Web Pages

For those considering a web page on the internet.

Domain Names | Search Engines | Web Page Hosting
Web Pages | Good Web Pages | Web Page Templates

Domain Name

All web pages have an address. It's called a Domain Name or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). There are basically two types of URLs for web pages. The first uses the domain name of the site that's hosting your web page. Your pages are in a sub-directory. Many pages use this technique (I do). There is really no problem with having an address like this except if you make allot of literature publicizing your URL. Some of these sites come and go. If they go your URL may have to be changed along with your literature. The second type uses a name that you have selected and registered. If you are a commercial site and publish literature I suggest you get a domain name. It's like having a personalized license plate and even if your server goes out of business you can still have the same URL.

Web Page Hosting

Once you have your URL, you need a place to put your pages. There are allot of places that you can put your web pages. Many are better than others and prices vary.

Search Engines

When a person is browsing the web it's like looking through a huge catalog that has everything in the world in it. Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the programming language that the web uses. Hyper Text can a contain links to other pages. If you click a link you will load that page into your computer to browse it. The page pointed to by a link can be another page in a web site or a page from the other side of the world. There are people out there that have made it their business to catalog every link on the web. This makes it easier to locate pages that you want to browse. These are called search engines. Most people find things through search engines. Merchant Services package will submit your URL to 10 search engines.

Web Pages

A Web page is like a destination on the information highway. What people put in a web page is as varied as the people that put up web pages. It can be a library or a movie house and everything in between. Information and promotional material can be found on virtually every subject or product. Many people put up personal pages about their lives and interests. Clubs, governments and every organization imaginable have put up web pages. Others put up business pages trying to sell something. Many companies put up very nice brochures and catalogs about their products or services. Often the information is broader and has greater depth than most company literature.

Good Web Pages

For those of you wanting to sell something you must remember you don't have a captive audience. Leaving your page to some other page is just a click away. Most people browsing the web are doing just that. They are just Browsing. These people have to want to come to your page to begin with. They will probably get there through a search engine. What makes people stay at your web site is about the same as the reasons that people pause and read an article or ad in a magazine. Informative, beautiful pages about information that interests them makes people stay. They leave for the same reasons people turn the page. To get them to order something is about the same difficulty as getting someone to order something out of a magazine.

Web pages are different than magazines. For one thing they can have text, backgrounds, images, animation, movies and sound. Another difference is it takes time to load a page into your computer to browse it. If it takes to long to load your page people may not stay long enough to read it. Another site is just a click away. Text loads very rapidly. Images take longer. Animations are next. Movies and sound can take a long time to load. A good page is mostly text with images used just to highlight the page and make it interesting. The information should also be divided into sections on different pages. This will make each page load faster. This will help give that instant gratification that everyone is looking for. It is also friendly to the net. Which means allot to some people. There are great crusades fought over this subject.

Web Page Templates

Templates are used to give you an idea of how to organize your pages and what pages can look like. Standard templates save time and money in making the program that controls a web page. This allows more time for images, graphics and text. They also allow rapid updates to your pages.