Hi, friends!
Happy Friday to you! In this week's installment of Meet Your Weebly Community, I'd like to introduce you to @mandismuses.
I'm sure you've noticed Mandi around the Community! She's consistently one of our top kudoed posters, and she often provides great answers and feedback to other Weebly users. Mandi has also provided us with some great ideas in our Vote on Features section, such as New Page Option - Pop Up Page, Template Enhancements, and The Dreaded Footer.
Here's what Mandi had to say when I asked her to participate in this post:
1. Tell us a bit about yourself (personal, professional, whatever you'd like to share).
I'm Mandi, multi-tasker extraordinnaire. I own roleplaylives.net, a roleplaying social network, with my best friend. I'm an indie author, and started my own publishing company with her as well. I also make jewelry, lotions, and soaps. Basically, I have some sort of an allergy to allowing myself to get bored, so I bounce all over the place. Busy, but it's lots of fun though, especially with someone you love at your side! You can find out more about me and links to my other sites here- http://www.mandikonesni.com/
2. Describe your personal/professional relationship with Weebly. How long have you been using Weebly? How did you get started?
I originally started using Weebly after I had a failed attempt at a storefront through a competitor. I had just graduated high school, and wanted to take the business I'd created as a teen and bring it online. It was just too difficult, and I found myself loathing the times that I'd have to get on to update. Running a business you love shouldn't become something you hate to do, and other companies made me feel that way. I walked away from the idea for a few years. It's now been around 8-9 years since I found Weebly. Since then, I've built dozens of websites on Weebly for myself, our businesses, and for friends. I'm sure there will be plenty more.
3. What resources were most helpful to you when you first got started with Weebly?
Honestly, when I first started there really weren't any Weebly tutorials and things. There were a few, but not super in depth. I found a lot of help by searching "Weebly How To" and finding sites by fellow Weebly users who had learned by themselves as they tweaked the basics. As Weebly grew and added new features, I was able to slowly but surely build a site I could be proud of. Through the other Weebly pages, I learned how to change color codes, what to search for in order to change "Read More" to "View Products" and things like that.
4. What advice would you give to a new Weebly user?
Dive in. Weebly is so dead simple, that you can start over on a whim if you don't like something. Check everything, find out what each item does. Play with different formats, with different colors. We're each so unique, that our websites should be as well. Plus, as you play in the designer, you gain more confidence with yourself and Weebly so you can really stand out more. Don't be scared to change a theme, change a page. Heck, delete the whole site and start over. Weebly makes what should be an aggravating process into something that honestly becomes fun and relaxing for me.
5. What is the best part of using Weebly? What is one improvement that you would like to see in the future?
The drag and drop editor. I've talked many into using Weebly, simply because I can tell them they need no website experience. They don't have to have coding knowledge, nothing like that to use Weebly. It gives many the self-confidence to give it a shot. Once they're here, I know they'll stay. The drag and drop, super easy functionality is the push to get them there.
For Weebly, I really think there needs to be an archive function. One hesitation I have with using and recommending Weebly is that I can't click "Archive", download a file, and then upload it on a fresh Weebly site and have my site rebuilt. We put so much time and energy into these sites. So many years of work. Not having an adequate way to archive our entire site is one huge stepping stone that keeps Weebly from competing with the "big dogs". Which is a shame, because it could be so much better simply due to how easy it is to use and work with.
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Make sure to check out Mandi's sites and follow her activity around the Community!
Until next week...
Thanks,
Erin
Weebly Community Manager
