Welcome to Build-Websites.info for a simple guide to building your first web sites

If you are completely new to building websites, want to find out how to create a page or site for your domain name, start a web portal for your 'real world' business or just want to let the world know your thoughts and see your pictures then read on - Build-Websites.info is for you. This page contains simple tips, links, ads and advice for the absolute newbie to web design.

The first things to think about before building your website are 1) what is the purpose of your site, 2) do you need a domain name and 3) where is your website and its content going to be located on the internet?

Purpose of your site

A website can be created for a whole host of reasons. Most first time publishers just want to put their thoughts and pictures out there for the world to see. For some it may be a professional or business necessity and a simple contact page may be all that is needed to get you going. Others may want to create a 'single issue' site, a community, charity, club or organisation site, a sales pitch, a single page ad, a hobby or sports information page...the list is endless. So first you need to decide the purpose of yours.

Domain Names - Your online identity

A domain name (like Build-Websites.info) is registered for a predetermined period of time and is renewable in order for you to preserve your privileges of use. For more information about the wide variety of top level domains check out 77Domains.com . You do not need to register a domain name in order to build a site but for the relatively small yearly cost it is normally a sensible move for establishing your 'web identity' and consistency of build and ease of movement from one host to another.

Location of your site and its content - Hosting Accounts

All websites need to be stored on a server somewhere. This is not the same as it sitting on your home PC. On the remote server, which is permanenty connected to the internet, you are allocated an amount of disk space where you can put your website files. Put simply, your domain name is then configured to resolve to this particular directory on the server, so that whenever anyone types in your website address your homepage is shown. Wherever you choose for your hosting account should be reliable and always accessible. For most people this involves subscribing to a paid hosting account, although there are some decent ad supported free hosts available if you don't care about having third party ads showing on your pages or are severely restricted on your budget.

Your first HTML page

You don't even need a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) to create a simple holding page. You can just create and edit HTML in a text editor. If you want an ultra simple page then just follow the steps below.

i) Create a new folder in your documents and save this file into it as index.html.

ii) Find one of your pictures related to the topic of the intended site and, after ensuring that it is resized to no more than 50kB or so, save it as a 'JPEG' called pic.jpg into the same folder as the index.html file. You should remember to name the image pic.jpg and to place it in the same folder for the template to work.

iii) Open the index.html file in Notepad, or a similar text editor (you should NOT use Wordpad, Word or a similar word processing package as this will introduce formatting that isn't related to the HTML). You can then edit the code directly, changing the CAPITALISED TEXT to that of your own. Resave the index.html file.

iv) Download an FTP client, such as Filezilla, and create a new connection using the details supplied to you by your hosting provider. Upload your index.html and pic.jpg files into the appropriate directory on the server. This may be at the 'root' level of your hosting account or may be in a directory (folder) named public_html or www or the likes. You should check where your website files should go according to how your account has been set up by your host. One of the most common errors by first time page creators is to place the files in the wrong directory. Another common mistake is to name the homepage something other than index.html

Once you have begun to understand the concepts of FTP and putting your files in the correct place you can then begin to build a more complex site. To do this you have two options, either learn HTML coding or use a WYSIWYG website building software package. The latter option is probably far more effective to get the first time site-builder up and running!

Templates

Using web design templates allows you to concentrate on building your site and less on the graphics. You can find template downloads via Template77.com

Recommended Free Software

From free software to top end industry standard packages the choices for the new web designer are wide and varied. It is, however, probably best to use free software at the outset to keep your costs down. Although you could easily spend £1000 on industry standard, top quality software for building your site and manipulating your pictures free packages are just as effective for the first time site builder

nvu - Website building software

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

Filezilla - FTP Client

Don't forget...

Check how your site displays at different screen resolutions and in a variety of browsers, not just Internet Explorer but perhaps Firefox and Safari too. Get your friends and family to check out your pages and report back any problems they encounter.

Include a Title, Description and relevant Keywords in the 'head' of each of your pages. Your Title should be around six or seven words, your Description about a sentence long and your Keywords only those that are genuinely relevant to the content of your page.

Keep graphics, pictures and images to JPG, GIF or PNG files, web friendly image formats. Make sure that all graphics files are of a reasonable size. If you incorprorate a huge picture file into your page then your visitors, especially those using a dialup connection, will have to wait forever for it to load and to be able to view it. Many people in this situation will just hit their browser's 'back button' and your visitor will be lost to another site.

Give images and graphics an alternative text description - alt

Use text links to connect the various pages and sections of your site. Even if you create funky graphics for your site navigation there should be an identifiable text link version too. Give each additional page a link at the bottom back to your domain's homepage.

New pages should open in the same browser window. You don't want someone who is checking through your site to find they have a dozen new browser windows open as they move from page to page.

Frames are a bad idea and can cause many problems. Tables are easy to use, but far from ideal. It is recommended to separate your content from your design by reading up on 'CSS - Cascading Style Sheets' and using a style.css file.

Go easy on Flash or other content that requires the browser to have a specific plugin.

Do not place important information within a graphic; not everyone can view them. Use standard text for all your important and relevant site content.

Write original content and use images that are your own. Do not call pictures from other people's site without their permission. Plagiarism, image and bandwidth theft will make you no friends online and possibly get you into a lot of trouble. Even if you have the right to reproduce work that appears elsewhere on the web, you are far better off writing your own information, articles and content in order to avoide a 'duplicate content penalty' by the search engines.

Link out freely to other relevant sites and share some 'link love' whilst giving your visitors some pointers to additional resources out on the web.

Don't engage in any practices that contravene the search engines' various webmaster guidelines.

For more information on search engine friendly web design and search engine optimisation see SEOservices.org.uk

What does this mean?

CSS - Cascading Style Sheet (a file that contains predetermined style classes - defining fonts, sizes, colours etc - which are then used to dictate how text, links etc should display in your pages)

FTP - File Transfer Protocol (the method by which you transfer files from your local PC or Mac to your server space)

HTML - HyperText Markup Language (the most common language of the web)

HTTP - HyperText Transport Protocol (the protocol used for your browser to access files and display pages)

URL - Universal Resource Locator (a web address)

WYSIWYG - 'What You See Is What You Get'

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