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O.T. need input on making website

Bob F

Aluminum
Joined
Oct 31, 2002
Location
Ky.
I plan to atempt to help a make a website for a friend and want to know if there are any books etc. which easily explain the process. It will include still photos of the products offered and short video clips of the products along with downloadable and printable brochures.
Is making a website an easy process? Or are there any software programs which would help?
Any input is appreciated.
 
060912-1145 EST USA

Bob F:

What is the purpose of the site? Do you want a high location in search engine results? Do you just want a place to stash stuff so that friends can view the material?

If you want high rankings in search engines, then write the code in HTML. See "HTML for the World Wide Web", by Elizabeth Castro. Borders or Barnes & Noble. To do this takes a lot of study and experimentation.

The contents within photo and .pdf files are not found by search engines. However, the captions associated with photo files will lead search engines to the photos.

.
 
There are several packages that will allow you to do basic website design. Microsoft FrontPage being about the most prevalent (and cheapest). You could also try the "for Dummies" series of books.
To get beyond the "basics" you will need some expertise in HTML.
There are also hosting companies that have built in Web page design capabilities, the only caution here is that with many of these the site would not be easily transferrable to another provider.
But for the "layman" I would definately look into a website design package.
Greg
 
Hi Bob,

For a site to work, you need a domain name (yoursite.com or ???), and it must be "hosted" somewhere, which means the name must point to a computer somewhere on the internet where the files reside. This is what a hosting provider does.

The domain name is rented on an annual subscription, which can be renewed for multi-year periods. They also charge a fee for hosting the site, and there may be different hosting plans ($$$) based on the amount of traffic you expect.

There are many site authoring resources available. Most hosting providers have packages available with pre-configured sites and authoring tools which allow you to customize the site as desired. This may be the best/simplest/fastest way to accomplish what you want, since much of the basic work is already done for you.

To use this you simply get your site name from any of the domain name providers that also provide hosting services ( www.networksolutions.com or www.register.com or whoever), then select one of their standard site configurations based on its appearance. They sell the authoring tools, but they're inexpensive.

There are many authoring tools available for free or at very low prices. Look over the offerings at Tucows ( http://www.tucows.com ) or SourceForge ( http://www.sourceforge.net ). I would never recommend FrontPage to anyone, unless you plan to start a website authoring business.

Most programs (128,000+ of them) on SourceForge are free. Some programs on Tucows are shareware, which means they charge a fee (typically $10 to $30) to use the program after a free evaluation period (usually 30 days). Others are free, and some are full-priced commercial products. Specifics for each program are presented in the License section of the description. The notation GPL (GNU Public License) on any software package from any site means that it's free.

I have four websites, the first of which went online eight years ago. All were designed and written by hand. But I have a lot of experience in computer programming and related fields, and the sites are pretty simple. I would not recommend this approach for a novice.

Leigh
 
Here is a link to one of the providers that I use. There is plenty of bandwidth and space available so you should never have to worry about out growing the hosting. Also has a pretty robust development tool and a lot of templates to pick from. http://www.duoservers.com/?r=hollistergc
$100.00 per year for the hosting, and $9.95 for the domain.

Contact me if you need have any questions.
Greg
 
The easiest tool is FrontPage. Anyone can make a website with it, and it will have a lot of functionality.

The pros all use MacroMedia Dreamweaver. It's harder to learn, but lots more flexible.

It really all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Head over to your local Borders or Barnes & Noble. There will be a ton of books on FrontPage and Dreamweaver. See which one looks easier to understand and closer to your needs.

My website,

http://www.thewarfields.com/MTHome.htm

started on FrontPage and was redone in Dreamweaver. It was a major job to retool the content, and it would have been easier to just start with a more flexible tool had I known.

BTW, it also doesn't cost that much to hire a pro to set up a site.

Best,

BW
 
Thanks for all the ideas. Bob the Warfields is a great site. Did you do the site with Frontpage yourself?
 
Some of the domain hosting providers have web templates and design tools as part of the package. I use IPower and then just use a text editor to modify the code as needed. Here's the site I maintain for our shooting club that was built from an IPower template www.dprc.org

Steve.
 
I use Nvu to make up pages. My website isnt that "advanced" or anything and I havnt used all of what Nvu has to offer but its nice and its free


http://www.nvu.com/index.php

Dimitri
 








 
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