Hi! I'm going to try to provide you with information that
will help you in making your website a big hit on the web!
This site is for beginners only, I am not an instructor,
I'm just another website builder who taught herself to make
websites. I'm going to share what I have learned and try
to help you out in any way I can think of. Some of these
tidbits of information may not be best for you but I hope
that they help you on your way to having a great website
that you and the rest of the world can enjoy. Here is my
outline for the page so you can navigate more easily.
We'll
start at the beginning...
Building
a website
OK
before you get into all the technical stuff about getting
your site popular you must first start with a site. This
can be personal, business, or just about anything you can
think of.
Personal
or business???
A personal site can be on any topic you find interesting.
It can be about your hobbies, crafts, religion, politics,
or anything you want to display or discuss with other members
of the world wide community. Try to keep it friendly and
no hate or bashing of other's beliefs. This will help you
in making the site popular because many of those detrimental
sites will not be listed with search engines and your host
may revoke your site on these grounds. Be sure that your
host allows the content you intend on displaying. But that
will come later.
A business site can also be anything you want. There are
many marketing and money making programs out there that
want you to display a webpage that they have created on
your site, thus getting them more interested visitors seeing
the same site everywhere. While I have never had a site
such as this many people do make money off programs such
as: (insert links to programs like that) Or you can open
your own web-based business offering retail items and services.
It could be anything from books to doorknobs. Really you
can sell anything you might want to sell as long as it's
legal. You can even market your own newsletter for a subscription
price. But if you are going to sell stuff on the web be
ready for your customers. It can be very inconvenient to
open a site and get business and not be ready to meet the
demand. On the other hand it can be very slow starting out
so be ready for that as well. One of the most important
things to do is finding a great provider for any items you
may wish to sell, a wholesaler that will deal in very small
quantities. Not always easy but if you look around on the
web I'm sure you can find a few of them. Start local and
fan out your search. It's always best to find providers
in your area so you can deal with them face to face if needed.
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Find
a Host
So
make your choice of what kind of site you want first, then
look for host.
A host is a web server that will provide you with space
to place your site. Many of these providers are free for
all to use. They may have restrictions on space and content
but read through the user agreements to find the best HOST
for you to use for your site.
http://www.homestead.com/
http://www.netfirms.com/
http://www.freewebsites.com/
http://www.freeservers.com/ http://geocities.yahoo.com/home
http://www.freewebspace.com/
http://www.freewebsitehosting.com/
https://www.tripod.lycos.com/
http://www.finitesite.com/
http://home.justfree.com/
http://www.webhostme.com/
http://www.homepagebuilders.com/
http://www.dreamwater.com/
http://personal.buildpage.com/
There
are a lot of free hosts out there so if you don't like any
of these do a search and find one you do like.
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Have
Fun!
Now
comes the fun part. Make the site! Many of the hosts have
a website building program you can use through their site
or you can purchase one at a software store. These purchased
programs can be a little expensive and unless you intend
on updating your site often or having multiple sites you
may choose to use the building programs that your host provides
free of charge. I learned website construction using the
free version of front page express that was included with
windows 95. But learning to upload the site was a bit more
involved than I hoped it would be. When learning website
construction the best thing you can practice is patience.
Your host's help section can be very helpful if you can
read through the technical terms from the start. Take your
time and read through everything and if you have any questions
e-mail the tech support for that site. But there are many
message boards where you can find help from everyday people
who don't sound like tech manual. (Add a link to groups
like this)
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Have
someone do it for you!
Or you can choose the option of having your site built for
you. There are some hosts that will provide this service
free using universal templates but if you want your site
to really have some impact I wouldn't go this route. There
are some freelance web-designers that will do it very inexpensively
and provide you with a completely original site. For business
sites I think this is one of the best options. A web designer
will create a great site for you in a very small amount
of time. You could have your business up in running in days
instead of the weeks or even months it may take an individual
to learn everything involved.
Computerman
Web Design
http://www.spicy-design.com/index1.htm
http://www.dhdesign.com/website-design.htm
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Make
it pleasing!
Whether
the site is business or personal make sure it is visually
pleasing. Try to make it unforgettable and fun for your
visitors. Find some great graphics for your site. Here are
a few places to find them and get them for free!
The
Design Team
http://beseendb.looksmart.com/beseen/free/
http://www.abcgiant.com/
http://www.animation-station.com/
You
can also add music and animations to make it fun for all.
(Find some free midi providers)
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Check
your Text!!!!
Make sure the content is clear and well written. Do a spell
check as well... have a friend proof read it too. The spell
checkers are great for spelling but if you misuse a word
it doesn't let you know. You do not want you visitors to
see errors or mistakes if you can help it. The more professional
the better. If you feel you need the help of a professional
there are many available for this service.
The
Proofreaders
http://www.bestfoot.com/main.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/trumpet/1372/
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Keeping
track of your files
I
think the hardest part in learning how to build a website
was being sure my files were where I wanted them to be.
On a website you will have your own file space, in this
space you upload your files. Your files can be placed where
you want them but you must keep track of where they are
and be sure that they are in the right place so that all
of your internal links on your webpages work. For example:
You may want to place a graphic on a page. This graphic
must be in the proper place in your files on your site so
that your website will LOAD the image onto your webpage.
These files work the same way your files on your computer
work. It's a folder-based system. So if you have a image
in a folder named IMAGES you must have that image linked
on your site to the image name in an image folder. This
was all very complicated to me but keeping things organized
is the hardest part. If you have problems with this process
it's best to e-mail the support of your host or e-mail an
experienced web-designer to help you with any questions.
But you may find this an easy task and something else might
be confusing for you. Just remember to be patient and have
fun with it! Persistence will pay off in the end.
Note:
I know this may look like an awful lot of things to have
to go through and learn but the process is a lot of fun
and once you get through it once you will find that it wasn't
as difficult as you thought it was going to be.
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Adding
Interest
Once
you have the basics of your site built you may want to add
extras, these can add some interest and can provide you
with useful information about your visitors. Such extras
include: Counters - These will help you keep track of the
traffic to your site and can also provide information about
your visitors; Mailing Lists - a great addition to your
site to inform visitors of any new additions to your site
or for businesses to inform your visitors of any new prices
or new items; Tell-a-friend - this is a great traffic builder
if your visitors enjoy your page enough to pass it onto
their friends. Links - providing a place for your visitors
to put up their links on a site is a great addition, it
allows your visitors to feel like a part of your site; Guestbooks
- another addition that is nice for you, you can see some
of the feedback from your guests who choose to take the
time and post their views about your site; Message Boards
- This is a great tool for personal sites where you would
like to start discussions on any topic, you can post your
view on the topic at hand and request input from your guests
(this way it is done for you and you don't have to add additional
pages to your site); E-mail Forms - This is a great gadget,
it provides you with a form where you visitors may e-mail
you without having to list your e-mail address on your site;
Other fun stuff - there are many providers of these services
that have other things to add to your page that change daily
or even hourly, these may include jokes, cartoons or even
news. While all of these things may not be available directly
from your host there are various places where you can get
them for free. The code is provided for you and all you
have to do is copy and paste it into your website pages.
These sites have great instructions written for everyone
to understand. For all of my sites I use the tools provided
by Bravenet.
I
encourage you to check them out it's totally free and you
might even want to use them as your host. But if Bravenet
isn't to your liking your host may provide some of these
things for your sites too, do a search on the web for the
service you are looking for or try one of these.
http://www4.dk3.com/dk3index.html
http://www.pcvoyager.com/dir/webtools1.html
There
are so many additions in this category that it would be
impossible for me to list them all so get out there and
find the ones you like. Insert them into your page and have
some fun with it!
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Once
you have designed your site you have to get traffic!
Step
one making the site Search engine friendly!
Search
engines, now that's how your visitors are going to find
you. There are a few steps to go through to help you get
listed with these major traffic getters, so I'll get started
with the first.
Your
site must be search engine friendly!!! While some search
engines require you to enter a criteria to list your site
most of them mechanically spider your page with a little
program that keeps track of important data. Using METATAG
entries in your webpages will allow this program to log
what your site contains and help visitors find your site
when they do a search for things listed in these lines of
code. Please check my information on METATAGS to understand
what they are and to find metatag programs to help you create
them for your site.
This
is the information needed to create metatags for your website
to be search engine friendly:
Title:
(title of page/site)
Description
of site:(a brief description of your site, don't get too
detailed just a sentence)
Keywords
: (here you get detailed, very detailed, don't use repeat
words the search engine only looks for words, they can look
for phrases but that is usually not done. Here you put all
the keywords for your site. All categories should be covered
for your home page, then you can be more specific on each
page after that. The search engines will spider your page,
that means it will follow all the links on the page and
add them to the searches. So if you are page specific it
will direct visitors to specific pages. If you prefer you
can just do one and use it for all pages but it may confuse
your visitors causing a little annoyance for them.)
Owner:(your
e-mail address, this allows the search engine to respond
to you and can also allow visitors a way to find your mail
address, it can also allow other Robots to find your e-mail
address and you will get more spam than you had before so
be prepared for that. But search engine submission programs
do require it.)
Author:(this
is for your website author to place their name on your page.
If you have made your own page you put your name there if
not do your author a favor and place their name in the spot.
It can generate a little business for them if the visitor
knows how to view code.)
The
next few entries are for the search engine only.
Expires:(this if filled in tells the search engine that
your page will only be active for a specific amount of time,
great for listing events that take place on a certain date.
We've all searched the web and found pages that no longer
exist. If your page is going to disappear in a few weeks
it's best for everyone if you let the search engine know.
Let's not clog the searches with non pages. However if your
page is not date specific you leave this blank.)
Charset:(even
I am not exactly sure what this is. The default for it is
"CHARSET" CONTENT="ISO-8859-1"> and
I suppose that is best for everyone. It works for all my
pages and when I do figure it out I'll post it!)
Language:(This
lets your visitors know what language your site is in. It's
important for the WORLD wide web. You want the visitors
to your site to know what language they are going to be
expected to read when they get there.)
Object
type:(This tells the search engine if it is a document or
an application most instances document is used even if you
have another object on the page you usually have something
else on the page that is document type.)
Rating:(This
is used to allow for baby-sitting programs to keep kids
off pages where they do not belong. As long and you don't
have an sexually explicit site General works. Kind of like
the G rating system. You can choose from a few options.)
Robots:(this
is when you ask the spidering robot to follow all your links.
The best way to do this is index and follow. That way it
indexes all your pages and follows all the links. If you
have all your metatags in place when you do this the search
engine will place all of your pages into their search. Now
that does not mean all of your pages will be listed but
it will try to list as many as it can.)
Revisit:(Again
this is for the robot, it tells it to place it in it's queue
for visitation in an amount of time you choose. I use four
weeks. It gives me a month to get hits on everything set
up as it is now. Then in one month it should revisit your
page. I do say should there because I have really never
experienced a revisit. I don't know how I could check that
anyway but my counters have never logged a revisit.)
There
are a few sites that have a metatag generator for your use
free of charge. You fill in the blanks then the code is
generated for you. You take the code and copy and paste
it into your site. Then upload your page to your server
and you are good to go! You can find a metatag generator
at Bravenet or do a search to find one you may like better.
.
Add
Pro has a generator too!
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Submit
and Get listed!
Once
you have all these things in place in the head section of
your pages you can go through the submission process. There
are a few submission programs that you can use for free
and a MANY which charge a fee. Start with the free programs
first and if they seem to work for you then you can decide
if it's worth it to pay for them. But that's another subject.
Getting
Listed
Next is getting your site registered with the search engine.
Some search engines require a fee, most do not. But if you
want to get listed fast and high up in the listings a fee
is not totally out of the question. It is an investment
that will help people find the things you offer on your
website. However, most of us don't want to spend money on
the things we cannot see so start with the freebies. Many
search engines don't charge any fee and you can submit a
site to them just by clicking on the link on the bottom
of the search engine page where it says, ADD A SITE or SUBMIT
A SITE. Now take a minute and think about how many search
engines there are on the web... OK you aren't going to want
to go through them one by one and submit your site, it would
take forever. But there are some programs out there that
allow you to use their service for free, these are search
engine submitters. They do most of the work for you. You
enter in your information, usually only once, and they provide
you with all the information to submit to many different
search engines. These are a few search engine submitters....
Ineedhit
Addpro
After
you have submitted using these programs you may decide you
want to try getting listed on some major engines that do
not allow submission programs into their process, sites
like yahoo. Yahoo is
a great search engine and hundreds of thousands of people
use it everyday. But like you might expect it's hard to
get listed there. They do have both a pay submission and
a free submission, however paying for the submission doesn't
guarantee a listing. I've submitted several times for free
and didn't get a listing that way. But I am listed through
a webring that I belong to so that helps quite a lot. Webrings
at webring are easy
to use, you choose your category and what ring or rings
you wish to belong to sign up add the code to your page
once and you are DONE!
Webrings
http://www.crickrock.com/
http://www.atomicwebrings.com/
http://www.webring.com/rw
There
are also a few other search engines which you must submit
to manually, but you can take your time through these and
get listed as much as possible. Yes it will take sometime
but you will see it is worth it.
Altavista
Yahoo Lycos
AOL
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Wacky
has a few more tips on getting traffic to your site with
his marketing projects so check them out next!
