How
to create a website?
By: Lavender (Lavanya),
Webmistress
Welcome! This tutorial will
guide you through the process of building a site. This tutorial is
for people who want to start building a site or who want to start
afresh with their site.
We have tried to
keep this tutorial simple because we know that not everybody who
wishes to make a site is a website designer. We have given the
tutorial in a step by step manner and it is suggested that you go
about making your site in a similar step by step manner.
Get
a web site editor:
It is highly recommended that you get a web site
editor. It will make your life easy. You don't have to bother about
HTML too much. You don't even have to link all your pages again and
again (make use of shared borders in FrontPage for eg.). You can
search the web for downloading them for a trial and see which suits
your needs best. You can try FrontPage, Netscape Composer,
Dreamweaver etc.
If you think you
don't want to invest money here, most web hosts provide you with a
site builder. You can even make your pages out of Microsoft Word.
For detailed info. on this please  me.
Download
its Tutorial:
If you choose to get a web editor, and you don't
know how to use it, we suggest you download its tutorial. This can
be found at the official websites of these sites, as well as at
other sites which deal with these editors or with web designing.
FrontPage: www.microsoft.com
Dreamweaver: www.macromedia.com
Register
your site/domain:
You should register your site with a free host, if
you don't want to spend anything on your site. The host you choose
will depend upon the requirements of your site. We suggest that you
go for a host with 20-30 mb. That should be enough for most of your
sites. This site is much less than 30 mb itself. So don't go for
much space unless you want a site as big as Yahoo or MSN.
If you choose to
have a domain name, you can to www.register.com
and get a decent domain name for yourselves. But with the new
redirection links, you can get a name which looks like a
professional domain name for site for free. For eg. www.cjb.net
provides free redirection links and e-mail addresses. For more info.
on redirection links go to our resouces section.
Decide
on its Content:
You should now decide on the content of your web
site i.e. the no. of sections, the content of your site. Divide it
into nice looking -pages and headings. if you are making a Harry
Potter fan site, you should dedicate it to a particular thing in the
books. If you choose to make a generalized Harry Potter fan site,
then you will be all confused as you would have to cover each and
everything about HP on that site and that is not a very good idea
for a beginner or intermediate webmaster/mistress. Therefore, you
can devote the site to a particular character or actor/actress in
the movies or to a particular thing for eg. Diagon Alley, Gringotts,
Dobby, Hogwarts, Dursleys. These are some great and unique subjects
to make a site on.
You should also
visit other sites built on the same theme as yours to see what
things are required and what type of content do you have to put on
your site, which will make it stand out. Please do not copy their
content, as you might get into trouble and the same content will
make the visitors of your site leave the site at once.
Get
some cool website tools such as guest books, polls, zonk boards etc:
These tools are great for your site! They add
Interactivity to your site. They are a must for a site. If you
cannot put all of the available ones make sure you put the ones
mentioned above.
Publishing
is not the ultimate goal:
Some people think that once a site has been put up, the
work is done. But no, getting your site on the web is just the
beginning. It is when you publish your site, that it begins its
actual journey. When it is published, you can start its publicity by
submitting it to search engines and other similar sites and
affiliating with them. You can start by joining our SRP (Site
Recognition Project).
Keep
updating your site:
Updates are the key to success of a site. Your
visitors won't come back to your site if they do not see anything
new and returning visitors are very necessary if you want to be
successful. A very good thing to make sure visitors come back to
your site are the good Forums. This is probably the best and easiest
way. Make your forums good and Interactive. For info. on where to
get good forums from visit our resources section.
Build
a What's New page:
Build a what's new page or add a column where you
put your updates. This will help your visitors, and instead of
searching each page for updates they can simply look at that section
and go to the page which has been updated.
Affiliate
with other sites:
Affiliate with similar sites. For eg. if your site
is about Harry Potter, you can affiliate your site with any of the
other Hp Fan sites, just make sure you fulfill their requirement.
You can put your affiliates on a column or you can also create a
separate page where you put all your affies.
Use
your ideas and creativity to create different stuffs:
It is said that "A person who has ideas and has
the capacity to implement his ideas rules the world." Apply
your ideas, experiment with different stuffs to get the best result.
However, make sure you have the capacity, skill and resources to
implement your ideas. Keep this in mind while working on your ideas.
Start
with simple thing and build upon them:
Start with 4-5 sections, then increase them slowly as you see
your site progress. This site for eg. originally had only four
sections, News, Games, Fan Fiction and Forums. Then, I slowly moved
it to 6 and then 12 that was the maximum "The Great Hall"
ever had. I also kept changing the layouts, and though everything
about this site has changed from the time it began its journey as
"The Great Hal" till now as "Dumbledore's Army",
it is still continuing its journey, but the spirit, the soul of this
site is the same. It has the same skeleton, the thing is that is
just getting fatter. Though people might say that the v3. of this
site is much more better than the v1. but I still say that v1. was
the best and it'll be the bet cause the v1 taught me how to create a
site. It was the first time I made a site, and I had done all kinds
of experiments with it to make it what it was.
I'm sure the
first site you make will be your best, no matter how much bigger a
site it becomes, the first time you launched it will be the best for
you. Best of Luck with your site! If you wish to ask me anything
else about any aspect of site building just  me. Also if you
think that this tutorial has helped you please do put a small link
back to: www.daclub.co.nr.
This tutorial is
not to be copied, or reproduced in any any form. If you wish to
include it on your site  me.
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