so in order to create a "line break," or move to the next line, you can't just hit "enter." You'l have to stick a "Break" tag in there: <br /> The "Break" tag is a "less-than" symbol, the letters "br" and then a space and a "greater-than" symbol. Here's what it looks like:

Alpine Skiing PSIA Level 3 Certified<br />
Breckenridge, Colorado<br />

There you go! Some beta, or a byline about yourself, right there on every page of your website.

Ski & Ride Instructors take care of your students. Students, ask more from your instructor

By Jonathan Lawson on October 11, 2009 7:47 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

As a professional instructor knows, we share information, passion, and life experiences. We get to do this from 9am-4pm everyday during the winter. And other than Apres'-ski, the lesson and the relationship with our guests typically ends at that point. Occasionally there were email exchanged or pictures sent. Even more seldom was a seasonal newsletter sent to our students. Why? Because it was time consuming and difficult to keep track of contact information.

Continue reading Ski & Ride Instructors take care of your students. Students, ask more from your instructor.

Entries and your Home Page

By Gregg Davis on October 11, 2009 11:26 AM | 1 Comment

An "Entry" within your website is a block of text and pictures, with a title and some other information. It's like an article in a magazine - it has a title, a date, and it can be in a category. There can be more than one Entry on a page of your website, or a list of Entry excerpts, with "Continue Reading" links at the bottom of each one. Your homepage will display the latest 10 entries in reverse order, newest at the top.

You can also place a fixed entry, called a Page, at the top of your homepage to hold important information there like your calendar, booking info, or contact information. You can read about Pages in this tutorial: Placing info at the top of your Home Page.

Let's take a tour of Entries and explore how to create, edit, and save one to your website.

To the left is the top of the Create/Edit Entry screen. You can open this screen by clicking the red Write Entry button, or rolling your mouse over Create and clicking Entry. You can edit an entry by rolling over Manage, clicking Entries, and then clicking the title of the Entry.

There are a few options you can explore in the image to the left. (Click it to enlarge) The title field is located at the top, and below that, the Body area. Your content goes into the body, including pictures, video, links and text. The buttons above the Body area give you the ability to format your text and insert pictures.

If you roll your mouse over each button, a little fly-out will tell you what each one is for.

Below the Body area, there is a Tags field and some action buttons. Use these to define your entry with tag keywords, and save.

If you get into the habit of defining three to five Tags when you create an entry, you can help your readers find the content they are looking for, as well as use a Tag-Cloud feature on the sidebar that helps readers in navigating to parts of your website they want to visit.

By default, your homepage will show the latest 10 entries, newest at the top.

Here are a couple other entry properties you can define, that will be addressed in more detail in other tutorials.

On the right side of the Entry screen, you can control the Published or Draft status of your entry, and choose a date. When you edit the date of an entry, it controls the order in which your entries are displayed. You can move an entry to the top of the homepage or a category page by choosing a later date than other entries for it.

You can also choose and manage categories from here. Use the green "plus" buttons to add a category, or choose from a list of categories you already have on your site.

You should always place your entries in a category, to help display all your content on your site, and make it easy to find. You can look around at other MSP websites to see how others are using categories. Check out Jon Lawson's page to get a good feel for it. Don't think you have to start with so many, though. You can define them as you go, so there's no need to create a big list of categories first.

It's always a good idea to leave Accept Comments checked, so readers can communicate and interact with you and other readers on your website. Maybe some of your entries will start a good conversation! When you place an image in an entry, it becomes an Asset on your website, and is accociated with that entry. You can manage these from here on the Edit Entry screen, and you can also use images in more than one entry on your site.

The default setting is to have Comments enabled, and trackbacks are a blogging feature that we'll discuss in a later tutorial. By default, commenters need to create an account on your site or sign in before they are published on your website.

We'll discuss Comments later in another more comprehensive tutorial.

Here's a few steps to get you started!

Log in to your dashboard by clicking "Members Login" on MySnowPro.com or your own page, at the top right
Click Write Entry - the red button at the top
Choose a title, and write some text in the Body field
Create a Category on the right side for your entry
Label your entry with several Tags
Make sure Published is selected and Comments too
Click Save

Now open a new window with your website using the "View Site" button:

at the top right side of the Navigation bar. Check it out! What you've just written is up on the internet for all to see!

Welcome to your new website

By Gregg Davis on October 9, 2009 11:10 PM | No Comments

Here's my first entry on MySnowPro.com. Where should I start? Well, here's an example of some things you can do with an Entry.

I uploaded the photo on the left and placed a smaller thumbnail here. When you click it, it gets bigger. You can manage images through the Assets Manager or upload or add images to an entry while your making or editing it.

I'll put all my entries in Categories, when I create them. You can always add or change categories later.

To place an entry (like this one) on the home page, I added the @home tag before I saved the entry. Every entry that is tagged @home appears on your main page. You can use Excerpts and the Extended Entry to display shorter versions on the home page.

Have Fun, and thanks for visiting!

More tricks and tips are located at www.mysnowpro.com/tutorials. See how I made that a link? Highlight the text and use the link button above the text area.