We highly recommend that local associations host their websites through WordPress. Hosting your site on the MTA server requires HTML, CSS, and FTP knowledge. We can walk you through the configuration process for either a WordPress or MTA hosted website based on your technical capability.
Visit some of the existing local sites to get a feel for what you could do.
You will notice many sites named along the lines of newbedford.massteacher.org or dracut.massteacher.org. These are subdomain which are owned by the MTA. We will set up a “subdomain” address for you once you register for a site. There is no need to register and pay for your own separate web domain although that is an option.
Common website features:
- President’s Blog
- Newsletter Sign Up
- Poll Members
- Make resources available online or for download
- Display public information
- Display contact information
- Provide a members-only area
- Provide answers to FAQs
- Interactive forms and tools
- Conduct online surveys
Recommended website development software and services
| Product Name | Product Information |
|---|---|
| WordPress | WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. WordPress started as just a blogging system, but it has evolved to be used as a full content management system with thousands of plugins, widgets and themes. |
| BlueGriffon | BlueGriffon is an intuitive application that provides Web authors (beginners or more advanced) with a simple user interface for creating attractive websites without requiring extensive technical knowledge about Web standards. |
| Adobe Dreamweaver | Adobe Dreamweaver is an industry standard for a web development environment. It allows any type of users, from beginners to professionals, from designers to developers, to easily and conveniently create simple or complex dynamic websites. Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems and comes with a WYSIWYG editor, an FTP Client and many other options. |
Recommended digital image editing software and services
| Product Name | Product Information |
|---|---|
| Pixlr | Pixlr is a free online photo editor. Edit, adjust, crop and filter your images. No registration jump right in! |
| Gimp | GIMP is a multi-platform photo manipulation tool. GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. The GIMP is suitable for a variety of image manipulation tasks, including photo retouching, image composition, and image construction. |
| IrfanView | IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative Freeware graphic viewer. You can rotate and resize images, tweak colors, brightness and contrast, add text captions or watermarks, sharpen photos, remove red-eye, batch rename or resize and apply a range of special effects. |
| Adobe Photoshop | Photoshop is the leading digital image editing application for the Internet, print, and other new media disciplines. It is embraced by millions of graphic artists, print designers and visual communicators. |
Visit our tools & tips page for other resources.
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