I.
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Design
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Put your design on paper first. Make an outline draft (rough draft).
Shape the spaces you want to put images into. Shape where you want to place
the text. Use sketching and free-hand placement. Rough hand-drawings are
fine. Then use a program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to design your
color-scheme(s).
In designing your webpages, decide how you want your text to look –
choose fonts, font sizes, colors, bold face, italics, etc.
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II.
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All information on a web page reflects information as dictated within
opening tags <***> and closing tags </***>. In order to see
this page in its coded form, right click on the screen and then right click
"view source" on the menu that pops up. This will bring up a
"code" view of this page. You can view the source of almost any
website using this technique.
You may require the use of an HTML editor or other program to build
your website. The following chart includes several commonly used web
editors, with the first 2 listings being freeware (costs you nothing!). If
you're already employed within a school district, you might want to check
with the Academic Superstore for a greatly
reduced price.
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If you choose not to use an HTML editor or other program to build your
site with, you need to know enough HTML to do it in Notepad or Write (any text editor). MS Word can save documents as web pages, but inserts
overwhelmingly excessive tags.
For an excellent overview of HTML, along with simplified explanations,
see: http://www.w3schools.com. This
free site provides lessons in HTML – as well as many other types of web
design tactics. They provide a complete listing of current tags, current
web production tips and issues, and a considerable learning experience
through example.
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III.
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CSS
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Cascading Styles Sheets are useful in designing your web pages because
they provide all of the basic information for all pages at once. The use of
CSS cuts down on the size of your pages, and covers the whole “styling” of
your webpage design. It is used to designate fonts, font sizes, font colors,
alignment, different partition styles – practically any design element for
ALL pages in your site in one document.
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IV.
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Text Files,
Sound Files, Images, Power Point, Flash, etc.
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In creating your website, it is important that you maintain your data
in a logical set of folders and objects. If you will use sound files or
graphic images, you should position these in separate folders from your
text files. This obviously depends on the size of website you are
producing.
Your root file is always known as “index.html.” This is the document
that any server will present when your web address is provided in the
address bar. All other pages can be named whatever you wish, but have the
extension “.htm” after each title. It's also a good practice NOT to leave
spaces between words in naming your files.
Sound files can be embedded into your webpage through special tags.
When you link a sound file to a page and a user views your page, most often
the computer in use will play the sound file - as long as it has the
software to do so! Most common sound file extensions in use today are .au,
.wav, .mp3, .ra, .rm.
Images and movie files are also easy to embed on your pages, but
careful attention needs to be given to sizing, resolution, and file
extension. Again, if the browser has the software to present the file, it
will. Some computers have default settings that take .mov files away from
your browser into QuickTime, thus losing your viewer's connection to your
site.
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V.
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Host / IP /
Domain Name
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Decide where your website will be housed. Your website has to be
available on the internet through a server, which will serve the pages once
your “site name” is entered into the address bar. If you are in a school
system that has its own website, and provides space for teacher websites,
you've got it made. You can easily upload your pages onto the school
server, without concern for how your site is to be found via the internet.
If you purchase a web hosting package, you will receive an IP address
(or DNS), which is the numerical address associated with your site’s name.
A Domain name can be purchased through Register.com, Network Solutions, or
many other sites offering this service. Once you have purchased a Domain
Name, it will be up to you to “point” the name to your DNS – where your
site is hosted.
Many online/internet services offer a one-page or 50 Meg website with
their service, and provide you a “/~name/index.html” indexing location.
This can work fine for a website – but is very limited in how and whether
it will be found for viewing by a great audience.
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VI.
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FTP for
transfer of files and maintenance
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Once you feel that your site is publishable, you will need an FTP
program (file transfer protocol) to transfer your files to the server. Once
again, if you purchase a hosting package, the host frequently provides this
service through its site maintenance pages. It is still recommended that
you use a separate FTP program, in order to maintain more control and a
better overview of the pages in your site.
For a free FTP program that is reliable, http://www.internet-soft.com/ has FTP
Commander. Versions change frequently, and updates are constantly
available.
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VII.
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Contact Page
vs. Email Address on site
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One area to be wary of is the use of your email address on your
webpage. If you have a generic email address through hotmail or Netscape,
it is less drastic to make this address available to the public. A preferred
method of contact is the Contact Page, which requires technical know-how.
The reason for avoiding using a personal email address is because there are
many spammers who pick up your email address, and start sending you
anything and everything that you don’t want to get!
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VIII.
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Metatags,
Search Engines, and Site Submission
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When you are developing your pages, take special care to insert valid
and proper meta-tags. Many of these tags
provide background information for your website, including the author’s
name, date of production, revisions, keywords, a description, etc. These
tags are used by search engines to locate term-related data from computers
world-wide.
Many search engines also provide a “Site Submission” section in their
web pages, so that you can submit your site for spidering and inclusion in
search results for anyone seeking information of the type you are
providing.
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IX.
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Link
Validation
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If you are providing links in your site to information from the
internet, be sure to check frequently that the links are still valid. One
of the most irritating points of the internet is the loss of link validity.
Sites change, are dropped, become stale, or simply cease to exist.
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X.
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Affiliate
Programs
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You can also make money on your website, by joining affiliate programs.
You need to be business-oriented if your site is “sales.” A very good
program to join at this time is the Google Adsense program. Don’t
expect to generate a lot of revenue from your website, but getting anything
back out of it is worth the effort!
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