How To Create A Website In Less Than A Week – Domain Name
How To Create A Website In Less Than A Week
Andre Grisby
Heres a really simple way... any novice can create a fully functional website in less than a week.
Websites are the wave of the future. Although many companies are using an online presence to drive business to their brick and mortar stores, many hobbyists also tend to have a bit of interest in developing their own online presence as well. Developing a website from scratch can be rather expensive, but armed with the right tools, and given a little instruction, anyone can develop a professional website in less than a week.
One thing you must always remember is that anyone trying to do a particular job should be armed with the right tools. Having the right tools will definitely make your project a bit easier to complete.
I guess you are scratching your head wondering what type of tools I would be talking about. You see when you are developing a website, you become a builder, a painter, or an artist. You are taking an idea from your head and transforming it into a digital image so to speak. Just as if you were going to build a home from the ground up, take a paint brush and create a masterpiece painting, or take a piece of clay and create a winning statue, you need the right tools to do the right job.
The tools Im referring to are web graphics software, web design software, and ftp file transfer protocolsoftware. These are tools are a must if you want to get off on the right foot. There are so many of these types of programs that you must really do your homework in order to purchase the one the best fits your needs. Some of these programs can even be downloaded for free. Each program focuses on a particular task. The graphics software helps you create images for your website from scratch. The web design software in short helps you to design and build a website from scratch. The file transfer protocol software is you link to sending your completed web pages from you computer to the internet.
Day one should be focused on purchasing cyber "real estate", and purchasing a name for that real estate.
Building a website is like building a new house. You have to purchase the land and then you can purchase the materials to build the home on the land. Lets take a look at this. Every website has a so called name. Example www.1234.com. This is called the domain name. There are many places that you can purchase cheap domain names. They usually run under $10 dollars and are good for about a year. Once you have the domain name you can start looking for a place to host you website. There are many hosting companies that are popping up on a daily basis. Hosting can be dirt cheap or it can be rather expensive. It all depends on the quality of service you receive from the company. Heres another area you should consider researching before you make a purchase.
Day two should be focused on the whole planning aspect of your website.
The planning aspect of your website should be focused on the objective of your website, the audience you are trying to target, and how your competition is doing in the market. Focusing on the objective simply means to think about what you are trying to accomplish with your website. Your goals and accomplishments should fall into this category. You should also be trying to focus on a target market. Many internet marketers feel that you should focus on a niche market. Remember that the internet is a big playing field. A beginner will get lost in the crowd trying to cover several areas. Instead, try and focus on something with less competition but enough competition to stay in business. Targeting a specific market or niche market is basically the audience you are trying to win over.
Day two should also be focused on the look and feel of your website. For example, you should have a mental image of how you want your website should look. It would be safe to say that you could even sketch out a raw diagram of how you want things to look. Pay attention to the color scheme as well. remember that all colors do not coordinate with one another.
Day three should be focused on the type of graphics you plan on using.
In all honesty, web graphics can make or break the success of your online presence. The internet is all about information and speed. Its like going to a fast food restaurant. You go their because you something quick to eat. The internet is similar. A fast loading website will beat out any other website hands down any day. In order to have a fast loading website you must keep your image graphics file size down to a minimum. The more clutter or bells and whistles you add to your site, the faster it will take to load. There are several website design programs out their that will let you know how long it would normally take for you page to load up. Shrinking the file size, saving it in different formats, and even cropping the image can cut seconds off your loading time.
If you want to save money, you can purchase a graphics program and make images and logos on your own. If you are a bit scared of the venture, you have the option of hiring someone to do the job for you. Whatever choice you make, always do your research for the best details and outstanding customer support.
Here we are on day four. Only one day left. Creating your web pages.
This is basically the meat and bones of any website. For the most part, an easy way to build a website is to use what is called a template. Basically a template is a preset model used to create a number of different pages. It saves you time and headaches. Once you find the look and feel of your website, you use that interface as a preset model to help you move along more smoothly. There are many html editors that can help you do this quicker than usual. One thing to remember is that using an html editor prevents you from dealing with actual html coding. Basically what Im getting at is you dont really need to know html when using an html editor.
You want to focus on building links, inserting and formatting text, and focusing on building your other pages throughout your site. Day four is the day where everything starts coming together. Take your time on this day. Dont rush anything. Make sure you are satisfied with one step before moving on. Your website is basically a mirror image of what you stand for. It will reflect on your work ethic and personality.
Congratulations you made it to day five. Give yourself a pat on the back. This day is spent publishing your website to the world.
This is where all you work is tied together and presented in a nice package. In order to do this you need some type of ftp software. In technical terms its called File Transfer Protocol. This is how you transfer your web page files and graphics from your computer to your hosting company. The procedure is rather simple. You basically use a point and click interface. You highlight the file you want to transfer and hit upload or send. The software is rather self-explanatory. Once the site is up on the web, check for links that are not working, or slow download times. Way to go, you have completed your first website without all the technical wisdom. There are a few more details that you will run into, but this is like a crash course of something that is really rather simple.
When you decide to tackle this task, just remember to take your time and plan everything out in advance. Do your research, and learn the basics of the three main software tools that are required. The tools are only as good as the user. If you become stuck or confused on a certain function, seek help. Customer support, chat rooms, or newsgroups. Remember the internet is a world of information. Use it to your advantage.
Follow these steps and you can impress your friends and family. Completing this will eventually get you labeled as a genius or whiz kid.
About The Author
c Copyright 2003 by R. Grisby
R.Grisby distributes ebooks dealing with various topics. The information presented in this article above comes from the Ebook "How to create a website in 5 days." Find it at: www.grisbynovels.com/5daywebsite.htm
uggsu@sbcglobal.net
Why Your Brick-and-Mortar Biz Needs A Website – Domain Name
Why Your Brick-and-Mortar Biz Needs A Website
Kelly Kyrik
The internet has taken over our lives with a vengeance, and has changed the way many of us do business. More and more consumers are now doing their shopping online and, unfortunately, some business owners have felt the pinch.
But there are many small businesses that have been virtually unaffected by the internet boom. Those professionals in the more service-oriented fields - veterinarians, chiropractors, beauticians, dentists and more - do almost all of their work in whats now affectionately know as the brick-and-mortar business, and as such can never be fully replaced by internet technology.
However, many of these businesses, from tiny mom-and-pop stores to small health care centers - have yet to merge onto the information highway, and its costing them plenty; of customers, that is.
Thats because, although traditional advertising phone books, flyers, radio ads, etc. are still widely used, there is no doubt that the most effective advertising now takes place online.
As our society becomes increasingly computer-savvy, consumers are turning more and more to the internet for information and advice on where to do their business. Your potential customers would much rather type your business name into a search engine than ferret out your phone number in some ratty, old phonebook.
And who can blame them
On the web, your potential clients can find out your hours and location 24/7, get a feel for your business philosophies and practices and can learn about your services and pricing without having to listen to annoying hold music or endless phone menus. Even better, they can get all the information they need at their own pace, taking breaks to feed the cat and burp the baby as needed.
Of course, they cant do any of the above unless your small business has its own website, preferably with a recognizable domain name YourBusinessName.com and Search Engine Optimization, which makes your business easier to find on the vast world wide web. Now that so many consumers are turning to the internet to find the services they need, its imperative that your small business has the same or better web presence than that of your competitors.
Luckily, web design now comes in all flavors and sizes, so you wont have to look far to find a designer and a site thats right or you.
Often a simple one-page website is enough for very small businesses; hours, location, contact information and basic services can all be presented in a professional way for your prospective customers. A medical professional may require more pages; perhaps choosing to explain particular procedures and detailing insurance information. And some small businesses prefer to put everything online, from articles and interactive forms to detailed descriptions of their personal business philosophies.
No matter which design and options you choose, your website will reassure and impress potential consumers, leading them directly to your brick-and-mortar door, and leaving you to concentrate on what you do best; running your small business.
About The Author
Kelly Kyrik is the owner of Tech-Know-Girl Web Design - http://www.tech-know-girl.com - which provides custom designed websites to meet all your small business needs. She can be reached at Kelly@Tech-Know-Girl.com or toll-free at 1-877-554-6500.
Building a Church Website – Web
Building a Church Website
Chris Ryerson
Have you been asked to build a website for your church Building There are thousands of people building websites everyday. It is becoming increasingly important for many small organizations and groups to build their online presence. This helps in getting their ideals, goals, and mission out to the general public. Therefore at an increasing rate many of us with computer skills are asked by organizations to put together a website. This happened to me about two years ago when the school I worked at asked me to build a website for them to help advertise their special arts programs.
The only problem with this is many of us do not have the skills nor the time to build and keep up a whole site. It takes a lot to be the webmaster of a website and it is no simple task. However often it is too expensive to pay a web designer to build a custom site for an organization and so the task often falls to an armature or even some one with no experience. This is what happened to me with the website that I build for my school. I didnt have the first clue about website design or html. So that forced me to learn the basics and use what tutorials and templates that i could find online. I made it through the experience and like many others found that it was a lot of fun. Therefore I started building a bunch of other sites. I would bet that this happens to many.
This article will help the beginning web designer or even volunteer set up a basic Church website. However since there is not a lot of money to spend on the project and often people have really unrealistic ideas about what a website can do we will give you some good guidelines and tips to get started.
The first thing that you need to have a real good idea about is your level of experience with building websites. It is really important to be honest with yourself and the church that you belong to in order to create a realistic expectation. If you are a beginner then it is fine to admit that, we all have to start somewhere. However, if you are a beginner dont plan on building an elaborate SQL php backend that can be dynamically updated or anything like that. Below I have provided some basic definitions of skill level that might help you assess where you are at.
Beginner - You are this level fall anywhere in between never setting up a site to having built a site or two with an online website builder or a pre made website like those provided on Yahoo, or AngelFire.
Intermediate - If you have either set up a website with an online builder and customized the site some or built a website using a template then you fall into the intermediate category.
Advanced - You have set up many sites before and often use templates for ideas but tweak them so much they hardly resemble the template when you are finished.
How you choose to build your website depends largely on two factors, your time commitment to the project and your skill level. These two factors have a strong correlation between them. Meaning if you have lots of time and are a beginning you will be able to build more advanced websites. However if you are an advanced designer and have very little time to build another site then you will want to go with something very basic. If you fall on either the not enough time or not enough experience end of the spectrum then you should really consider buying a template to either make your site or at least get you started. However if you are at the intermediate or advanced level and have time then you should forgo the template and create a really cool design yourself.
Some of the tools that you will need to build any website are included below:
Graphics Software - The standard for creating website is Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop has a great add-on product that comes with the software that allows you to slice the images you create and export them as html.
HTML editor - This can be anything from Microsoft Notepad all the way up to a high end WYSIWYG editor. WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get and it means that the program does the html coding for you. Some editors that you might want to look into would be ranked from least expensive to most Coffee Cup HTML Editor, Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver.
Before you start with getting your hands dirty it is really important to lie a good foundation for your website. In order to have a high quality website it is important to have a good foundation and site plan before you start. In a Church, School, or Club it is important to have a group of people working on the website planning. The actual work might be carried out by one person but it is important to have a group plan the site plan in order to get global perspective of the organization. During this stage it is important to gather ideas, thought, and and opinions and get them down on paper. As the group refines their plans it is important to come up with a site map. A site map is a graphical representation of every page that will be on the website and how they will connect to each other. It is also important to get some basic ideas on the layout of the site.
Next you can go online and check find the templates that are available. Look around and find different ideas and templates. If you are like many people you might find that one template does not work. I often want a part of one and part of another template. If this is the case and you are experienced it is not really a problem but if you are new to website design then you might want to pay someone to customize the site for you. You can see some resources on our site dealing with template customization and templates.
It is important now if possible to assign sections of the website to different individuals. They dont even need any experience with website design. If they can type you will be able to use them. Assign sections to each member of the team to complete. That team member will then work on their own computer in Microsoft word or a simple text editor to create the text and collect any graphics, pictures, or sounds that they would like to add to the site.
Below is a list of some of the content areas that you might want to include on a church website
Events
Services
Calendar
About the Priest or Pastor
Churchs Mission Statement
gallery of recent church activity
picture tour of the church
Sunday school or singles groups etc.
Each member can then turn in their section of the website on a disk to you and you will compile all of them onto the actual website. You can often do this by a simple cut and past command in most WYSIWYG editors. It is important at this stage to name all of the files in a consistent way and stick to the site map. If you make changes to the site as you are building make sure you reflect these changes on your site map. It can become very easy to build a huge website with literally 1,000s of of files including images, html documents and much more. If you are not consistent with your file naming and site map then you will not be able to update or make changes tot he website because you will be lost.
Once your website if complete you will need to find a host and upload it to the host. If you have trouble at this stage typically the host will help you with it. After your site is up then you will breathe a big sigh of relief and feel like you dont want to see the site ever again. However the work has only really begun because website are constantly evolving an have to reflect what is happening in the world and your organization. So your work has only begun. You will now need to work to publicize your site sot hat people can find it and you will need to continually update the site and keep the content fresh and up to date.
About The Author
This article was written by: Chris Ryerson who is the owner and designer of over 10 sites that are currently on the web. If you are interested in reading this article and other articles like it you can go to http://www.crowntemplates.com/articles. You may also want to check out the wide variety of Templates and Free Webmaster tools at Crown Templates.
marketing@crowntemplates.com