Build a Website for Free

by Bell, Mark William

• ISBN13: 9780789739216
• ISBN10: 0789739216
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-23
• Publisher: Que Publishing

Summary

Create a state-of-the-art website from start to finish - complete with blog, video, and animation - using free tools- Easy step-by-step instruction, hands-on learning, and concrete examples using the newest software and free Web-based tools.- Go beyond mere 'Web pages' to build well-designed sites that really work - for small businesses, clubs, families, or individuals.- Includes up-to-the-minute coverage of Web 2.0 tools, search engine optimization, and even creating Web sites for cellphones. This is the 'build your own Web site book' for everyone! Mark Bell doesn't just show novices how to create their own Web sites: he shows them how to create sites that use the newest Web 2.0 technologies to communicate more effectively than ever. He doesn't just walk through every step in plain, simple English: he shows how to use software and tools that don't cost a cent! One step at a time, readers will walk through planning and designing their sites, gathering their tools, creating content, building pages, using images, tables, and links, getting a domain name, uploading content to a working web server, and much more. Bell shows how to incorporate easy-to-update blogs, video, and animation... then offers specific models for several of the most widely-used types of personal and professional sites. He offers guidance on crucial issues like getting web sites noticed by search engines - and even adapting web sites for display on cellphones and other portable devices. There are other books for novices on creating new web sites - but none covers all these up-to-the-minute topics, and none will help them build sites this modern, inexpensive, and effective.

Author Biography

Mark Bell is a Ph.D. student at Indiana University. He studies virtual worlds and their effect on social relations. Before returning to school, Mark worked for 15 years in the software industry as a technical writer, trainer, and developer. He started his first web design company in 1993 and has been making pages and managing websites ever since. He is the father of Jackson, 6, and the husband of Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins. Mark blogs at blog.markwbell.com. He can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Basics

The Order of Things

The Website Creation Process

Planning

Design

Building

Testing

Promotion and Maintenance

Choosing a Location for Your Site Web Hosting

What Is a Web Server?

Determining Your Web Hosting Needs

Cost

Technical Knowledge Required

Maintenance Needs

Storage Space

Accessibility

Bandwidth Needs

Domain Name Service Hosting Options

Home Hosting

Free Online Hosting

Online Hosting Service

Professional Hosting

Commercial Hosting So What Works Best for You?

Working with Different Types of Hosting Services

Free Services

Low-Cost Commercial Sites

Other Resources

Plan and Prep

Planning Your Site

What Type of Site Do You Want to Build?

Types of Sites Learning From Sites

You Go To Website Goals Organizing Websites

Organizing the Site

Organizing the Pages Best Practices of Website Organization

Keep Your Website Simple

Keep Your Website Consistent

Keep Your Website Easy to Maintain

Designing Your Site

I Can't Make a Website That Looks That Good!

Content Before Design Overall Design

Design Ideas

Central Image Design Colors

The Magic Four

Hex Color

Color Schemes

Color Blindness Fonts

System Fonts

Fonts as Images

Fonts and Color Images Cascading Style Sheets Design Best Practices

Keep It Simple

Don't Use Attention Grabbers

Be Consistent

Gathering Your Development Tools

Finding the Right Tools for the Job Tool Sites and Reviews

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Introduction IntroductionIn this Introduction Why This Book? For Free, Really? I Can't Really Do This...Can I? How to Use This Book Web 101 What Is a Website? What Is a Web Browser?So you want to build a website for free?If you are reading this book, you probably want to build a website (even though you might not know exactly what that is), and you want to do it for free. If you have no idea what a website really is and need some basic information, I cover this later in this introduction. If you know what a website is, you probably are more interested in the "free" part. All the software and tools in this book are free of charge. If at all possible, I choose the best free alternative and make sure you know whether there is any cost.In the last decade, the Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web, has grown considerably. There are now millions of websites on the Internet covering all sorts of subjects, from family and business to education and entertainment. Some websites have been long-lasting and useful (yahoo.com and google.com) and others disappear as quickly as they come. You might have plans to create a website that you hope millions of people will go to, or your site's purpose might be just to stay connected to your family members. Why This Book?You probably picked up this book because you have an idea in your headan idea you want to share on the World Wide Web in the form of a website. You might have a fully formed idea in your head or just a kernel of that idea, but you have a starting point. Maybe you have been given the job of creating a website and have no idea where to start. Regardless of your reason for creating a site, this book will help you understand the process of how those ideas become a website and then walk you through creating five different sites for very specific purposes. These sites include a basic website, a blog, a content management system, a wiki, and a multimedia website. You might not know or care about all these, but this book will show you how to build them for free. This book covers how to plan, design, build, and maintain a website, and it does it using the cheapest, or even free, tools. With simple step-by-step instructions, you will be up and running on the World Wide Web before you know it. For Free, Really?You're probably wondering how much this is going to cost.Different people and websites will promise you the lowest prices possible on website tools, hosting, and creation. It used to be that the more you invested the more options you had. In the last five years, though, open source and free software have been flooding the World Wide Web and allowing people to create fun, interesting, dynamic web pages for very little money. This book tries to use free software as much as possible. If people are giving away quality software, you should use it. Open Source SoftwareIn the last section I threw out the term "open source software," and you're probably wondering what the heck that is.Most software, including your operating system, word processor, and web browser, is more than likely developed according to a traditional software model. Software is traditionally created by a bunch of guys who run a software company, which runs on money. The people who ru