Getting Started - Your Logo

First things first, let's talk about your logo. If you don't already have one, you will want to create or make one. It can be something simple or something fancy. But you want to design this first as you will want to try and tie in the colors of your site to the logo. There are a couple of ways you can do this, the first being designing it online. This is the easiest, but is somewhat restricted because you are using someone else's online program, and can't change some things. However it's great if you want a simple logo. You can do something simple with background and text such as with a site like Cool Text:

If you want something a little more plain with a small logo such as the image below, you can find sites like Templates Box that offer "Logo Templates", and you would simply edit it in your picture editing software and add your name to the logo design.

Another option yet, is to create your own logo in your picture editing software. In this document, Corel Paint Shop Pro screen shots will be used, but most programs offer the same options, they just me located in different areas or menus in your software. To create your own logo, pick a picture that either you have taken or one that is free for commercial use (make sure that you don't just pull a picture from the Internet to use. It HAS to say that you have permission for commercial use). You can then edit the picture to your liking in your software. So let's use the example of a dance studio called Sarah's Dance Supplies (you would probably want a more clever name than that, but we'll keep it simple for instructional purposes). I started with the picture below (which I got from a CD with royalty-free clipart okay for commercial use):

I then opened it in my software program, and added the text to the picture:

Now this can be used as a logo! The logo tells you instantly what kind of business it is and it's simple and classic. There are many tutorials on the web regarding using picture editing software to do this, and it is fairly easy once you get the hang of it!