Starting A Web Page

[dukdorob]

Hi I'm looking into starting a web page and just need some pointers about my first steps what softwere or good web pages things like that any advice is welcome.

[Khutan]

To start with, don't worry too much about the software.

Get out a pencil and paper and design what you want first.

You need to consider navigation around the site, the information you are going to provide etc etc.

Do it all on paper first, test it on paper and then start to build it.

[triplegee]

To start with, don't worry too much about the software.

Get out a pencil and paper and design what you want first.

You need to consider navigation around the site, the information you are going to provide etc etc.

Do it all on paper first, test it on paper and then start to build it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Excellent advice from Mattnich - it's a step that a lot of people overlook - we're all tempted to dive in and start designing in the latest software.

There's plenty of excellent websites that can help you but you may want to start with this Google Search.

FWIW - I started with MS Frontpage (it comes bundled with most Office installations) but now find the Macromedia suite the way to go.

Good luck.

[waldwolf]

To start with, don't worry too much about the software.

Get out a pencil and paper and design what you want first.

You need to consider navigation around the site, the information you are going to provide etc etc.

Do it all on paper first, test it on paper and then start to build it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Excellent advice, mattnich.

Somewhat like building a house and the old saying "measure twice, cut once". Its all in the planning. The actual construction, once you know what you want and where you want it, is the easiest part.

have fun.

[kabal1234]

Find a website you like the look of and copy the source!

Paste it into the editor of your choice and modify to suit your needs.

Learn some html.

[cdnvic]

Two places to visit:

http://htmlgoodies.com - Good basic tutorials. Its a good idea to learn how to write basic html code before you start with the software. You can do the full tutorial and have your first simple page written in less than two hours. Once you get that down, you can do more advanced tutorials whenever you feel ready.

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com - Learn how NOT to build a page, and tips to avoid mistakes you may not see coming.

Good luck

cv

[Bluffer]

Part of the answer so far that has been missed out is - what is it for. ?

If its just a personal page, go out have fun. Run up a rough idea what you want and then go and have fun making mistakes! See what you like and what you dont, what works and what doesnt.

Some of the better free host ones are Geocities, Tripod, or even just get a blog from Google or Lycos or..... There are lots out there.

There are also lots of add on sites where you can get hit counters, guestbooks, photo albums etc . Bravenet.com is quite good.

If its a more commercial site then do as the guys suggest. Plan everything before hand. There is nothing more offputting to customers seeing sites badly designed, overloaded with different fonts, broken links, pages under construction, big pictures ( as in file size - try for as small as possible. ) on pages that mean it takes 5 minutes to load a page etc etc.

Edited December 15, 2004 by Bluffer

[Khutan]

Sorry, I had to deal with a customer visit.

The other thing I meant to say is When you have it all on paper, try to decide on a few standards. Make the image names match what the image is. Also put alternate text for the image, so when people mouse-over the image, they can get a short description.

Remember also to have a bit of a standard for your directory structure, and put ALL your images, sounds, videos etc in that directory. It means you only load them once.

Particularly Banners, if you are going to have a banner, you only want it in one place, and you reference that place. It also cuts down on alot of bandwidth. When you are loading new pages, the browser will go back to the server to check the graphic (Banner) is current, if you have one in each directory, it has to be loaded each time. So it slows down their load time and increases how much bandwidth you are serving. At the end of the day your biggest cost will be bandwidth.

Make sure you have a title for each page, A good trick is to put your business phone number in the title. It means your Advertising is always there. "Untitled" would not pass a school project these days.

Next decide on your colour scheme and fonts. Only use the one scheme. The number of times you load a page and it looks 100% different to the last - it confuses people. Keep to the one scheme.

The biggest problem and turn-off has to be slow loading pages. If you have small images to show, make them as small as possible. Even stretch them a bit. Then if people want to see a hi-res image, they can, but knowing it will be slow to load.

Don't fall for the trap of having a hi-res background, they are expensive for bandwidth, slow to load and can distract the audience. If you must have an image, there are techniques to do that, just don't take a 3Mb picture from your digital camera and use that.

Avoid at all costs making text into graphics, apart from slowing the loading and costing bandwidth, they don't get pucked up by the search engines, unless you carefully add the Meta-tags.

You are almost ready to build the thing.

Next you need to decide what order you want your graphics to load. This is important. You cantrol what your visitors will see and in what order.

Build all your low-res and High-res graphics. It will save you later.

With all of this information, you are ready to build the page. You know what the layout is, you know the page names, you know the page titles and Abstracts, what the graphics are and the load order.

You can now use a wizard from most of the popular web building tools. and you will have your page mostly built.

When you are building the page, NEVER FIT A BIG GRAPHIC INTO A SMALL AREA. If you have to reduce it, use an image editor. Don't reduce its scaling, you are wasting everyones time and money. It is also very bad practice.

There are some other tricks like exposing your e-commerce to other parties etc etc and of course META tags to get the best form a search engine.

cdnvic, was correct have a look around here

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com for ideas on what to avoid.

Good Luck

[astral]

Build a basic template of your page first, and save it.

Then use this as the starting point for future pages, to keep a consistent

look to the site.

[Khutan]

When you are going to webpagesthatsuck.com

Have a look here as well - http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/cheaptools.html

This will save you heaps of trouble and has excellent tips.

Matt

[Crushdepth]

If your site is likely to be something you want to update often, you could also look into building it with a content management system, programs that automate a lot of the technical aspects of website construction and maintenance.

The nice thing about them is that you don't need too much technical knowledge to use one. Updates are done by pasting information into forms in your browser and the software handles page layout automatically through a templating system, so you don't need to hand code pages unless you want to. Most are skinnable with free themes and a CSS set up that you can tinker with. The limitation is that you are constrained by the existing functionality of the software or modules that are available (unless you are a programmer !)

There's quite a few good open source CMS out there now, personally I like XOOPS. Anyway, like the others said, plan your site first. And its well worth the effort to learn optimising photos/graphics for the web.

Edited December 15, 2004 by Crushdepth

[h90]

first find a webspace there are offers for just 5 US$ per month.

interland.com is what I use and they seem to be good

than software, I started with Macromedia things, but switched now to Frontpage.

As long as it is not a commerical page, drop all the panning and just make some funny pages and make them better if your skills are getting better