How You ll Build Websites

How You'll Build Websites

Okay, so you now have a good understanding of how websites work, what HTML is, and you have an inside view of the anatomy of a web page. But how does it all come together? How do you actually build a website?

First, a brief rundown of the relevant information you've learned already in this chapter:

• Web pages sit on a web server on the Internet. When someone visits a web page, he or she is asking a web server to send a web page. The person's web browser displays the web page.

• Web pages are built using HTML code. A web page is a plain-text document that instructs a browser how to display the document. It includes links, including links to graphics.

• You can build web pages using specialized software, such as FrontPage, or a simple text editor, such as Notepad.

With that in mind, let's take a look at how you'll actually build websites. Here are the basic steps you're going to take:

1.	Decide on what type of website you want and its content. Often, this is easier said than done. Will this be a personal web page, telling the world about you, your family, friends , and hobbies? Will it be for your small business, or for a group such as a parents' organization? Before you do anything else, be clear about the information you want to present, and the tone you want your site to have, whether it be chatty, informal, informative, or authoritative .
2.	Organize the content and draw up a site map. After you know the kind of site you want, decide the kind of content you want to put on it. Then draw up a site map. Will it be one page? Two? Three? Building a site is like building a house: Without a firm foundation, it'll fall apart. You'll learn more about organizing your content and drawing a site map in Chapter 3, "Planning Out Your Web Site."
3.	Find a home for your website. You'll have to decide where your website is going to live. If you build it on a site such as GeoCities that includes web-building tools, your site will live on that site. But if you use a tool such as Netscape Composer in which you create web pages on your computer and then upload them to a web server, you'll need to put your site on a web server somewhere. Your ISP might provide free web space, so that might be a place to start. But there are also many sites on the Internet that provide server space as well. These sites are called web-hosting services. For more information about how to choose a hosting service, see 12 About Choosing a Hosting Service .
4.	Assemble the graphics you'll need. Any self-respecting website includes pictures. You can find pictures for free on the Web, you can buy them on CDs, you can create your own with graphics programs, or you can capture them with a scanner or digital camera.
5.	Build your web pages. Either use tools built into the site itself, or use a tool such as Netscape Composer.
6.	Upload everything to your web server. If you build your pages using a tool such as Netscape Composer, you'll upload your files to the hosting service. If you build a site using tools on the website, such as on GeoCities, as soon as you build the page they're availableyou won't need to upload the pages, although if you're using graphics you create, you'll have to upload those.
7.	Get the word out and draw in visitors . What happens if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it? Probably the same thing that happens if you build a website and no one visits it. Publicize your site to friends, family, and the entire Web.

That pretty much covers all the steps you'll take. So let's get started. Turn to the next chapter, "The Basics of HTML."