Microsoft Office Live Small Business: Beginner’s Guide

Table of Contents

Microsoft Office Live Small Business

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Reviewers

Preface

About Office Live Small Business

Is Office Live Small Business right for you?

About this book

How to use this book

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Time for action — uploading a document

What just happened?

Pop quiz

Have a go hero

Reader feedback

Customer support

Companion Website

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started

Important preliminary points

Signing in

Time for action — sign in to your Office Live Small Business account

What just happened?

Signing out

Time for action — sign out of your Office Live Small Business account

What just happened?

Exploring the website section

Time for action — exploring the website section of your account

Page Manager: the site-management tool

The starter website

Time for action — viewing the starter website

What just happened?

More about Page Manager

Time for action — viewing page properties

What just happened?

Have a go hero — explore page properties

Site Designer and Page Editor: the design tools

Time for action — exploring Site Designer

Have a go hero — explore Site Designer's ribbon

Time for action — exploring Page Editor

What just happened?

Have a go hero — explore Page Editor's ribbon

Pop quiz 1.1

The rest of the tools: the galleries

Have a go hero — explore the galleries

Summary

2. Customizing Headers and Footers

Choosing a title for your website

Time for action — setting the site title

What just happened?

Choosing a slogan for your website

Time for action — setting the site slogan

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with the site title and site slogan

Pop quiz 2.1

Setting the footer

Time for action — customizing the footer

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with the footers

Summary

3. Setting Design Options

Choosing a theme for your website

Time for action — choosing a theme

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with different themes

Choosing a style for your website

Time for action — choosing a style

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with different styles

Choosing a navigation layout

Time for action choosing a style

What just happened?

Choosing a color scheme for your website

Time for action — choosing a color scheme

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with different color schemes

Choosing a site font for your website

Pop quiz 3.1

Time for action — choosing the site font

What just happened?

Have a go hero — choose another font if you wish

Summary

4. Setting Page Display Options

Setting site options

Time for action — opening the Site options dialog

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with different page options

Introducing Advanced design features

Time for action — activating Advanced design features

What just happened?

Have a go hero — preview your site's stylesheet

Pop quiz 4.1

Using Advanced design features

Time for action — overriding the site width setting

What just happened?

Summary

5. Building Your Website's Skeleton

Editing the home page

Time for action — opening the Home page in Page Editor

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with Page Editor commands

Choosing a page layout

Time for action — changing the Layout

What just happened?

Customizing the page layout

Time for action — customizing a layout

What just happened?

Creating a template for future use

Time for action — creating and saving a page template

What just happened?

Have a go hero — view template properties

Creating content for the home page

Have a go hero — write copy for your home page

Building the Home page

Time for action — add copy to the Home page

What just happened?

Re-creating the About Us page

Time for action — creating a new page from a template

What just happened?

Have a go hero — write copy for your about us page

Re-creating the Contact Us page

Time for action — re-creating the Contact Us page

What just happened?

Creating the Privacy Policy page

Time for action — creating a new page from a template

What just happened?

Have a go hero — write copy for your Privacy Policy page

Building the Privacy Policy page

Time for action — add copy to the Privacy Policy page

What just happened?

Deleting a page

Time for action — deleting a web page

What just happened?

Summary

6. Building the Information Pages

Selecting and organizing information for your site's information pages

This book's companion site: a case study

Step 1: Decide the purpose of the website

Step 2: Specify potential visitors and classify them into groups

Step 3: Wear the visitors' hats and think of questions they'd ask

Step 4: Select questions that are worth answering

Step 5: Classify questions into topics

Step 6: Reword the section and topic names with phrases suitable for the website

Step 7: Eliminate redundant information and finalize the page hierarchy

A few more examples

A website for children's art classes

A website for an appliance repair service

Have a go hero — selecting and organizing information for your website's information pages

Creating section pages

Time for action — creating a section page

What just happened?

Have a go hero — creating the rest of the section pages

Pop quiz 6.1

Creating topic pages

Time for action — creating a topic page

What just happened?

Have a go hero — creating the rest of the topic pages

Creating content for the section pages

Have a go hero — writing content for section pages

Creating content for the topic pages

Have a go hero — writing content for topic pages

Summary

7. Improving the Presentation

Introducing Page Editor's modules

Setting up a contact form with the Contact Us module

Time for action — creating a contact form

What just happened?

Adding contact information

Time for action — adding contact information

What just happened?

Displaying a map and driving directions

Time for action — creating a map and driving directions page

What just happened?

Have a go hero: customize the Map & directions display

Trying out a couple of other modules

Time for action trying out Weather and Stock modules

What just happened?

Creating hyperlinks

Time for action — creating a hyperlink to the Map page

What just happened?

Have a go hero — working with hyperlinks

Displaying pictures

Time for action — displaying a picture

What just happened?

Have a go hero — working with pictures

Presenting data in tabular format

Time for action — creating a table

What just happened?

Have a go hero — working with tables

Pop quiz 7.1

Summary

8. Fine-tuning the Design

Customizing the header

A header with one of the built-in theme pictures

A plain header without a logo or a picture

Time for action — building a header without a logo or a picture

What just happened?

A header with a picture of your choice

Time for action — building a header with a custom picture

What just happened?

A header with a logo and a picture

Time for action — building a header with a logo and a picture

What just happened?

A header with a logo but no picture

Time for action — building a header with a logo but no picture

What just happened?

Have a go hero — experiment with the header

Pop quiz 8.1

Customizing the color scheme

Time for action — customizing the color scheme

What just happened?

Using a custom stylesheet

Tweaking the navigation links

Time for action — manipulating the stylesheet to fix the navigation

What just happened?

Displaying borders around pictures

Time for action — displaying a border around pictures

What just happened?

Have a go hero — play with styles

Styling horizontal rules

Time for action — styling the horizontal rules

What just happened?

Pop quiz 8.2

Summary

9. Venturing Beyond the Basics

About HTML modules

Time for action — adding an HTML module to your page

What just happened?

HTML 101

Working with paragraphs

Working with horizontal rules

Working with headings

Working with hyperlinks

Time for action — generating the markup for a hyperlink

What just happened?

Working with pictures

Have a go hero — experiment with a picture's HTML markup

Working with external content

Have a go hero — experiment with a picture's HTML markup

Pop quiz 9.1

Further customization with solutions

Summary

10. Optimizing for Search Engines

What is SEO?

What SEO is not

Optimizing your web pages

Do comply with web standards

Do avoid HTML modules

Do avoid Adobe Flash movies when HTML would do just fine

Do follow best practices

Specify a meaningful title for every page

Time for action — specifying meaningful page titles

What just happened?

Specify keyword and description metatags wherever possible

Time for action — specifying metatags

What just happened?

Fix broken links

Write good copy

Check your spelling

Pop quiz 10.1

Don't abuse metatags

Don't add hidden text

Don't link your pages to irrelevant pages

Don't fall prey to dubious SEO advice

Have a go hero — optimize your web pages

Summary

A. Signing Up: Opening a New Office Live Small Business Account

Signing up

B. Setting Up E-mail Accounts

Creating an e-mail account

Resetting the password of an e-mail account

Deleting an e-mail account

C. Submitting Your Site to Search Engines

D. Backup and Restore: Recovering From Disasters

Backing Up

Restoring

E. Reports: Analyzing Visitor Statistics

Accessing Reports

What exactly do these Reports tell you?

What Reports don't tell you

The right way to use Reports

The wrong way to use Reports

Are Reports accurate?

What about Google Analytics?

F. Answers to Pop Quizes

Answers to Pop quiz 1.1

Answer to Pop quiz 2.1

Answer to Pop quiz 3.1

Answer to Pop quiz 4.1

Answer to Pop quiz 6.1

Answers to Pop quiz 7.1

Answer to Pop quiz 8.1

Answers to Pop quiz 9.1

Answers to Pop quiz 10.1

Index

Microsoft Office Live Small Business Beginner's Guide

Rahul Pitre

Microsoft Office Live Small Business

Copyright © 2009 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: November 2009

Production Reference: 1191109

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road

Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847198-74-7

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Parag Kadam (<paragvkadam@gmail.com>)

Credits

Author

Rahul Pitre

Reviewers

Maarten van Stam

Vivek Thangaswamy

David M.Wenning

Acquisition Editor

James Lumsden

Development Editor

Amey Kanse

Technical Editor

Tarun Singh

Copy Editor

Ajay Shanker

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Editorial Team Leader

Abhijeet Deobhakta

Project Team Leader

Priya Mukherjee

Project Coordinator

Leena Purkait

Proofreader

Andie Scothern

Graphics

Nilesh Mohite

Production Coordinator

Aparna Bhagat

Cover Work

Aparna Bhagat

About the Author

Rahul Pitre has been writing software of one sort or another for 25 years, the last dozen or so of which he has spent mostly developing websites and web applications. He runs Acxede, a software consulting and training firm in New York, where he oversees web application and content development for a variety of clients. He holds masters degrees in Business Administration and Computer Information Systems.

Acknowledgments

Several people contributed significantly to this book in one way or another, and I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to them.

Thanks to James Lumsden, Acquisition Editor at Packt Publishing, for making this book possible. Thanks to Amey Kanse, Development Editor, for guiding me throughout its writing; his advice was invaluable. Thanks to Leena Purkait, Project Coordinator, for keeping the book on schedule; she managed to do so despite my occasional bouts of inertia.

Thanks to Abhijeet Deobhakta, Editorial Team Leader, and to Priya Mukherjee, Project Team Leader, for overseeing the creation of this book.

Thanks to Tarun Singh, Technical Editor, for accommodating several last-minute changes to the manuscript without losing his cool. Thanks to Ajay Shankar, Copy Editor, for performing the unenviable task of correcting my grammar and to Andie Scothern for ably proofreading the final manuscript. Thanks go to Hemangini Bari for indexing the book. Thanks also go to Aparna Bhagat for designing the pretty cover as well as for the neat layout of the book.

Thanks go to Dave Wenning, Maarten van Stam, and Vivek Thangaswamy for painstakingly reviewing the manuscript; they caught my mistakes and made countless suggestions. Their hard work has kept me honest and helped me write a better book.

Finally, thanks go to three people who probably will never read this book. Thanks to my son Rohan and my daughter Ruhi for promising to buy it nevertheless. And thanks to my wife Minal for putting up with me and managing our family in spite of me while I wrote this book.

All these folks deserve as much credit for this book as I do.

About the Reviewers

Maarten van Stam holds a B.Sc in Computer science (graduation in 1996, HIO, The Hague, The Netherlands) and worked as a software engineer for over 20 years. He started programming dBase and Clipper (DOS) systems in the early 80s, followed by Pascal and C++ in the late 80s, C++/VB for Windows in the early 90s, and continues to program in VB.NET and C# as part of the Microsoft's .NET Framework.

Maarten has specialized in Office development, .NET, and VSTO and has received the Microsoft MVP award in the expertise area of Visual Developer—VSTO for voluntarily sharing expertise with others. In addition to this role, Maarten takes part in several TAP Programs, beta tests, software design reviews, and advisory councils for software tools such as Visual Studio Team System and Microsoft Office. In addition to working in the software business professionally, Maarten is also an organizational member of the Software Development Network, currently the largest developer community group in the Netherlands (www.sdn.nl).

Besides tech reading this book, Maarten also reviewed Visual Studio Tools for Office 2007: VSTO for Excel, Word, and Outlook by Packt Publishing, authored by Eric Carter and Eric Lippert, Maarten's insights can be read and followed on www.maartenvanstam.nl, where you can find his blog that relates to all aspects of software development.

Vivek Thangaswamy is a software solutions developer and technical author living and working in the pleasant surroundings of Chennai, India. His range of technical competence stretches across platforms and lines of business, but he specializes in Microsoft Enterprise application architectures and Microsoft Server-based product integrations. Vivek is currently working for the world's largest software services company in Microsoft Technologies. He holds several Microsoft certifications and Microsoft MVP awards. He has a wide range of technology experience. Vivek started programming in a DOS world, then moved to C, C++, VC++, VB 6, ASP 3.0; and eventually to .NET in both VB.NET and C# worlds and also in ASP.NET/MS SQL Server 2005. He has a very good experience in Enterprise Collaboration Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 accompanied with the VSTO and .NET 3.0 frameworks. He started working in SharePoint from version 2003. Currently working with Windows Workflow Foundations and Windows Communication Foundations, he has very good exposure to Microsoft Commerce Server and Performance Point Server. Apart from Microsoft Technologies, Vivek has an expertise in PHP, ColdFusion, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. He has UI design skills using Photoshop and Flash, and has major interest in exploring open source technologies and innovating through them. He has completed his Bachelor of Technology degree in Information Technology from one of the world's finest universities and is currently pursuing the Management of Business Administration in Finance degree.

Vivek has also authored the book VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming by Packt Publishing (http://www.packtpub.com/vsto-3-for-office-2007-programming/book), which released in March 2009.

David M. Wenning is a hospital pharmacist. His interest in computer technology dates back to graduate school in the 1970s. He became interested in applying computer technology to pharmacy practice, and took elective courses in programming languages and business computing. In the early 1980s, the IBM PC was released and he purchased one of the first ones available. The computer became an indispensable tool in both, his professional and personal lives.

Next came the Internet. Already a weather hobbyist, he had a yen to publish his weather station data to the Web. He became aware of the Microsoft Office Live Small Business platform and took them up on their offer for a free website under their beta testing program. It quite turned out to be the right choice for him. He had a good understanding of computer technology, but no familiarity with web design or construction. Office Live made the process easy and he has been using the service for nearly three years now.

David is an active participant in the OLSB Community forum and a member of the Community Council, which he considers as an opportunity to provide feedback and input into the development of the platform.

Preface

You're probably reading this either because you have a small business, a hobby, a cause you care about deeply, a special interest, or a charitable organization that you want the whole world to know about. And what better way to publicize it than by building a website for it?

But let's face it: building and maintaining a good website is expensive. Professional