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Building
a Website - Part 2
Now
that you have your domain name and website hosting
company signed up and ready to go, you can now start
creating your website.
To
begin, you should get a piece of paper, and write down
all the different categories of information you want
your site to contain. For example, if you are creating
a business website, you would have a welcome page, a
page outlining what your business does or sells,
another of where customers can find you, and lastly
maybe a page with links to associated businesses or
organizations. It is up to you how many pages your
site will contain, but if this is your first website,
you may not want it to be too complicated.
Once
you have jotted down all your information categories,
next is to sort these categories into a logical order.
Your welcome page is the most important. This is what
your website visitor will see first, and depending on
how it looks and what it contains, will determine if
you attract your visitor’s interest. This main page
needs to be attractive, simple, yet informative.
After
the welcome page, you might have a page describing
your business and the products or services you offer.
Next would be a contact us page, which gives visitors
your business address, email and phone details and
other contact info. After this you could include your
links page. Other pages can be added to this order,
depending on what information your site contains.
To
make a page viewable on the Internet, it must be
written in a computer code called HTML. So you don’t
have to enrol in a crash course on HTML, there are
several software programs that make web page building
just as easy as creating a birthday card or a
newsletter. We use and recommend Microsoft Frontpage
2000. This program enables you to add your text,
graphics, and pictures just as you would in any
desktop publishing software. The HTML code is written
out for you in the background.
Another
important part of any web page is the navigation
links. These links are what tie together all your
different pages of information. Therefore, each of
your pages must have listed at the top, or on the
side, all the other pages in your website. This
enables your visitor to click on these links, and go
to that relevant page.
Microsoft
Frontpage makes this linking of pages very simple.
Once all your different pages have been created and
saved, go back and open the welcome page. At the top,
or the side, depending where you put it, highlight the
text that gives the page’s name. Then right click
the highlight, and select Hyperlink. In the resulting
box, type the name of the page to which you are
linking, and click OK. Your link on the welcome page
will now have an underline, and is able to be clicked.
In our next column,
we will deal with getting your completed web site up
and running online. For more information, please call
us on 0419 790 071 or email us.
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