They say you should have a plan or a goal clearly defined for your website before you go to the trouble to build one. I suppose that's good advice for those who are in it for the money and those who look at their websites as a means to an end, like someone running for political office etc,. But I say build your site because you want to. Build your site because it's fun, a pleasnt diversion, a way to unwind, a way to explore, develop and express your creativity. Let Life, let your website be your guide and who knows where you'll wind up! Getting there is not half the fun. For me, and I hope you as well, it's all the fun.
**One caveat here folks. I advise having a domain name in mind before you sign up for a web hosting plan. Otherwise, depending who you sign up with, you may end up in my predicament. I decided on a name for my site after I signed up for Angelfire's Xenon package which was great, except I had to keep my Angelfire address for my site despite having paid for a (generous) web hosting plan which included a domain name. I didn't realize my original Angelfire subdomain address would still be attached to my site despite the fact that I had paid for a package which entitled me to my own domain name. So now I not only have my http://pc1stop.com/ domain name/address, which is the (only) one I want, but I also have to carry around the Angelfire subdomain address http://www.angelfire.com/space2/firebrand/ which, believe me folks, is a bit of a pain.** With that said let's take a look at some of the possibilities and resources out there for you in the internet world of web design.
The good news about starting a website is you can get into your site building project quickly and free of cost. That's right. Free of cost. There are many web hosting companies who will host your website for free and supply the necessary web building tools free of charge as well. These packages usually include a blog builder, basic website traffic reports, ample disk space and bandwidth, a fair selection of templates, an image gallery and HTML tutorials.
There are three catches with these free web hosting offers. One is that, in order to make money from hosting your site, the web hosting company will put adds on your site. Two, you will have to settle for an impersonal web address. You do not get a domain name ie. my site.com. You will be assigned, instead, a subdomain of the web hosting company, for example mysite@tripod.com. Three, you will get no, or almost no, customer support. That means you are pretty much on your own. You will have to rely on the internet and your web host's forum if it has one.
**A note of caution here. Don't choose your web host too quickly. Remember, if you go with a free hosting plan, you will have no control over the form and content of the ads the hosting company places on your site. So do your homework. Read the user agreement carefully. Make sure the Hosting service you choose will not put up advertising on your site that you will find objectionable and/or conflict with the spirit and purpose of your website. Make sure too, of course, that visitors to your site are not going to be bombarded with popups, popunders and banner ads etc. **
However, the good news is that for only $4.95 a month, sometimes less if you're sharp, (plus a sometimes waived one-time setup fee) you can get rid of the ads and have a more personal, professional look to your site. You also get to start adding useful tools to your web building toolbox such as access to valuable website stats, for example, traffic reports which show you which parts of your site are the most popular, more diskspace which allows you to build a bigger site, and more bandwidth which increases the amount of traffic your site can accomodate. At about $8-12.00 a month you can really start to personalize your website. For one, at this price point, you can usually get a domain name. You also get matching email accounts for your site & subdomains which allow you to create web addresses that point to a specific area or areas in your website. For example at "yoursite.com", you could create a subdomain that had pictures of you, or your home etc. and it's web address could be "mypictures.mysite.com".
Additional considerations include what the web hoster's uptime percentage is. Uptime is crucial as it is the percent of time you are guaranteed that your site will be displayed when people request it. The industry standard, mercifully, is %99.99. You also want to find a hoster with redundant servers so your website's files are not permanently loss if your hoster's servers' drives crash.
The thing to keep in mind in all of this web hosting shopping is that you are in a good position as the web host customer. There are a a lot of good quality hosting firms competing for your dollar. So be choosy and take your time. I recommend reading reviews of web hosting firms. You have to be careful though. Lots of these "review" sites are little more than marketing ploys. There are two that appear trustworthy at this point, Top-Hosts.com and Find My Host.com.
Better still, go to web hosting forums where you get a lot more candid, real-life opinions from lots of webmasters whose experiences you will find helpful. The ones I recommend are
You definitely want to take a look at Web Hosting Unleashed for some really unbridled customer reviews of web hosts.
In general I recommend the Host companies that have customer forums (called "support forums"). You get a really good idea of the kind of experience customers are having with the hosting company and, just as important, you get to see how the company responds to the concerns of the customers that post their problems there. Sometimes the owner himself will respond to customers' posts. It's a good idea to sign up in these forums and post pre-sales questions. You'll get a good idea of what to expect by the way the company responds to your questions.
free online tools to build this site. Angelfire has a good setup for aspiring website owners similar to Tripod and Yahoo! GeoCities You get your choice of two skill levels- Beginner or Advanced. I tried beginner but found it too limiting. So I moved up to Advanced. The Advanced level gives you more creative freedom but you better be prepared to take a crash course in html - HyperText Markup Language - (which is what I'm doing!) if you don't know it already. The good thing is that you can move up to Advanced from Beginner if you find Beginner unsatisfactory. Here are a few of the web development tools that Angelfire includes in its web hosting plans
Webmonkey has partnered with Lycos (who owns Angelfire and Tripod) and is good too. Lots of info for web designers. They offer three levels of instruction-beginner, intermediate(Builders) and advanced (Masters)
I like Tripod's free web design package. It's an online program just like Angelfire's and Yahoo! Geocities'. It's well designed and makes it easy for beginners to get started. It teaches you as you go. All you really have to do is point and click and cut and paste. My only quibble with Tripod's online web design program - Site Builder - is the number of clicks and windows you have to negotiate to perform basic web building tasks such as inserting HTML hyperlinks, upload pictures and creating tables. There are other online web building programs which are a little more efficient, for example Yahoo!'s PageBuilder and Angelfire's basic editor. Mind you, if stuck with a choice between Angelfire's Basic Editor and Tripod's Site Builder, I would go with Site Builder.
If you have a name in mind for your site, there's a chance it might be taken. This Yahoo search box will tell you whether the name you want for your site is available. If it's not, Yahoo will suggest a number of alternatives. For example your desired name may not be available with a .com address, but it may be with a .net, .biz or .org address. Type the name you want for your site into this box, press Enter and cross your fingers!
Yahoo!
There's some good deals to be had over at Yahoo right now. You can get a domain name for $4.98. Yahoo! will also waive the $25.00 setup fee to get you started. Just click on the Yahoo! box or banner below. Make sure you are paying only the $4.98 to reserve the
name - if you see $9.98, come back to my site and use the
$4.98 box below!
I'm using Yahoo Sitebuilder and Web Hosting for another site I'm building. So is my mother. She loves Sitebuilder and is very happy with Yahoo's Small Business Web Hosting program (Starter) which includes 24/7 technical phone support among other things. SiteBuilder is Yahoo's free web building program. It's a great tool for beginners without placing any limits on your creativity. The Help file is readable and accessible. If you're really new at it, SiteBuilder will take you through a step by step process to help you get your site together. If you're a more advanced user, it has an HTML editor. If you're a Yahoo! member already, you can download SiteBuilder for free. Just sign in and follow the links. If you're not a Yahoo! member, no sweat! You can sign up for free. Give SiteBuilder a whirl. Who knows? Maybe you'll be inspired!
**Actually I liked Yahoo!'s program so much, I joined their affiliate program. (And you can too!)
You can click on one of the Yahoo boxes to get to Yahoo! on my affiliate links. Using my affiliate links doesn't oblige you to anything. It only helps me if you decide to go with a Yahoo! plan. If you don't want to use my affiliate links to get to Yahoo!s Web Hosting page, then use this link**
Javascript is my next frontier! If you're looking for some neat and nifty features to add to your site, head on over to JavaScriptSource. They have a large, free to use, selection of java scripts for a number of website add-ons which you can copy/paste into your HTML editor. No knowledge of Java script required!
A great page rich in variety for choosing colors and previewing their effects and appearances.
HTML Help & Templates Learn HTML tags including form, frames, and tables with help from this free reference.
BetterWhois.com Search for a domain name across all registrars, including new registrars. Links to all active and pending registrars and allows users to receive detailed domain reports via e-mail.
Web Page Analyzer - Free web page analysis tool calculates page size, composition, and download time. Gives speed recommendations based on best practices for usability, HCI, and website optimization.
Free Webmaster Tips and Tutorials - Lots of free tips, tutorials and articles on web design, promotion, earning revenue, PHP, JavaScript, and CGI. Best of all, they're all free.
Free Webmaster Resources The complete directory of free web tools and resources including free web hosting, free web site promotion resources, web design tools and tutorials, free web templates, free domain name tools and more
FreeFind.com - FreeFind adds a "search this website" feature to your website, making your site easier to use and reporting to you what your visitors are searching for. FreeFind's advanced website search engine and automatic site map technology can be added to your website for free.
Webmaster Freebies An empowering, large catalogue of free tools and resources at the Free Site to get your website rolling. Do take a look!
This is a fun site. If you're having difficulty coming up with that "great idea", check out Cool Home Pages for a little inspiration!
Ultimate Resources Webmaster Resources mainly UK . International service also listed
Give this site a good look. If you're interested in putting a (good) website together without spending any money, start here. The webmaster has gone out of his way to amass a huge collection of freebies for website construction & development, some of which he designed himself.
SitePoint is a great online resource for web designers/sitebuilders etc. You can download sample chapters of a forthcoming book by a web design guru and/or you can jump in to one of their forums. I recommend it!
Search Engine Blog Good blog, based in New Zealand, for search engine marketers and webmasters with a little humor tossed in for good measure. Make sure to click on First Visit? It links to a page with some genuinely good info and resources including a bank of revealing interviews the owner of the blog, Peter Da Vanzo, has conducted with various search engine executives.
Web Hosting Companies at Review Centre: Compare ratings, prices, read reviews and write your opinions and experiences of Web Hosting Companies.
Check out a list of free web hosting plans at TheFreeSite.com
Over at Websquash I discovered an enormous index of search engine submission links. The index is particularly useful since most of the links in the index are to sites which will submit your website to the search engines for free. I have to say, I debated creating a sample list from the Websquash index but time just doesn't allow. So I settled on giving you the link. If you do have a site take the time to go to some of the sites in the index
*** I have to take a moment here to tell you about a sad and annoying discovery I made recently. And I hope it serves as a warning to anyone else working on their website. In this area of my page, I placed a few of TrafficZap's "free" web tools and a link logo of theirs. Not too long afterwards, I began getting popup warnings in my browser whenever I came to my site. Finally, I isolated the problem. The popups were TrafficZap's. I removed the TrafficZap tools and links and the popups are gone. I am sorry, if you were pestered by popups when you came here. I assure you I have no intention of placing popups or pop unders anywhere on my site. Had I known that TrafficZap was going to insert popups into their web tools, I would never have put the "tools" on my site. If you do run into some adware spyware popups etc. please tell me . It's too bad because I have put free tools from other companies on my page here and have had no problem with any of them. I didn't think to look for something devious because I thought TrafficZap would be satisfied with the free advertising they would be getting from me here on my site. I will have to be more attentive in the future.
I recommend Cnet's tech forums. The people are friendly and helpful and you learn a lot along the way. Cnet's Web Design Forum
