 |
| Package
Deals | Optional
Features | Tutorials
| Samples
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tutorials Overview   Tutorials
Overview
This tutorial covers the steps needed to create a web site on the internet. To make a web site you need to:
Describes the underlying internet structure relating to web pages. How data moves, when and where it is processed and search engines.
Describes Web Pages, What they are and how they work.
Covers the various languages that are used with web pages.
Teaches about images, what they are and their various formats.
Shows the different types of templates, including Javascript Frames.
This section is continually updated with links to pertinent
information.
Name Registration
In order for an internet user to be able to access your Web
Site, you must have registered a domain name (yourname.com)
with one of the Internet Registrar Services. This
domain name must be unique and should be something that
relates to your business, is of reasonable size and easy to
remember. When a user enters your domain name, the
Registrar's Name Server translates the domain name and
points the user's browser to the IP address of your Web
Site.
Decide on what you want the web site for And what you want on it Please see Features and Web Pages for additional information. The best way to decide on what you want on your website is to look at some. Your competitors probably have websites. This is a pretty good place to start looking. You are looking for organization, content and theme.
A web site is like a book with an index. If you
only have a few pages it's easy. If you have a book you
should organize it in sections. Break the sub sections
down into categories like a tree with branches.
There are several ways to navigate through a website.
You can use images for navigation buttons at the left. A drop down selector in the
headings is a good choice for complex websites. Sometimes the
navigation buttons are just text at the top and bottom of each
page. Similar to bottom of this page. You can divide up an
image into "Hot Spots" for navigation.
There are two basic layouts. Those using frames and those without frames. A frame layout divides the viewing screen into areas called frames. Each frame displays a web page. A frame in page often dose not scroll when you scroll the page. Normally, frame (the portions of the page) that no not scroll are for navigation, logo, heading or both.
Templates contain content area and placement information. Templates make the job of creating a website easier, less time consuming and less prone to errors. Simply supply the content and the pages are finished.
The design of a website should reflect the look and feel of your company. Every website should have a consistent theme. The theme includes your color scheme, backgrounds, navigation buttons, lines, dots and text style (Cascading Style Sheet).
If you want some optional features. Look through the Package Deals to see if one fits your needs. Add any optional features you need.
Get the Content Together
If you have brochures, flyers, catalogs, newsletters, business cards or other company marketing material. This is the place to start gathering content.
Text is the meat and potatoes of web pages. A picture is only worth a thousand words sometimes. It's text that counts much of the time. If you are describing a flower, a picture is worth more than a thousand words. If you are describing your address or policies and procedures, you need more than pictures. All text should be in a standard computer file format. All formatting will be removed before it is formatted for the web in HTML.
If you don't have images, your website will be as boring as this
one. You could have images of your facility, important equipment,
inventory, employees, events, etc. There is a problem. Images can have a large
file size. They can take allot of your storage space.
Graphics are a special type of image. They are created without pictures as
their central theme. You know them when you see them. Logos are graphics.
Backgrounds that cover the entire page are not used very often. At one time they were the rage. They are mostly used in only part of a web page. Backgrounds have several drawbacks.
Backgrounds should be in contrast to the text that is on top of them. For black text a very light background should be used. White on dark also works.
Animations really draw the eye. If you are a
car dealer and want to show your inventory an animated image
or image rotator works great. But, having a
winking eye staring at you when you are trying to read may not be
appreciated. Some allow the user to interact with the page without having to reload the page from the server.
These animated presentations allows the user to interact with the page and provide a greater range image rendering and animation. Please see the Flash Samples and Images Tutorial.
Sound files are fairly large for what you get. Sound uses the .WAV file. The amount of file compression depends on the quality of the sound. Sound can make the browsing experience enjoyable or tedious. It is good for that special accent.
Video Clips are larger files. However, great strides have been made in file size
compression. Much of this work was performed by the Motion Picture Expert Group
of the International Standards Organization (ISO MPEG). The windows
.WMV file
allows extreme compression with relatively little loss in picture quality. The
amount of compression depends on how much movement there is on the
screen. The sound on the video is often a significant portion of the file
size.
The description and keywords are used by search engines like Yahoo. The
keywords and content are used for the search and the description is displayed.
Web site Design
Take the content and format it for the web. It sounds easy. It is easy. There
are many programs that do it automatically. I have written some. However,
problems can occur when there is something missing or incorrectly prepared. An
incorrectly prepared image can slow your site to a crawl. No one will stay
to see it. The real problem is that it will load fast the second time you
browse it. The problem won't be apparent and you might not catch it. The images
will be loaded from your browsers local cache the second time you brows it. See
"About Web Pages".
It's great when you can modify a website and publish it literally to the world. There are lots of HTML editors. If you are familiar with Microsoft Word then Microsoft FrontPage may be the easiest way to for you to start publishing your own web pages. FrontPage costs less than $200, shop around. This is Microsoft's retail site. Once you have a website and Microsoft FrontPage installed on your computer you can easily change the web site.
Hosting the Web Site
Once you have your web pages designed you need a place to
put them so they will be shown to the world. Hosting varies
by the features that a hosting service has available, the
speed at which it connects to the internet and it's
percentage up time.
All web site packages above include yearly hosting fees. They include generous but limited hosting space to store your website. You may need additional space for e-mail, photo albums, catalogs, database, etc..
Promote the Web Site
All of your marketing literature should have your web
address prominently displayed. You should have your site
listed by search engines.
|
