How To Build A Website
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Matthew Coers March 15, 2005
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Matthew Coers |
Matthew Coers specializes in helping entrepreneurs build effective
web businesses. His website, www.profitchoice.com contains useful
articles and "how-to" guides to help organizations build
their brands and sell more effectively.
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Matthew Coers
has written 1 articles for WebKnowHow. |
View all articles by Matthew Coers... |
Building
your own website is clearly the least expensive route to establishing
your business online, and it isn’t really all that difficult
to do. There are three steps to building your site:
Purchase a “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG)
HTML editor such as Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft
FrontPage.
Create
the web pages using your editing program
FTP
the files to your web-server.
HTML
Editors
The
top HTML editors for beginners are:
All
of these editing programs allow beginners to develop web pages
using templates and WYSIWYG ease similar to programs like Microsoft
Word or PowerPoint. You simply create or select a pre-made template
for your website, type your content into the page on your screen,
and hit the save button. All three of these programs ship with
instructions that are designed to help even the most novice web
user to create a relatively professional looking website.
The
only thing you need to take into consideration is to make sure
that if you are using Microsoft FrontPage, that you go with a
web-hosting company that supports FrontPage extensions. Most do,
so you probably won’t have a problem finding one.
Create
Web Pages
Exactly
how you create your site will depend on the specific editor you
use, however the process of all editors is remarkably similar.
Select
or create a template for your site. If you have graphic design
skills, you may choose to create something from scratch. Most
beginners just use one of the many pre-developed templates that
come with their editing program. You can also purchase templates
from third party vendors.
Create
the pages for your site and type the text directly into the pages.
The content will appear on the screen similar to the way it will
appear in the final website.
Insert
any graphics you will use for your site. In general, you should
keep these to a minimum because each graphic you put into your
page increases the download time. Also, you don’t want too
many animated gifs or flashy stuff on the page - they make the
page appear unprofessional.
Test
the site as you go. All editors contain a preview capability that
will let you see the page in a web browser exactly as your visitors
will see it. It is also a good idea to test your pages using multiple
browsers since there is some variance as to how different browsers
interpret HTML code. You should design your site to work effectively
with the top three browsers. The top three browsers on the internet
today are:
-
Microsoft
Explorer (Download)
-
Firefox
(Download)
-
Netscape
(Download)
The
most important thing in building web pages is to start doing it.
You may revise your site a number of times before you ever actually
post it online. That’s ok, but recognize that it does take
time to build a site – especially your first time out. It’s
part of the learning curve and necessary to making sure you have
thoroughly thought out each aspect of your site’s navigation
and content.
FTP
Files to Your Website
If you have not yet selected a web hosting company, then you may
want to read our article, "Finding
A Quality (And Affordable) Web Host". This article will
guide you through the process of finding a web host that satisfies
your needs without costing you a fortune.
When
you purchased your web hosting service, your web host gave you
FTP credentials consisting of the FTP site, user name and password
for your account. You will use this information to put the pages
you create online.
GoLive,
Dreamweaver and FrontPage all come with embedded FTP programs,
so you can just enter your FTP credentials into their client and
follow your program’s instructions to publish your pages.
There
are times, however, when you may want to FTP files to your FTP
server without using your development environment’s embedded
FTP functionality. Therefore it’s a good idea to go ahead
and set up a separate client for uploading things like images,
pdfs, or other linked objects. Go online and download a free FTP
program. Several free FTP clients you may choose to use:
Leach
FTP (Download)
WSFTP
(Download)
Microsoft
Explorer – Type the FTP location into the browser and then
enter your credentials into the popup box.
Install
the program and then enter your FTP information into the connection
screen. Once you have successfully connected to your FTP site,
posting your web site is as easy as copying the files from your
home computer to your website. |