How to build your own web-site,
upload it and buy a domain name
Let's get one thing sorted first, this is an novice guide, so if you have the faintest idea about web-site you won't be interested in this.
This step by step guide will tell you the cheapest and easiest way to do it:
Firstly, you'll need a copy of Microsoft Frontpage, which is usually very easy to come by. Frontpage 95 is easier to use, although 2000 has better gimmicks. If you are starting out, try to 'acquire' (nudge, nudge) 95 and go from there.
Secondly, you can teach yourself, remembering that the hyperlink button is the most important, or alternately you can enrol on an evening course, or you can try this ONLINE TUTORIAL
Tip - plan your website first by drawing a flow chart connecting the web pages together. If you can, it is easier to work backwards, and remember to add loads of home buttons.
If you do get stuck, e-mail me and I'll try to help if I can, baring in mind I'm no great web designer !!
Let's assume you've written your website, and you want to publish (upload) it. You'll need a web hosting company who support Frontpage. Angelfire is by far the best and the easiest to use. There are also other advantages with Angelfire that I'll deal with later.
Once you've arrived at the Angelfire site, click the new account button and follow the instructions. Choose a name that's relevant to you or your site - however, if you plan to buy a domain name (see later) the name you choose becomes less important. The basic Angelfire package is currently FREE and you'll get 10Mb of space, which is enough for a small site. The disadvantage of being free is that there will be plenty of pop-up adverts that appear (like they do on my site !). To get rid of these, you can upgrade to Angelfire plus for $5 (£3.50) per month. This will also give you 25Mb of space. My advice is to start with the free service and see how you go, you can upgrade later.
Once you have your Angelfire space sorted, you need to upload your site, page by page and image by image. Remember to use the same file names as you did within Frontpage. This is where Angelfire comes into it's own, because uploading is so simple. If you need help, e-mail me, I do know loads about the Angelfire webshell.
Once uploaded, your website is ready to view on the internet and you can send e-mails to loads of people telling them about it.
Buying a domain name - you may wish to have a better domain name than say www.angelfire.com/zx/dillydaydream, and if that's true you'll have to buy a domain name. They're not as expensive as you may think. Goto www.cheapnames.co.uk and keep going back frequently until they have a sale on. You can usually buy a domain such as www.dillydaydream.co.uk for around £6, which assuming you want to remove the banner adverts will cost you about £15 for 2 years. That's about the cheapest around at the moment. All you need do is log onto your cheapname account and set the domain to forward to the Angelfire web address you have set up. You can also set up e-mail forwarding so that people can e-mail dilly@dillydaydream.co.uk and it will forward to your regular e-mail.
How do I get my website to appear on search engines? This is where taking my advice and having an Angelfire account really starts to pay dividends. Angelfire is owned by Lycos, who also own Google and Yahoo, and Google is the most used search engine. Even the other search engines generally pluck sites from Google. Angelfire has a FREE submitting section, where they go through a series of questions with you and then submit your site to the various search engines. Google also trawl the internet looking for sites, and guess where they start? That's right, with Angelfire. Both my websites appear near the top of the list during a Google search and I've never paid a penny for higher priority - good eh?. Pick you meta-tags carefully and use unique ones to aid searching.
Last thing - good luck, and remember if I can help you I will, so e-mail me.
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