Ready to unleash your creativity online?
I can’t wait to show you how!
Whether you’re an aspiring business owner, a hopeful future web designer, or just a gal with a dream for a humble-yet-gorgeous blog or site, you’re invited to join our group of amazing, design-minded women in The Girl’s Guide to Web Design – an online course like no other!
GG2WD is an online video training program with over 35 hours of juicy, playful, easy-to-understand content – and support for your questions every step of the way.
Even if you’ve never touched WordPress, made a graphic or written a bit of code in your life, you’ll finish the course with impressive knowledge in site strategy, graphic design (NO Photoshop required – seriously!), and the HTML and CSS you need to create to-die-for blogs and sites. And don’t forget the hefty dose of SEO (that’s Search Engine Optimization – meaning making your site easily findable with Google), marketing, and WordPress expertise that’s woven right in to everything I teach.
You’ll learn to make sites like the ones you see here – and you may even discover you want to be a web designer! And you’ll do it all with plenty of encouragement along the way.
You can start the course whenever you want, and you get permanent access to the videos and worksheets – so you can keep coming back to the material again and again on our private, students-only website.
Is this for you?
Our students are everything from stay-at-home-moms to corporate go-getters to savvy grandmothers to college students. We’ve had doctors, pilates teachers, food bloggers, SEO consultants, and interior decorators take the course – and yes, even some men!
All the material is delivered in a private, students-only website, and you can work through the videos totally at your own pace, so you should have no problem working The Girl’s Guide To Web Design into your lifestyle and schedule.
If ANY of the following sounds like you, then you’re likely a perfect fit for The Girl’s Guide to Web Design:
- You have an idea for a site or blog you want to start, but you’re not sure where to begin (there are so many options, and they all seem overwhelming!).
- You have a site or blog based on a free theme or something you paid a designer/developer to create for you, but you hate how you can’t easily change its layout and look and feel. In other words, you’re locked in to what you’ve got, and you’re not a fan of that.
- You have a little technical experience, but you’re not sure how to get to the next level. You want a concrete, repeatable system for creating beautiful blogs and sites.
- You’re a graphic designer who wants to add website creation to the services you provide (thereby making more money and reeling in more clients!).
- You’re a VA (Virtual Assistant) who wants to pump up your skill set so that you can do things like code opt-in forms and lay out pages in interesting ways on your clients’ sites – not to mention create entire new sites on the fly!
- You want to become a professional web designer, but you DON’T want to have to sit in a college classroom three nights a week, learn outdated techniques and lots of theory, and then have to fend for yourself out there in the real world.
- You’re an entrepreneur who’s sick of having to find (and pay!) a good, reliable designer or “web person” every time you want to get a new idea or project online. You’d rather DIY it, dammit!
In a nutshell, GG2WD is for anyone who’s driven, creative, and ready to get seriously empowered when it comes to learning web design.
Here’s what you’ll get when you join us in The Girl’s Guide to Web Design:
- Immediate access to all 8 chapters of The Girl’s Guide to Web Design (over 35 hours of instructional video!) on our always-online, password-protected website
- Learn from oodles of videos and exercises led by me, Amanda
- A complimentary one-hour Website Therapy session with rockstar coach Sally Hope – which you can use whenever you want or need it during your site creation process (more info on THAT goodness here)
- Hours of bonus how-to content (yep, we’re giving you recordings of a TON of meaty Q&A webinars that cover everything you can imagine about design, code, and WordPress
- PERMANENT access to our exclusive private Facebook group, where our team of support gurus is ready to help out whenever you have a question about the course material, want a second opinion on something you’re working on, or just need a friendly pep talk (even long after you’ve finished the course)
- The ability to learn totally at your own pace, working through the videos and exercises in a way that suits your schedule and priorities
- Permanent access to the course content (keep coming back to the site again and again, months or even years from now)
- An experience that will leave you feeling magnificently empowered and (quite frankly) unstoppable (click here to see our complete list of student testimonials)
- Stefani
- Deborah
- Erin
- Jana
So, what precisely will you learn? Here’s the breakdown of some of the delectable topics we’ll cover inside our private, students-only website:
Chapter 0: Getting your domain and web hosting set up and installing WordPress
- The important difference between “self-hosted” and “hosted” WordPress – and why you need to choose the right one.
- How to buy a domain and web hosting space without wanting to tear your hair out
- The four scenarios that will determine everything about setting up your website – and how to know which one you fit into.
- Installing WordPress the impossibly easy way (no, it doesn’t have to be painful!)
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 1: Laying the groundwork for your site
- How using the Thesis 1.8.5 framework for WordPress lets you get a site that looks like literally whatever you want
- How to install and activate Thesis in approximately 2 minutes
- Getting to know you: the anatomy of your website
- Familiarizing yourself with Thesis’ many cool options and what they can do for you
- The crucial setting that takes a site from ho-hum to gorgeously you
- Blog, website, or both: picking your site format
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 2: Dreaming up your look and feel
- Your website questionnaire: diving deep to find out what the REAL you wants out of a blog or site
- How to write your website vision statement (and why you won’t want to be without one)
- The reason why you DON’T need to own a copy of Photoshop to get a gorgeous site
- The two FREE online graphic design tools that will change your life forever – and how to use them
- My secret sources for amazingly inspiring imagery
- Social media icons: where to get ones you love – or how to make ‘em yourself
- Creating an inspiration board that really speaks to you
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 3: Site strategy, initial setup and stealthy future-planning
- Deciding on the layout of your site (how many columns, and where to put them)
- The mistake many people make with the width of their sites
- How to set up your homepage: posts or static content?
- The importance of creating “dummy pages” (without them, you miss out on some serious styling fun)
- Making your menu look as pretty as it is functional
- Your search bar and social media icons: putting them where it counts
- The right way to gather email addresses for a newsletter – without resorting to pressure tactics
- Developing your very own list of website must-haves
- Intro to plugins: how they work and how to install them
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 4: Graphic design for non-graphic designers
- Creating and naming your color scheme – and bringing it to life on your site
- Your all-important header image: dos, don’ts, and how to make it from scratch
- The web design principle that could make or break your blog or site
- Where to source the images you need to create a custom look for every aspect of your site
- My special trick for sizing your images without “breaking” your layout
- Textures, backgrounds and stock photography: where the good ones are hiding
- Hosting your images by FTP (a skill you’ll call on again and again)
- How to make “fashion collages” for your blog posts
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 5: Intro to HTML – and a touch of CSS
- Proof that learning to code can actually be fun
- My no-memorization-required method of learning HTML tags – and why you DON’T need to learn every last one to be able to do amazing things online
- How HTML tells your browser what to do with your site
- The indispensable tool you’ve probably never heard of that lets you look “under the hood” of your site
- CSS style rules: my signature explanation will make it all make sense
- Using CSS to alter the look of *anything* on your site
- CSS and color: a rainbow at your fingertips
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 6: CSS: the Juicy Stuff
- How to use CSS to position anything on your site exactly where you want it (no more squished-together lines of text or cluttered-up sidebars).
- Creating beautiful, non-standard layouts for your posts and pages
- Fonts, glorious fonts! How to find and integrate fancy fonts into your blog or site without messing up your search engine optimization efforts
- How CSS “classes” let you style-ify every last element of your site
- Background images: the CSS technique that will spiffy up your site like nothing else can
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 7: Crucial add-ons, fun design techniques and the magic of OpenHook
- Creating a great-looking sidebar and footer
- Polishing off your list of website must-haves
- The ingenious plugin that lets you insert design elements in little-known places (GREAT for creating something truly eye-popping online)
- Special series of mini-tutorials: step-by-step instruction on how to do some of the web design world’s best-loved (and most attractive!) design tricks
- The effortless way to banish boring design elements from your site once and for all
- Fancy text styling for a magazine effect
- How to create a favicon (that cute little square icon in your browser address bar)
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
Chapter 8: Final tricks and tweaks, key plugins, SEO (otherwise known as how to make your site Google-friendly) and Google Analytics
- Mastering the tricks that will make your site as bulletproof as it is beautiful
- How to create a custom 404 error page (using your very own tone and voice)
- My personal list of must-have plugins (don’t leave home without ‘em!)
- Making your site mobile-friendly (smartphones, iPads…the whole shebang)
- How to search engine optimize your site to prime yourself for maximum traffic
- Tracking your visitors with Google Analytics
- Backing it up: how to protect your site against hackers and crashes
- Killer “next steps” for ladies on a mission: the best people to work with to take your site, blog or business to the next level
Ongoing, unlimited support in our private Facebook group
- Don’t forget – we’ve got your back as you learn! All GG2WD students get access to me and our team of Student Support Gurus in our private Facebook group, where you can ask questions, share your design triumphs, get feedback on your projects, or just get to know the other women who are sharing in the GG2WD journey with you.
Another lovely Thesis site made by one of our students (you’ll learn to do this!)
…And all you need in the way of “supplies” are the following bits and pieces:
- Any kind of desktop or laptop computer (Mac or PC – doesn’t matter!)
- A domain and web hosting account (I walk you through exactly how to purchase and set these up in the beginning of the course, and I also give you a special deal on hosting that’s only available to GG2WD students): about $5 a month
- A basic license for the Thesis framework for WordPress, which is the system I teach you to use, so that you can create sites that look like literally WHATEVER you want! (I will walk you through purchasing your license and setting up Thesis at the beginning of the course): $87
- A whole lot of excitement about the next phase of your brilliance!
By the time you graduate from The Girl’s Guide to Web Design, you will:
…Be the proud owner and creator of a site or blog that makes your heart swell with pride, joy and rainbows
…Have developed a tendency to want to show your brand new web presence to everyone you meet on the street
…Have mastered an ironclad method for making a new, totally unique site or blog every time you get a brilliant idea for a project or business
…Be poised to design sites for other people, FOR MONEY (yep – lots of our graduates have struck out on their own as web designers!)
…Officially vanquish all thoughts resorting to using a boring template or pre-made theme that other people are using on THEIR blogs and sites (gross!)
…Feel like you can conquer the world, because dangnabbit, you just learned to CODE, even though it scared the bejeesus out of you for all those years
…Be allied with a huge community of sassy and creative women (and some brave men!) who are proof of the fact that web design CAN be learned
…Have access to every update, improvement, and add-on to the course for the rest of time (lifetime membership, baby!)
…Never have to email (or pay!) your “web person” again – because even if you don’t know how to do something yourself, you know where to go and what to do to figure it out – quickly and painlessly!
…And I’ll teach you everything you need to know, no matter what your “website situation” is at the moment.
So whether you…
- Have no web hosting account and no domain
- Have a domain, but no web hosting account
- Have both a web hosting account and a domain already, but you haven’t got a functional site up and running
- Have a wordpress.com site, or a Blogger blog, or any other kind of blog or site, and you want to move to a self-hosted wordpress.org site
- Have a web hosting account, a domain, and a functional website or blog, and you want to build a site with a new look on the same domain – but you need the old site to stay up and active while you’re working on the snazzy new one “behind the scenes”
- Have no idea what a domain or a web host even IS!
…I have specific guidance for your exact situation. In other words – I’ve got you covered!
I’m darn serious about this being the most robust and empowering online course you’ve ever participated in. So, take a month to try us out.
If, within 30 days of signing up for the course, you’ve completed every homework assignment at the end of each chapter and have made full use of our wonderful team of Student Support Gurus in our private Facebook group to help you implement all the juicy new knowledge you’ve picked up – and you’re still not satisfied with your newfound webby prowess, we will happily refund every last penny you paid us, no questions asked. THAT’S how much I believe in this program and the magical abilities you’ll graduate with!
The bottom line: If you participate full-on, The Girl’s Guide to Web Design will absolutely teach you exactly how to design and launch the blog or site of your dreams (not to mention give you a reliable, easy-to-repeat process for making sites for other people, if you want to go that route). But you must do the work to reap the rewards. So please note that no refunds will be granted unless you are able to show us ALL your completed homework, prove that you have worked with the Gurus in our private Facebook group, and demonstrate that you have implemented their answers on the blog or site you’re working on.
You CAN do this! Over 600 women have unleashed their creativity online with me so far. Now it’s your turn!
Ready to sign up for The Girl’s Guide to Web Design?
