If your section would like a new site hosted here, please contact Lee Trampleasure at lee@trampleasure.net. Sites are free for all AAPT sections, and your web address will be yoursection.aaptsections.org. All sites run on WordPress, which, while easy to add/edit content to, is also robust enough to add many functions you may desire (e.g. registration for section conferences, membership only pages, etc.)

Steps to create a website:

1. Get agreement from your section that you’d like a site hosted here (.aaptsections.org). We can create a draft site that is not publicized on the search engines until you are happy with it.
2. We’ll start you with one of the pre-installed themes, but you can also tweak this or find a new one. For a new “Theme” you can search through many pre-packaged themes here: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/. We’ll be able to tweak the theme a bit, but it is best if you find one that is close to what you want. If you have a photo/logo that you want to appear in the masthead, it is simple enough for me to change the theme’s template photo with one you provide to me. (Don’t get worried/caught up with this step–you can easily change your theme later if you find one you like, and the default/generic theme is clean and well functioning).
3. Complete this page with basic information about your Section
4. Here’s what to do once you are ready to go:
   1. Email me and I’ll create the site for you. You can also call me at 510-495-7035 if you have any questions. If you have Google Talk, I’m often online at Lee Trampleasure.
   2. There are several plug-ins I’ll add for all sites that add functionality, but let me know if there are specific tasks you want from your site (membership only pages, registration pages, etc.).
   3. I will make one or two people Administrators of the site. These people can do anything to the site (change the theme, add plug-ins, add new Editors, etc.), including crashing the site (this is hard to do, but possible–so if you have any questions, please ask me before you make a change). I will also stay on as an Administrator, and will occasionally perform maintenance on the site (the WordPress software gets updated every so often, and I add these updates to all websites I run at the same time). Let me know who the Administrators are.
   4. I can also add other Editors for the site. Editors have the right to add content to the site, and to edit others’ content, but cannot do everything that the Administrators can.
   5. If you have an existing site, give me that address and I’ll copy/paste a few pages over to get you started. Then you can cut/paste other content you want to move over to the new site (WordPress does a pretty good job of preserving formatting and photos when you cut/paste).
   6. Once the site is up to your standards and ready to publish, we’ll click a box that will announce to search engines that they can now index the site. I’ll also add a plug-in that will notify search engines every time you add content (it’s pretty cool to see your pages show up in Google within an hour of posting!).
   7. Notify AAPT National of your new website address so they can list it on the National AAPT website.

Note: If you are planning on attending the Winter 2016 National Conference at New Orleans, we could find time there to meet and run through this together.

That’s about it.

Be sure to read the About page for clarification  on Section relationships with AAPT National.

Remember, setting up the website is relatively easy. Keeping it up to date is what takes the ongoing work. Make sure you have a person or a few people who will update the site to keep it “fresh” and valuable as a web resource (this may just be announcing your section meetings/conferences, but even that will keep it live).