First a plug for ANGELFIRE. They offer free websites and provide help to get your website up in minutes whether you're an expert or beginner. If you want to create a website using ANGELFIRE, CLICK HERE
The next few items are for helping you develop a webpage. Think they look too complicated and difficult to create? They aren't! I created my first page in March, 1998 with a template which is a convenient gadget that lets you fill in the blanks and, viola, you have a page.There's nothing wrong with that but eventually you probably won't be satisfied until you can do you own creating. For that you'll need to learn a little "HTML". What is HTML?
HTML is An acronym for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is the language used to create hypertext documents such as webpages. HTML uses various "tags" which describe the general structure of a web page (as well as various kinds of documents linked together on the World Wide Web).
Clear as mud?
OK. Place the cursor anywhere on this page where there is NOT a blue link. Click on the right button of your mouse . On the pop-up screen click on "View Source" or "Source" or "View Frame Source".
When the next page comes up you'll see the "tags" which precede and come after sentences and paragraphs. They are used to do special things to your webpage - like make the text smaller, larger, bolder, etc. They are also used to link to images you'd like to put on your page. They are used to link to other web pages, both yours and ones outside of your site. At the top between
and you'll see "meta tags" which give the page's title and many of its keywords plus other information. This is some of the information "search engines" use to categorize and catalog your page when you submit it to them. You can dismiss the page when you're ready by clicking on the "X" in the upper right hand corner of your screen.When you're ready to learn some HTML there are some very good tutorials on the web to help you. I'll list one here to help get you started. (When I originally decide to create this page, I was going to include my own HTML tutorial but there are just too many good ones by experts already out there.)
So You Want To Setup Your First Website, Huh?">
Give ANGELFIRE a try. My guess is that you'll have your first page up in no time. If you think you've run into serious problems, send me an email and I'll try to help you with it.
If creating a webpage looks pretty much impossible to you, drop me a line. I'll create a page for you (free, of course). You just supply the text and any photos you'd like on it.
(Gee - what a great guy, huh? Actually, I figure not too many people will come here so I won't get too many requests asking me to create a webpage. But the offer is there!)
Here are a few other hosts who offer free space and tutorials for websites:
Tripod
Fortune City
GeoCities
MSN (Microsoft)
Netscape
Talk CityIf you're really serious and want to check out ALL the freebies go to this site for a list of over 150 free websites.
A word of caution - select a known host who has been around awhile. Some free websites come and go. You might put a lot of work into your website only to wake up one morning and find that its closed and everything has been deleted. My personal experience! Always back up your website HTML. Just in case.
ONE MORE WORD OF CAUTION FOR AOL USERS! If you're on AOL, there's a place for AOL members to create their own websites. That's all well and good until you decide to leave AOL in favor of another Internet Service Provider (ISP). When you leave AOL your website and all the contents will be deleted instantaneosly. You'll have to start all over. My advice? Don't put your website on AOL. Put it on one of the sites suggested above. If you have to use AOL to create a website - use it to point to your REAL website which will be elsewhere!
Once you have your page you'll want to let the whole world know you're on the web. One way to do this is to put your page into various search engines to let the world know about your presence on the web. "Self Promotion" can help you do that. Just click on the next image.
If you have a website, you absolutely have to check out this amazing, wonderful, incredible resource. You can use it for free to register your site with all the important search engines and indexes, and THEN decide if and how much you want to pay to support the service. It's great -- so great that even a notorious cheapskate like me gave them some money!
I know the site above seems a little complex but its really not and the guy who runs the site really has it down to a sciences. Its the best I've seen. But...there are a few places where you can submit your website free. I'll post them below. But even if you use them, check out the above site. You can't help but get some good positions on the search engines if you follow his instructons. OK here are some quickie submission sites.
123Add-It - Promote URLs to the top search engines for free.
Add It! - Promote your website to 30 search engines for free.
Add Me! - Submit, announce, and promote your site for free.
Atajos - Submit websites to Spanish search engines free (en Espaņol)
AutoSubmit Submits to major search engines
Broadcaster - Submit your URL to 30 search engines free
Easy Submit - Automatically submit website to top search engines free!
Marketing Reference.com - 500 sites free! Asks for reciprocal link
Pentakle Submit - Promote websites to 30 search engines free!
Shotgun - Promote your website url to 50 search engines.
Signpost - Automatically promotes websites to a wide range of search engines.
Submit Blaster - Fully automatic submit program.
Submit Shack - Automatically submit to 324 search engines free!
Submit This! - Automatically promote your new website.
Superb Submit - Canadian based auto URL submit service
Trans-Tech Add URL - Includes Australia, Canada & Japan search engines
If you'd like to own your own "domain" this company can help you with some unique services. Go to DIRECTNIC.COM. You will have to pay for this though. At that time I'm writing this, they charge $15.00 per year. For the fifteen bucks, they provide exceptional services you'd pay much more for elsewhere. Their service is excellent too. I've purchased several domains from them and have never had a problem.
When you purchase your domain from them, they will provide free web hosting, free URL forwarding, free Email forwarding to name but a few of their services.
Created September 2, 1999
Revised May 21, 2002
