Something for n00bs !

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Introduction

Creating your own website used to be something that only a few people knew how to do and now it is very easy to get a website on the internet. You don't need any technical knowledge. All you need to know is how to use a word processor.

During this tutorial on Free Webmaster Help we will be showing you how to create a basic website using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. After this tutorial we will cover other things like: intermediate and advanced web building, learning HTML, JavaScript and much more.

The Four Questions

In this tutorial we are going to answer 4 questions:

* Why?
* What?
* How?
* Where?

Otherwise known as:

* Why should I build a website?
* What should I put on it?
* How do I build it?
* Where do I put it?
* Why Should I Build A Website?

As I mentioned earlier, it is now easier than ever to make a website. Every day thousands of people start their own websites. Within a few years there will be so many websites that some will never get visited.

Right now you are probably thinking: 'This seems like reasons why I shouldn't make one! Nobody will see it!' but there is a simple reason to start now. If your website is launched this year then there will be a lot less websites competing with you than there will be next year. Once you start getting traffic it will increase as more people connect to the internet. If you wait a few years to start your website it will be harder to succeed that it is now.

Probably by now you see why it is a better time than ever to start a website but you are probably now thinking 'What can I put on it?'

What Should I Put On It?

Building a website doesn't require a great knowledge! Everyone has a hobby and if you are interested in something then there is a good chance that there are thousands of other people interested in it.

For example if you know a lot about pets then you can create a pet website. Other pet lovers around the world will be interested in reading about your tips for taking care of animals, your photos and anything else you put on the website.

You don't really even have to have an interest to write a website about. Why not create a site all about yourself? You can include information about your interests etc., your CV, pictures of yourself, contact details and much more. You can even put your favorite jokes on it! The possibilities are endless.

As you can see you don't need to be a professor to create a website and if you put useful or interesting information on the web then people will visit it.

How Do I Build It?

I will cover this topic in more in the next part but you don't need to know any new programming language to create a web page. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors now make the process simple. They give you a screen which looks like a normal word processor. You enter the text, format it and the program will write the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) code for the page. Then all you have to do is save and upload it to the web.

It isn't quite as easy as creating a document in a word processor as designing things for the web is different to designing things for paper but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it.

WYSIWYG programs can be downloaded free from the internet so it is free to create your own website. Next week I'll tell you about the different programs on offer and how to use one to start your website.

Where Do I Put It?

Nobody will be able to see your amazing website unless they can find it on the internet. The only way people can view your website on your hard drive is if you have a web server and even then they need to k
now your IP (Internet Protocol) address and they can only access it when you are online.

A much easier way of doing it is to use a web host. These are companies who have lots of computers with extra fast connections to the internet. They have addresses which are easy to remember and there are lots who will host your site for free.

The company will give you about 10MB of web space (enough for thousands of pages), an address like http://yourname.theirname.com or http://www.theirname.com/yourname and will make sure the site stays online in exchange for adverts on your pages.

In a later part, after showing you how to create your site, I will tell you how to pick a good web host and how to upload your files.

Software You Must Pay For

The strange thing about web design software is that it is usually either free or highly expensive. Some of the expensive software are Microsoft FrontPage 2000 and Macromedia Dreamweaver. These are two of the most popular programs for building websites. Both cost over £100 ($160) to buy though. For more information on these visit Macromedia or Microsoft. If you are building your first website you probably don't want to spend a lot of money so you should consider the free software.

Free Software

There are 2 main free web design packages available. They are both very good and should be good enough for most people's needs. Microsoft FrontPage Express is the most popular and comes free with Internet Explorer and Windows 98. Netscape Composer is the other widely used software and it comes free with Netscape Communicator. For more information visit Microsoft or Netscape.

Creating The First Page

This is the part everyone loves! Creating the first page of your site. I will show you how to do this here. For this tutorial I have used Microsoft FrontPage/FrontPage Express and Netscape Communicator to show you what to do.

Step 1 - The Software

When you first run the program you will get a screen with icons along the top and a blank area nearly filling the screen just like in a standard word processor.

FrontPage Screenshot | Netscape Screenshot

Step 2 - Title

First you will want to add a title to your page. Click the center button on the toolbar ( button in FrontPage, can be found by clicking on the alignment button in Netscape Composer) change the text size to 6 (the equivalent of 24pt), choose the font 'Arial' and the color red. Enter the title you want at the top of the page e.g.
Welcome To My Page

Step 3 - Body Text

Press enter to get onto the next line to enter the body text of your page. Change the font size to 4 (14pt), the text color to black and the alignment to left. Then type the text like you would in any word processor. You must remember to stick to standard fonts for your text, though, as someone must have the font installed on their computer to be able to view it.

Step 4 - E-mail Link

Finally you want to give the people who visit your site a way to give you feedback. At the bottom of your page add text like:
For more information e-mail me
Then highlight the text 'e-mail me'. You can put a hyperlink on this which will open up the user's mail program and address a new message to you. To do this click on the hyperlink button ( in FrontPage and in Netscape Composer). In the box type:
mailto:
and click OK.

Your page will now look something like this:

FrontPage Screenshot | Step 5 - Saving The Page

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More Hyperlinks

During earlier parts I have shown you how to add hyperlinks to your pages to link to an e-mail address, an external site and and internal page. You will now learn how to use them for navigation around a multi-page site and the basics of web navigation.

To review from the last part, if you want to add a local hyperlink you type the page name in the URL box (see the last part for more information). This is actually quite simple to get the hang of and you will soon be creating sites with multiple pages.

Site Structure

It is very important to structure your site properly both for users and for yourself. You may find it useful to make subfolders for your site to make it easier to find what you want (e.g. the URL of the Free Webmaster Help directory is:

http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/directory/index.htm

This means it is the 'index.htm' page, in the 'directory' subfolder on the 'www.freewebmasterhelp.com' server.

The other type of structure for your site is the structure that people will see when they are using the site. An example of this having a link to all major parts of your site on each page (look on the left of this page). This helps people to find what they are looking for easily.

Two other very important web design 'rules' of site structure are:

* People should not be more than 3 clicks away from what they want
* People do not like to use the back button

If you follow these then your site will be easy to use and this will help it to be more popular.

Preparing For Site Launch

Now you have finished your site you will want to put it on the internet. There are several things you have to do before you do this, though. The first thing is to make sure your whole site is in one folder on your computer and that all the links work.

Now you will need to find a web host for your site. A web host is a company with very powerful computers continuously connected to the internet. They have software which will allow users to access files on the computers.

In the future you will need to decide many things before picking a host but for a simple site there is only really one major thing which matters: your site's address. You will probably not want to buy a domain name (like www.gowansnet.com) yet so you will need to have a subdomain (http://you.something.com) or www.something.com/you. Your service provider may give you space with your account so you could check there first.

Before reading the next part you may want to look around and find a web host you like. A good place to start is Free-Webhosting.info, which reviews and rates many free web hosts.

Prepare A Web Host

If you did what I suggested in the last part and found a web host then you are ready to begin uploading your page. If not go back and find one. There are two ways of uploading (sending) the files of your website to the server. One of these is using a web-based interface which some web hosts have. If this is what your web host provides you will find all the instructions online. If not you will be using FTP.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is the best way of sending files across the internet. The first thing that you will need is and FTP program. Any program will do but one of the best is Cute FTP. You should download this now. For the rest of this tutorial I will cover what you should do if you are using Cute FTP. Other programs are nearly exactly the same.

Connecting To The Server

Once you have installed Cute FTP connect to the internet and then run it. You will get a screen asking you to register. Click OK to run the program. You will now be shown the Connections dialog box. There are some pre-made connections but you will need to create a new one. Click Add Site.

You will now see a box like this. Fill in the following:

Site Label: My Site
Host Address: FTP Server Address (e.g yourname.netfirms.com)
User ID: Your User Name (e.g yourname)
Password Your Password (e.g. yourpassword)

All this information will be given to you by your web host. I have included texamples you would use if you signed up to Netfirms with yourname as your user name and yourpassword as your password.

Click OK to close the dialog box and connect to connect to your site's server. You will now see a screen like You will now see a box like this. It is the main FTP window. In the top pane is the information which is passing between your computer and the FTP server. On the left is a list of files on your computer and on the right is a list of files on your server. At the bottom is a list of files queued for upload.

When you first connect to your host you may get a popup window with some information. Read it and then click OK to close it. The first thing you want to do is find the files to upload. In the left hand pane find and open the folder which contains your site.

Now select all the files in the folder (by holding down shift and selecting the files) and right click to bring up a menu. Click Upload at the top of the menu. Now wait while the files transfer to your web host. Your site should now be ready.

Testing Your Site & Fixing Problems

Open your web browser and go to your site's address on the internet. The first page of your site should appear. If it does not go back to Cute FTP and check that it is called index.htm or index.html. If it is not then rename it to that by right clicking on it and choosing Rename.

Now check that ALL the links on your site work. It is very likely that you may have some problems. If one of the links is broken, look at the address that failed and see what you did wrong (usually it is just spelling a file name wrong). Update it in your web design program, save it, and re-upload that file.

What Now?

Now you have created your own website and launched it on the internet. Now you will want to do more with it. Look at some of the other sections on Free Webmaster Help. Above all, enjoy building your site!

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