There is some web building software out there that does it all basically for you. Most IP service provides give you a certain amount of space for a website for free (included in your monthly fee) and there are places like geocity that have them too.
Hey Tara!
Make sure you use an easy program like Frontpage because HTML does get really boring and difficult. I have three half finished ones out in cyberspace. You can also have a web page design company do one for you. You tell them the theme, they set up the basics, then you enter in any particular text and photos you want. I use designers for my work page that should be up in running soon. Hope this helps!
I am currently working on my website as well. If you know basic HTML you can go here http://htmlgoodies.earthweb.com
as it gives great tutorials.
If you have not used HTML before, many sites offer templates that you can use which don't need HTML. You just pick what you want it to look like, insert your information and that's it. You can try these ones:
Just to add to everyone else. Barnes & Noble ( www.bn.com ) offers free online courses (you may need to buy a book or two) and one is on how to design a webpage. It shows you the basics of HTML, nothing too in-depth, but they also post what the page is supposed to look like & what you should have done in HTML. It's about a 3 or 4 week course. For me the hardest part has been learning how to insert graphics & pictures. Plus they give you suggestions on where to download your page for free.
I was a web publishing major for a year (until we had to move away and I had to drop out of school). Here's the best advice I can think of.
If you buy HTML editing software, be sure it uses HTML 4 or later. You'll be less likely to run across code that doesn't work with the newer browsers. If you choose to write your code using an editor, get a simple reference book anyway to help you to fix the code if it doesn't do what you want. I recommend HTML 4 by Elizabeth Castro, published by Peachpit Press. It's fairly inexpensive, easy to use, and covers everything.
If you want to teach yourself HTML 4, that's a good book to use. (HTML is not like computer programming. It's fairly simple to do.) There's a series of books that are about teaching yourself computer subjects visually. They have an HTML book. My only complaint with them is that they don't go beyond the very basic stuff, but they're a very good way to get started.
It's also a good idea to learn something about what makes a good web page. It's different from print page layout. I recommend The Non-Designer's Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollet.
When you choose a hosting service (the folks who will give/sell you space on their servers for your web site), find out if they include an FTP client. (That's the software you use to upload/download files from the web. Upload is sending files from your computer to a computer on the web and download is taking files from the web and putting them on your computer.) If they don't, there are some good shareware (not free, but pretty cheap) ones you can download from the web. I use Cute FTP, but there are other good ones, too.
Don't try to do your web page as your first project. Do it in stages. First play with simple text until you learn how to make it look like you want it on the page. Then add graphics, maybe 1 at a time. And so on. It gets really confusing to debug (find and fix errors) if you try to do too many new things at one time. When you're ready to make your page, plan it out on paper first. It will make coding it so much simpler. Trust me! Many of my classmates had a lot of trouble because they skipped the planning steps.
If you want help with a specific step or figuring out why something's not working or have any questions, feel free to email me or send me a PM. I'll enjoy tutoring/helping you in any way I can.
Buy or demo a copy of macromedia's dreamweaver. Its writes unbelievably clean html and has some pretty amazing development tools.
when i author web pages, i usually paste them up using a graphics program like fireworks or freehand and then figure out how to slice and dice it to be a lovely, appealing page.
i would also suggest getting a couple books out of the library on the package you want to use, especially "web pages that suck".
good luck and remember, absolute links are a good thing.
I learned HTML from these sites to build my websites (I started with no knowledge and have built three sites using only what I learned from these links):
Good luck! I found HTML front-end editors too clunkly -- and less likely to be able to do what I wanted. You have more control when you code by hand -- but it can also be slow going if you aren't able to pick stuff like this up (not everyone can; my husband is lost with HTML).
Check out http://communities.msn.com/tplusetpl?groupid=4
I have done 3 websites on this. It is so easy, and you do not have to know anything about computers. It asks you questions about what you want and you just click. It does it for you! I have done 2 family sites and another for our church. It gives you lots of options such as message boards, file cabinets, chat rooms, photo ablums, links, calendars, etc. You can delete those features you do not want.
lalala mentioned dreamweaver. The guys I work with tell me dreamweaver's much easier to use than frontpage. I even got a copy and did a few html pages. It's a drag and drop format, like in paint, and then you hit to button to create all the HTML. Pretty cool.
I want to start my own webpage - HELP!
