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How to build a website
First you have to choose what kind of website you want:
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A blog (for social interacting) build with a
tool like Wordpress
A
blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and
displayed in a reverse chronological order. A blog can be edited
using an Internet browser, so you don't need any specific software
to create and maintain your site. Wordpress is the most
sophisticated free blog software you can get.
Wordpress is free
to download and you have to install it one time on your server
(web host). You need to have a web host with database capabilities.
-
A CMS (Content management System)
A
CMS is software that allows website or blog users to login and
update content online. The content is usually stored in a database
and the web page or blog page is created dynamically. A CMS is
mostly used in a corporate environment, like an Intranet in a
company. A very popular (open source) CMS tool is
Drupal.
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A website created from a blank page
Mostly created in HTML, PHP (Unix) or ASP (Windows) - for
selling products or services, providing information, publishing
online guides, promoting a business, etc. To create this type of
website you need a specific software tool, like Dreamweaver or MS
FrontPage. At least a tool with a so-called 'wysiwyg' editor.
This website is created with FrontPage2003 and cleaned up for
standard HTML. This means that this website will proper work in any
Browser, like: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera.
This chapter will discuss a basic HTML
website with the use of an external CSS (Cascaded Style Sheet).
Specifically for people who have little experience in creating a
website. Therefore I suggest to use a tool that is very easy to use,
has a 'wysiwyg' editor and creates 'clean' HTML.
-
But if you want a website with more
sophisticated techniques like a database and using PHP instead of
HTML, then I recommend to use a tool like Dreamweaver.
-
And if you want to setup a web shop (E-commerce
site) then I suggest to use a
specific e-commerce (shopping cart) tool to do this.
-
Do not use an online web creator tool (sometimes
included in a web host account). They often create superfluous code
and are difficult to tune for search engine optimization, like
meta tag
customization and adding scripts for statistical purposes.
Things you minimal need to create a website:
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Basic computer skills
-
A computer
-
Internet connection
-
A 'wysiwyg' web design software tool
(FrontPage2003 is very easy to use. Because FP-2003
is the latest version you can get it for a cheap price, just search
for "cheap frontpage 2003")
-
A style sheet (CSS)
-
A graphic tool like Photoshop. (to create
banners, a logo and edit pictures, photo's, like resizing) Or go to
filehippo.com to look for a free photo edit tool.
-
A domain name
Related topic:
Choosing a domain name
-
A web host
Related topic:
Choosing a web host
-
A FTP program to upload your site to your web
host
(like
FileZilla)
Steps for creating a web site
-
Define your objectives
-
Know exactly what you intend to publish
-
Know who the targeted audience will be
-
Analyze the existing market and learn who your
competitors are
-
Research keywords and keyword phrases your
want to use to rank high in the search engines.
Use specific (free) tools to do this.
-
Define the look & feel of your site
-
Define the ambience of your site: informal,
professional, high tech, etc.
Have a look at sites that offer
HTML templates and let your creativity go. There are also lots of
free (CSS) template sites.
-
Define the colors of your site - do not use
more than 3 colors
Do not use white (light) text on dark
backgrounds. This is very difficult to read for the human eye.
-
Choose a common used font, like Times Roman or
Sans Serif family.
-
Design a logo or banner
-
Decide to use a static page width or dynamic
(proportional) page size
-
Put your default design definitions in an
external stylesheet (CSS)
-
Define the content of your website
-
The pages you want to create are at least:
homepage - topic page(s) - contact - sitemap - about
-
Define three to five main keywords (phrases)
for every page you create.
-
Define your site's navigation
Best is: top
or top left (and at the bottom of every page)
-
Define the graphics you want to use (not too
much!)
Use a graphic tool to minimize the size (pixels) of the
graphics you are using. Use JPG for compressing.
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Use 'alt
text' for your images or photo's
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Construct you web site
-
Create an external stylesheet (CSS)
Save the file as [filename].css
Link this CSS in all HTML pages between the <HEAD> section:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
href="YOURSTYLE.css">
Read all about CSS at W3schools
-
Design your homepage
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define the <tiltle> tag
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define the
meta description
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define the
meta keyword
Example of your HEAD section:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01
Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>How to create a website</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="robots" content="INDEX,NOFOLLOW">
<meta name="description" content="Free information about
creating a website, defining a domain name and finding a good
web host">
<meta name="keywords" content="search engine optimization, seo,
web promotion, web design">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="seo.css">
</head>
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Define the title (readable for users) of
your home page, write this title in H1.
-
Explain on your homepage the purpose of your
website
Use headers (H1, H2, H3)
Use bullet lists
Use at least 500 keyword rich content (do not use too many main
keywords, this is called: keyword spamming).
Read this article about SEO copy.
Your homepage is the most important page of your website: If
the user can't find out the purpose of your website in 3 to 5
seconds, then you fail.
Do not over-use the page with too many graphics
Use a logo (top left is most appropriate place) which has a link
to your main website
or
Use a banner at the top of your page which has a link to your
main website
You can define your logo or banner in a stylesheet, using a
<div ID=[name of the style tag]> </div>
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Be aware that all links from the homepage
point to all your inner pages.
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Design your other pages
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Use proper anchor text for all your links:
Example: Book your trip to Paris
(instead of: Click here)
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Put all information in your Contact page:
Contact name - postal address - proper email - phone number -
FAX number
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Create a Sitemap
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Create your email addres at your web host
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Test your website
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It is obvious to say that before submitting
your website online, it is very important that there are no
grammar or spelling errors. It also very important that there are
no broken links. Let different people read your content and listen
to their critics.
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For possible broken links you can download
(free) a great tool that will check all your inner and outbound
links, it also has some other great features. It's called
Xenu Link Sleuth.
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Test your HTML-code for errors or warnings.
For example use this
free
download to check your html.
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Upload your website
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