Do you dream of your own little web home, but have no idea of how to build one? With the step-by-step instructions of this article, you can do it. Start today!
You’ve visited your niece’s poetry page, checked out your son’s gaming site, perhaps even peeked into your neighbour’s family nest on the web. You admire their creativity and listen to their enthusiastic tales about new friends they’ve met through the Internet. Yet you shake your head at anyone who urges you to take your cross stitching hobby online. No, you’re a complete airhead what comes to computers, let alone the Internet. You couldn’t do it.
Except you can. Building a website isn’t overwhelmingly difficult, and it is fun. You will likely meet others with the same interests, get to exchange ideas, and broaden your world.
Deciding the topic of your website
A website with a mere “Hi, I’m Margie and live in Oklahoma. I have 3 great kids and 5 sweet grandkids. Thanks for coming, bye!” isn’t very interesting. You can naturally put up a website with any information you like, but the trick to getting visitors to stay is to put up some content. Think about your hobbies and passions. Which ones play a central part in your life? If cross stitching is your hobby of choice, why not a site featuring your masterpieces, favourite patterns and even future projects? Or if family research is your fancy, how about a site featuring your genealogy and names? You could track down a long lost relative, you know.
Planning your site content
Begin by planning your website first, don’t worry about the technical aspects yet. Write the texts you want on your site, and map out the sections you would like to have (e.g. “My Designs,” “My Patterns” and “Links”). If you intend to put photos on your site, collect those and check that they are proper size. Too many large photos will easily keep visitors from coming again, so try to keep your file sizes below 100 kilobytes each (“KB”). You can check the file size by locating the folder where your photo is (for example via “My Computer”). Right-click on the photo and choose “Properties” to see the file size. You can resize your photos in Windows Paint, any graphics program, or the software that came with your digital camera (if you have one).
The format of your photos should be either JPEG or GIF. JPEG is the standard file format for photos that have many colors, while a GIF can only have 256 colors, but it has a more effective compression engine. GIF is particularly good for images with fewer colors (for example web graphics and animations). JPEG is better for photos with many colors and hues, but the file size will be larger. If you have a file in some other format, you can convert it to JPEG (or GIF) by opening the file in Windows Paint and choosing “Save As.” Choose the appropriate file format in the drop down menu below the file name, and click “Save.” Create a new folder and save all your website photos and texts there.
Building your site
Your site is planned and the files are ready. Now we come to the point when you need to make choices in what way to go about the actual building. Browsers (like Internet Explorer) display a website based on the code in which the website is written. This code is called the HTML code, and it is the basic building tool of websites. You can either choose to learn the basics of HTML and build your site by handwriting the code, or you can use an HTML editor, such as FrontPage Express.
If you decide to learn the basic elements of HTML, you have the advantage of not having to learn another program simply to create HTML. Another advantage is that the code you write will be “cleaner” and easier for the various internet browsers to read. Plus, it does not take very much time to learn the basics of HTML. Enter “HTML help for beginners” or “HTML help for kids” in a search engine and check the various tutorial sites that come up. Most HTML help sites geared for beginners and/or kids are simple and offer many examples. Remember, you don’t need to know HTML very thoroughly to create a simple site. Just the basic commands of beginning and ending a HTML page, formatting text and inserting photos are needed for your first website.
If you decide that learning HTML by hand isn’t for you right now, you can use an HTML editor. One of the most widely used ones is Microsoft FrontPage. If the full version costs too much for your budget, you can always use the free version, Microsoft FrontPage Express. If you can’t find it already installed in your computer, write the name in a search engine, and you’ll find links to download it. These editors work with the so-called WYSIWYG method. WYSIWYG means “What You See is What You Get”, and it implies that you work seeing the actual files. Usually you have a blank page where you drag and drop your photos and paste your text without even noticing the HTML code. The program creates it for you automatically on the background. The downside of HTML editors is their possibly high learning curve, and the code itself. HTML editors are notorious for messing the code and adding useless bits and pieces here and there. While this usually won’t affect how your page looks viewed with Internet Explorer, it may slow down the page loading (as the browser needs to read all the useless code as well) and perhaps cause viewing problems in some browsers.
Saving and testing your site
Whether you choose to create your website by hand or with an HTML editor, you need to create a separate page for each section or your website. For example, “My Cross Stitch Patterns” would be one page where you write about your patterns and perhaps put a few photos of them. “My Completed Designs” would be another page where you put content about your completed cross stitch designs.
When you have created each individual page, create a main page and put a link to each individual page from there. Your main page is the page your visitors see when they first arrive. Remember to put a link back to your main page from each individual page, too, so that your visitors find their way around. You can also crosslink your separate pages, for example put a link to “My Completed Designs” from your “My Cross Stitch Patterns” page.
It is important to always save the main page with the name “index.html” (or “index.htm”). If you name it something else, the browser won’t be able to find your site. You can save the rest of the separate pages with whatever names you wish, as long as they are either in .htm or .html. When naming your other pages, it is good to put an indication of page content in the name. If you name your “My Cross Stitch Patterns” page “mypatterns.html”, you know easily what is on that page. Save the pages in the same folder where you saved your photos and texts.
When you have created all pages, it is time to test them. Locate your website folder, double click on your index.html file, and it should open up in your internet browser. You can click on the links and go from page to page, just like any site on the Internet. Check your pages, making sure that the photos show, texts are on place and links work. When your site is finished and tested, it’s time to get your feet wet online.
Going online
You now have your site built and tested, but where to put it? The simplest solution is to use one of the free web hosts, such as Geocities, Freewebs or Bravenet (you can find these and others by searching in a search engine).
In setting up your hosting account, you will choose a user name and password. Your user name will often become part of your website address, so it is best to think of it beforehand. It can for example be the name of your website. After the account setup, you can upload your files to your new host. Read through the Help/Support files and find out how to go about uploading. Many have a handy option of uploading straight from your computer.
When your files and images are uploaded, test your website. Type your address in your web browser’s address bar and test your site as you did at home before going online. If you run into problems, such as photos not showing, check that the filenames are correct and that all images and files are uploaded to your account. The Help files are often written with newbies in mind, so reading them thoroughly is a good idea, maybe even before signing up. When you want to update your website, just update the consecutive page on your computer, and upload it again to your web host.
There is also another option to this process. Some free web hosts offer a site building tool that functions much like an HTML editor would. You drag and drop your images and copy and paste your texts on a blank page without seeing the HTML code. You will save your files online, thus no file uploading is needed. This way you will also login to your hosting account when you want to update your site. Familiarize yourself with this method if your host offers it, and decide if it is something you want to use. If you do end up using it, keep in mind that if you don’t save a backup copy of your files in your computer, you could lose your whole website if the host’s servers crash.
It’s just the beginning!
You are now officially online and can start giving out your address to friends and family. Surf the net for similar sites and add your greetings and link to guestbooks and link exchanges (but don’t spam). If you participate on message boards, add your web address to your signature. You can also search for free website submission services and submit your site to search engines. Just remember never to give out your primary email address when you promote your site. It will only fill your inbox with spam. Instead, create a free email address specifically for this purpose and use that. Enjoy your new web experience!