everything i need to know about making a website

[***Simon***]

well im going to build a website, i've done it before so i have a small amount of knowlegde.

 

just wanted to know if you've got any tips for me?

 

i'll probably be using frontpage unless theres a better one i can use?

 

any info will be grand!!!

 

thanks in advance

[billy5000]

Hi all

 

dreamweaver is the top ballocks but it is very tricky to get to no whats what.

frontpage is ok,its simple and does the uploading ok.

as for tips i wouldnt be much help as ive only managed to upload one webpage once and lost it somewhere in cyberspace and never to be seen.

 

sorry couldnt be more help

 

if you can get DW most people i know use it and say its a good software.

 

sg

[Guest jay_con]

Dream weaver is said to be the best. I like frontpage though as it is simple to use. Learning front page and then a bit of html tinkering could be quite useful. Im also informed that Style sheets are now the way to go.

[Gillies]

Hi Simon

 

A similar kind of question was asked by Autumn a short time a go, and some really good advice was put into the replies.

 

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/cgi-bin/ubb/ul...19;t=000850;p=1

 

You may want to start out with colating all the information you want to put on the site, normalise it into some form - have headings, and sub headings etc ... then from these headings some kind of pattern should start to emerge, form that come up with a nice and user friendly way of navigating around the web site ... and ensure that the information on each page is displayed in a nice and easy to read manner.

 

Making sure the content/information of the site comes across clear and easily, and its usability is the most important factor when developing a site I think - so concentrate on that .... and then once you are happy with the layout of the information on a page and your navigation you can start on your graphics etc. Thats my two cents worth of information .... content and navigation is the key!

 

Dreamweaver is really good, so I would also recommend it ... it does an "ok" job of laying out the HTML, and for beginners is fantastic.

 

Gillies

[JackPike]

I not a expert but have built several websites one or two rules are search for the web to see websites for ideas and ones you like or dislike try not use flash or animations, keep the pages uncluttered and simple as possible and learn a little html. I made the mistake of jumping in feet first I made loads of mistakes but what I have done is to enrol on a night school course at the local college and I have learnt a lot of simple things which very often get overlooked which makes one hell of a difference.

[Steve Burke]

By far the single most important thing about a website is getting the maximum number of hits. You can have the best website in the world, but it'll be no use whatsoever if nobody visits it!

 

In particular you need to ensure that you get high in the major search engines.

 

It seems that the design and wording of your web site can make a big difference here, as can links. This is something that many web designers, including those who charge for building a site, simply don't pay enough attention to.

 

We run 3 web sites. Wingham Fisheries is part of Angler's Net and is high in the search engines and thus gets plenty of hits.

 

The same can be said for Paperweights Plus - in fact in many cases it's no.1 or 2 in the world!

 

Unfortunately this isn't the case with Classic Fishing Books, even though it's technically not a bad site. As a result we don't get much traffic. If I were running it on a commercial basis this would be a major problem.

 

Paperweights Plus is run on a commercial basis, and here we pay the web site designers extra to ensure we're high in the search engines. It's not as easy for us to make changes to the site as we'd like, but this is less important than getting hits.

 

Having said that, Peggy is about to learn Front Page so that we can do our own site. If we can then learn how to get the hits we'd have the best of both worlds!

 

All ideas here gratefully received!

[Guest jay_con]

Frontpage is a peice of cake. Its design that lets me down as im very unartistic.

 

Adding links in your sig is a good way to get in the google list. If its a fishing website use the AN fishing club section which will also get you up the google rstings. Hope elton dont mind me saying that.

 

Adobe has some good templates you can download to alter.

 

http://share.studio.adobe.com/axAssetDetai...%2Easp%3Ft%3D18

 

They are free you just need to register. Never used one though so I cant tell you anymore than that.

[Steve Burke]

Cheers, Autumn, that's encouraging about Front Page. Peggy's a fast learner and familiar with other Microsoft products, having run a web site using Publisher.

 

We already have umpteen links to get us high in the search engines. We've also made sure that in our text we have as many as possible of the words/phrases that customers might type into a search engine.

 

What we're really after is learning about metatags and other ways we can increase our hits. I'm sure you lot can come up with some ideas here!

[Guest jay_con]

http://www.whitbyonline.co.uk/

 

If you look at this site and right click and view the page source you can see the meta tags keywords used and where they are placed.

 

Im not sure how essential they are these days.

[JackPike]

Learning about search engine ratings tommorrow so will let you into some secrets later