Ready to build?. Review on Building a Website

Since I built my first site in 1999 I have learned a lot about building!  And I’m still learning though I am on my 8th site.  I imagine I will continue to learn from others and my own experiences as long as I continue to build.  The following steps should, however, get you off to a solid beginning.

1.Define your purpose- Why are you building this website? Is it for others entertainment or education? Are you trying to sell a product? Advertise a business? Or are you building a homepage to share information about yourself?

2. Window Shop- Take time to surf the web looking at other websites and their layout, design, content, and use of graphics.  Notice what you like about the sites and what you don’t like.  When you are looking think “Will I ever return to this site again?” Why or why not? Then use those basic ideas combined with your own to make your own original website.

3. Decide upon your content- What do you want on your sites? Content as far as what you want to say, convey, and offer is the most important part of any website.  Are you going to have games? Photos? Product information? Your interests? Make a list of the general information you want to include.  For example, if you were building a website about Dalmations, you would want to be sure an include:

size, price, costs, photos, temperment, etc.

4.Decide where to build If you are HTML proficient, you can build your pages in a program such as notepad, and FTP your pages to your own domain name.  If you aren’t comfortable with HTML or you don’t have your own webspace, you can use one of several free services that provide your free webspace and very easy to use site builders so that even users who know no HTML at all can build a fantastic website with tons of extras!  Most of these allow you to choose whether you want to build in HTML, use the site builder, or combine both.

5. Get organized Use the old fashioned method of pencil and paper and outline your website.  What links do you want on your main page? On the secondary pages? Making an outline will help you keep your information organized, and decrease your chances of accidentally leaving something off or forgetting to link one page to another.

6.Decide upon layout and design Do you have a logo you want to use? Should you use a solid or patterned background? How do you want to arrange your information? Although all of these choices are entirely up to you, keep the following in mind:

-Solid white backgrounds are by far the easiest to use and coordinate, since most premade graphics have a white edging on them.

-If using a black background, you may want to make your own graphics to ensure the black colors all match.  There are many shades of black!

-If using a light colored background, use dark font(text) colors.  If using a dark colored backround, use light font colors.  If a site is hard to read or hurts the eyes, a surfer will not stick around to see what you are offering them.

-If you are using a patterned background, keep in mind that faded or muted colors work best.  It is hard to bet your font to show up on bright, multicolored backrounds.

-Make your site as easy to navigate as possible.  Most surfers will not want to hunt around for the information they are seeking.  Provide highly visible link buttons, image map, site map, text links, or a combination of any of these.

-As a rule, solid colored backgrounds make a site appear more professional; patterned backgrounds make it appear more “homey”.

7. Get your graphics- There are many sites online that provide royalty free graphics for use on your non-business sites.  You can find backgrounds, graphics, photos, and animations in every category imaginable.  Just do a search for free clipart.   See below. If you do use any of these graphics, Be sure and give that site credit by placing  a link back to them on your page.  Most sites such as these provide a small banner for this purpose.    Also, do NOT alter any graphics you find without the expressed permission of the website owner.

The longer it takes your page to load, the greater the chance of your visitors getting tired of waiting and leaving.  So keep your graphics, especially your animations, to a minimum.  Two animations are cute, more can become annoying.  If you are providing a lot of photos on your site and want to show some on the front page, you may want to consider making them thumbnails(small sized) that can be clicked on and taken to another page where they appear full sized.  If using music, provide an OFF button.

8. Get to work- Take out your outline, and follow it!  Add in your content.  The best method of doing this is to complete one page at a time. Skipping around greatly increases your chances of leaving information off, or forgetting to link the page where you meant to.  When creating your pages, make note of what you are naming each of them. This will keep you from having to hunt down this information when making your links active. Type all text in a word document first, and check for spelling or grammatical errors.

9.Extras Most of the building sites mentioned above have tons of extras for your use. Guestbooks, email icons, polls, message boards, refer a friend, forms, music and  custom cursors are among some of the things you may wish to include.  If you use any of these from outside resources, be sure and provide the credit to them as well. See below.

10.Check, check, and recheck- Are all of your links working? Can your pages be viewed in all browsers? Are any html codes showing? Make sure visitors will not get the dread 404 code.  Send your site to your friends and ask them to look for errors you might have overlooked.  There are several free sites online that will check your site for you. See Below

11. Get the word out!- You have this great website built.  Now you need to get people to see it? How do you do this? Submit your site to search engines. Yahoo, Google, and Alta Vista are among a few have free site submissions. Be sure your page descriptions and keywords are thorough.  Add your website address to your emails as a signature.  Visit message boards relating to your topic and post the address there(providing this is not against that site’s rules). Put your address in any profiles you may have online. Join clubs of similar interests, and sign the website address under your name.  Join Click clubs.   See below. Send out the address to all of your friends and family and ask them to pass the word along.  Join web rings.  There are tons of ways to get visitors to your site, it only takes a little work and a lot patience!

Good luck on your website!

Sites Mentioned:

Free Websites:

Homestead: https://homestead.com

Geocities: https://geocities.com

Tripod:  https://tripod.com

Angelfire: https://angelfire.com

Fortune City: https://fortunecity.com

*Free clipart:

Rats2u: https://rats2u.com

All Free: https://free-graphics.com

Free Graphic Land: https://freegraphicland.com

AAA Clipart: https://aaaclipart.com

Free Webtools:

Bravenet:  https://bravenet.com

Alxnet: https://alxnet.com

Beseen: https://beseen.com

Free Web Tools: https://freewebtools.com

Free checkers:

Free Links Checker: https://website-hits.co.uk/link-checker.shtml

Free HTML Check:

https://members.nbci.com/javaglx99/webmaster/htmlchecker.html

Website Garage: https://websitegarage.netscape.com/O=wsg/

Click sites:

I Love Clicks: https://iloveclicks.com

No More Hits: https://nomorehits.com

Click Thru: https://clickthru.com