Creating your first website

The steps in creating and building your first website, then putting it on the internet are simple enough:

	first, decide on the purpose of the website - do you want a full-blown niche website? a personal website? or just a few pages you need to put together for a specific purpose. In other words, whats the 'story' you are intending to tell.
	a good next step is to grab a sheet of paper, and draw some blocks on it to represent the individual website pages. Inside each block, write a few words to outline what will be shown on that page. This helps give the website a logical flow.
	decide on a standard layout pattern. If you look at any website, most adopt a common layout pattern on every page. On this website for example, we have used a single row, single column header table, followed by a second 3 column table with the same overall width as the first In the first column of that table is the site navigation menu, in the middle is the main content, and the right hand column is used for other links and advertising. This layout is used throughout most of this website. The idea behind using a standard layout is that it helps the viewer to keep orientated. No matter what page he or she visits they know where find things. It doesn't really matter what underlying layout model you decide to use. What matters most is to be consistent, and to keep it as simple as you can to meet your needs.
	The next step is to convert your ideas(story) into a form that can be viewed(read) by people using web browsers to surf the internet. There's any number of free editors around that will enable you to create files in the needed format as you type. We'll talk more about that in a moment.
	The final step is to upload your files to the internet. To do this you need a place, called a domain; that you can upload them to. This domain needs to have a domain name. This identifies your web site and enables people using the internet to find your files and view them with their browser.  This is where hosting companies come in. For a small monthly fee they provide you with storage space that you can upload your files to. Your files can then be accessed from anywhere in the world by internet users who know, or can find, your domain name. There are a few traps in selecting the right web hosting company, and we'll cover this further on.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo use software to trawl through the net, looking for websites and their pages. They examine these, and then index the contents in their search engine.  So people looking for specific information use a search engine to find a relevant index link. If your site is listed in the search engine and your link shows up in the search and is clicked on, this takes them to your web site.

Next: Do I need to learn HTML? 

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