Broadband Internet Services
If you've seen the Br0wn Box you've probably realised that any old dumb-ass can create and publish a web page. Maybe you've got a fancy you might try one of your own, and that's why you're reading this article. First question to ask, why would you want to do that? I know two good reasons;
1. Just for the heck of it, to see that you can
2. Because you have something to say
I started at point 1, and moved towards point 2. But if you only do 1, you still learn something, and what do you lose?
If you have something to say, first do some web searching (see my related article on effective web searching) to see if the subject is already well covered in the way you would do it. If yes, do you still feel the need to add to the pool? Perhaps you do - go right ahead.
So what do you need. Well, here's a list;
1. Some Web Space. You almost certainly already have
some, because nearly all ISPs (internet service providers) include some
free space with each account. I guess you have an account, since you
are on the net right now. So visit your ISP's own web site and find out
the following. You also buy
a domain name of you own and professional web hosting quite cheaply.
2. An HTML editor. The easiest way to code a web page is in html code. The editor I'm using right now is Selida, a free download from www.amaryllis.8m.com. When you've installed and started this up, you'll find, in the bottom LH corner, four buttons for its different modes. The are a) Preview and code (you need a big screen to use this) b) code c) previw in browser and d) design mode. If you use it in design mode, its pretty much like creating a page with a word processor. When you've created something you can switch to mode b) and take a look at the code it created. HTML code is dead easy, and you should be able to figure a lot of it out by inspection. For instance, the way html makes a word bold, is like this
<bold> some words </bold>
Codes like this <joke> switch an attribute on, and like this </joke> switch it back off again. If I'd been really smart, I would have put something really funny between those codes there. Ah well.
3. Create a folder on your hard drive to keep you web page in. I recommend you call it 'website' since I reckon you're unlikely to forget that. Save your page as index.htm into that folder. Any pictures you put on the page need to go in there too, and any background image. Selida has a big choice of background images, but for some reason you can only insert them in mode b) code.
4. The first page you ever create can be any old junk, just to show it works. Worry about content later. As I say, Selida is fairly obvious to use - to insert an image, use Insert Image. To insert a hyperlink, use Insert Hyperlink. Etc, just browse its menu's a bit.
3. Now you need to upload the file index.htm plus any pictures you're using to you webspace. This is done with a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) programme. I use Ftpx which you can download free from ftpx.com. In Ftpx, hit the add button to set up a new profile (you can delete all the default ones it comes with). Call the profile something really clever like 'my web site'. The 'Host Address' is you personal web space address. The Login and Password are whatever your ISP say they are, the port is 21 unless your ISP says different and the download path is c:\website if you took my advice on that one. All other fields can stay blank.
Dial up the internet, select your new profile and hit connect. The system will go through some negociations and hopefully connect successfully. Ftpx looks pretty much like windows explorer. In the left hand pane open up the directory til you get to one called 'public' and open that (be patient, it may take a while to appear). Hit the up blue arrow button (=upload) and select your site files. You should see them all appear in the RH pane - that means they are on your web server.
4. Visit your own web site. Open your browser and type in the address bar www.myisp/mysite/ or whatever your freespace address is. Hey Presto - your web page.
5. Bob is most definately your uncle.
Going a Step Further
Firstly, don't confuse yourself by reading this bit yet. Get as far as step 5 above before worrying about this stuff.
Creating more pages
If you want more than one page at your site, there are two ways to obtain additional addresses. The first is simply to create another web page in Selida (or whatever software you found) and save it. If you call it newpage.htm its address becomes http://www.myisp/mysite/newpage.htm If you want to make the address work without the .htm, you need to create a new folder for the new page. Under your C:/website folder, create a subfolder called newpage (or some word/words related to the page content). Now save your new page in here with the name index.htm (be careful not to save it directly in c:\website, or you'll overwrite your existing index.htm). Now dial up and connect to your web server with Ftpx, and create a new folder under \public. Give it the same name and the new folder on your hard disk. Upload you new page, plus any pictures etc into that folder. Its web address is now http://www.myisp/mysite/newpage You can link the pages to one another with hyperlinks. In Selida you select Insert Hyperlink, in the 'hyperlink text' box put something like 'visit my other page' In the 'address' box put the address, the result looks like this;
why not take a look at my other page
Putting Information in the Document Header
If you want to be noticed by search engines, you need to put some critical data in the header. You have to go to the code to do this. Anything between the <head> and </head> tags is visible to engines but not to the viewer. A person viewing on the web can only see what falls between the <body> and </body> tags. What you need to add is metatags, critically the Title, Content and Keyword tags.
You can copy and paste these metatags here
<TITLE>My Page</TITLE><meta name="description" content="This is web site that tells you about my stuff"> <meta name="keywords" content="one,keyword,and,another,one,just,eight,ideally">
then just edit them to words appropriate for your own page.
Selection of keywords
The selection of keywords is critical if you want search engine success. You have to guess what words people will choose when they are looking for the kind of information you are providing. Two things that don't work;
A page rank is based on its calculated relevancy (exact method of calculation known only to search engine companies). If you use just three keywords, and someone searches using all three, you'll get good relevancy. If they search on three words, and those are three out of 50 keywords in your list, you'll get low relevancy.
You might like to try peaking at your competitors keyword list, although this won't tell you anything for paid inclusions, those pages can have no or rubbish keywords. The way to look is get the page up in your browser, choose 'view - source' or view - page source' and this will open up their code in notepad.
Adding a Hit Counter
If you add a hit counter, you can see how many people visit your page. You can use fastcounter, follow the link just under the counter at the bottom of this page. Its free, but there are various other free counter services, just go to a search engine and search on 'free hit counter'. Generally, you have to type in your web page address - correctly :-) and it will generate some html code that you copy and paste onto the bottom of your page. I suggest you go to the 'code' mode and paste it in right a the bottom, just before </body>. Of course, each time you modify your page you must upload the new one to your web server with your FTP software. Then view it in you browser to see that its worked right - you have to hit your browser 'refresh' button or it will read the old version out of your system cache.
Submitting to Search Engines.
If you've read my page on successful internet searching, you'll know that the engines employ web crawlers to index web pages. If you visit each search engine, somewhere you'll find a 'submit your site' button. What this does is put your site on the list of places that the crawler will visit. But don't expect that visit to be soon - it will be several weeks at least before you get a visit - the quick service is only available to people who pay. And just because the crawler visits doesn't mean it will index you, according to whatever rules it has, you may not be selected. Another way is to use search engine submission services. Traffication.com often have free offers, and ineedhits.com submit 200 engines for $2.50 Australian. Their theoretical price is more than this, but there is always a sale on (literally, always). I bet you didn't know there are 200 search engines? Well, there are, and its easier to get ranked at the minor ones and because the engines crawlers tend to search other engines, it can set you on the trail. Also, check out your ISP, mine do a submit-the-top-ten search engines for nothing feature, yours may have something like that. Getting a good engine ranking I don't know any way to guarantee this apart from paying for it. Some pages take, and some don't. There is a mass of information on the net about search engine optimisation - visit Sitepronews.com where you can sign up for their newsletter and get constant new tips.