Own web page

What is the simplest and cheapest method of making your own web page? I used to have a program called Frontpage but never really used it. I only want to have a little dabble so don't want to pay too much. What packages do people use, and is there any freeware out there? And what about the really classy sites, what language are they written in?

 

To make a webpage you need three things.

1. a domain name - you can get a '.co.uk', 'me.uk.' or '.org.uk' for �£1.99 a year on this site. Other websites can charge more and other domain names can cost up to �£12-15 a year.

2. webspace which you can get free from almost any search engine or just search 'free webspace'. Your ISP might also offer you free webspace as part of your contract.

3. a web page creator. FrontPage is a good one to start with and is now called MS Publisher. It can be found under 'MS Office' in your 'All Programmes' list. When you open it, you'll find various options including "Web Sites and E-mail'.

But personally, I have used a software called Serif PagePlus. I started with 7 and have gradually upgraded till I'm now on 10. The current one is 11 but costs around �£70. They sell off the previous ones for about �£25. I now have three websites with this software and I think it's great!

I find it is much simpler than many others. You don't have to get involved with HTML for starters which suits me just fine. It also has a lot more bells and whistles than MS though to be honest I haven't actually explored it recently. I'd be interested to hear from anyone that is using it.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

Peter, I was just having a browse around and found that right now you can get a free domain name and hosting via the MS website.

 

Neat, Nathan! And I forgot to mention that.

 

MS Frontpage is very easy to use and you can if you want use direct HTML editing in it. If you are developing a biggish site with lots of pages and links Frontpage is pretty good for navigating through the links and spotting any that are broken.
The only problem I've found is that not all ISP's web servers support all Frontpage extensions which means in essence that you might not get all the "fancy twiddly bits" to work and also instead of a one-click upload you have to resort to ftp'ing the upload via a separate ftp program

 

Many thanks for all your help. I have Microsoft Office 2000 which doesn't mention Microsoft Publisher, but on the disc I can see some web components. I will investigate further.

I might even start with a page in word. Can you do more than one page Nathan - ie embedded links?

Thanks michaelmasdaisy for the info on domain names - I suspect I get some free space with my own ISP. Presumably my ISP space would come with a domain address but it will be clearly not be a name of my chosing.

Dave I have had a good look at your sight - it looks excellent. That's the sort of thing that I want to do.

 

Just make sure that the search engines know about you. Otherwise you'll get no visitors other than family and friends

 

Hornbeam's talking about Meta tags which will be embedded in the background of a website. They're what the spiders of search engines look for as they crawl around the web looking for juicy tidbits to take back home!!



If, in MS publisher and on a starting a webpage, you go to help and then do a search for 'meta tags', it will give you a pop up box that explains about them and how to get them in operation. It's not as difficult as it sounds!

 

No - not dificult but you do need to think about them and choose as many variations as you can to trawl the widest possible take up

 

I would not use Publisher for a web site. I used it for making my first one many years ago and wished i hadn't. It seemed to take chunks of text and treat them as images.
I use MS Frontpage and you can quickly whip up a web page and add to existing pages. I also make alterations using html code and I got a book on html code to teach myself how to do that. I have made pages from scratch using html and Notepad but it takes time.
A book is quite useful. You need to set the site put in folders, that makes it easier to update. If you get the free web sites, they will probably come with banners. The free web space from the ISP would be better. You can buy your own domain name from companies like this one http://www.123-reg.co.uk/?GCID=S13274x057&KEYWORD=domain+name
I bought two from them. geoffhandley.com and madaboutplants.com Once you have the domain name you basically fill in the details so that people typing in the address automatically go to where your web site is hosted. I think 123 give advice on how to get your web address listed with the search engines.
Incidentally .com is regarded as higher up the hierarchy than .co.uk . If you are going for a domain name then go for world domination!
One way of getting your web site noticed is to fill in the deatils on Yahoo. I think it is at the bottom of the search page - "Submit your site"

 

publisher is fine.......i have used publisher, macromedia mx, word, etc...all are ok.

 

Frontpage is no more for the latest editions of Word/Works/Office. Instead it's been embedded into MS Publisher where you choose 'publishing' or 'web page' from the wizard. It's overgone some pretty extensive overhauls in the past couple of years because earlier editions were so cumbersome as you mentioned, Geoff.

 

I am not so sure about that. Frontpage is sold as a seperate programme and it is pretty expensive. I don't think it has been embedded into Publisher. Publisher always has and still produces pretty rubbish web pages.Unfortunately you cannot get Frontpage on a student or educational license. It does create rather cumbersome code which can be a pain if you go into the code to tweak something, but it is fast. I can create a page as fast as i type and update links in other pages as fast.
Publisher is for DTP and Word is for writing letters. If you use Word you will have an awful job positioning things like images etc.
Another thing you need if you doing your own web page is an FTP programme.
You should save your web pages to a special folder on your hard drive and there you can check that the links all work etc before letting it loose on an unsuspecting world. Then you simply use the FTP prgram to load it up to the web site.
There are freebies on this http://www.coffeecup.com/free-ftp/
It is simple but it does what it says. I use it all the time.
You might find it useful to browse the free section of the Coffee Cup site.

 

Anyone know if this is any good?

http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order;jsessionid=EA292DE5A424EEB2106AB628993B5B6F.TC33b?ac=OM.UK.UK274K03375T2635a