Creating your web site

In order to create your web site all you need to do is follow the steps listed below. Be sure to follow them in order.

Step 1 – the vision

The planning stage is perhaps the most important. You need to have an idea about what you want your web site to do. Think about this in terms of who will be using your site and how you can make it easy for them to find the information you need. Plan this out on a piece of paper before you do anything. Ideally what you will need is a home page with other pages linked to that. You can have as many links as you want and as many levels of pages as you need. You are now ready to start the creation of your web site.

Step 2 – document preparation

Once you have decided what you want on your site then the next step is to create the documents you need. These can be text files or pictures – it is probably best if you have some of each. Text files should be created as Word documents. Good web pages are short and so it is best to create a number of short documents which can be linked together. If you have a long report or paper though it is ok to create this as a single document.

Photos are created from a digital camera and these are described as JPEG files because they have the suffix ‘.jpg’ at the end. Do not worry about this – it just tells you that these are photographs.

You will need a homepage (or index page) which provides links to all your other pages. This page should only contain brief details of what you site is about and links to the other pages on your site.

Once you have created these documents then you’re a ready to convert them into HTML files for putting onto the web.

Step 3 – building web pages

Web pages are not written in Word (or any other word processing language but are written in HTML – a different language. There are a number of ways in which this HTML is written but it is not necessary to learn HTML in order to create web pages. There are packages which will do this for you and CSPS has one called Frontpage. This is a good package and easy to use – so you should try to use this package to create your web pages. As you become more experienced you will gradually learn to understand pieces of HTML coding but this is not necessary. The most useful piece of HTML coding is the tag <a href="......"> but if you use Frontpage then this is all done for you by the package.

Using Frontpage

You are now ready to begin. Open Frontpage and label the document you are creating. The label can be anything you want but it must be unique and must not contain any spaces in the title. To create the document use your Word file, select all text, copy this and paste it into the Frontpage document. You now have a file in HTML which can be put onto the Web but it will look better for others to view if you spend a bit of time formatting it. There are a few simple rules:

Make use of headings. Change the headings and sub–headings in your document from normal text into headings in the tool bar. This works exactly the same as it does in Word.
Do not leave any blank lines between paragraphs – Frontpage does this for you.
A coloured background can make a page look more appealing – and you can do this in exactly the same way as you do in Word.

There are just two other things you need to be able to do:

Insert pictures. In order to insert a picture you need to position the cursor where you want the picture to appear and use the toolbar – Insert; Picture; From file. The picture will appear in the document but you must make sure that you upload the JPEG file along with the document in order for it to appear on the web.
Insert hyperlinks. You can link to another page which you have created or to another site on the web. To do either requires the same simple instruction but if you are lining to another page on the web then of course you will need the address (ie the URL) of that site. (web addresses always start http://). To insert a hyperlink then highlight the text which you want to be the link and use the toolbar – Insert; hyperlink. In the box which appear type the address of your link and press enter. The text will appear underlined and coloured blue and this will tell you that your link has been successfully created.

You know have a complete web page written in HTML and you can upload this document.

Step 4 – uploading web pages

In order to upload your web pages you first need a site on the web. If you do not have one then you will need to create it. You should create it using geocities which gives you free website hosting.

Creating a geocities site

Log onto the web and go to the geocities site. Click on the tag ‘sign me up now’ and follow the instructions. You will need a unique name for your site and you will need a password – be sure to remember you password! Once you have filled in all the necessary information on the screen you will have a web site with an address – it will look like the geocities address followed by /yourname. This is you own personal website. Select the free options for creating your web site and you are ready to upload your pages.

Uploading web pages

Log onto the geocities site and enter your personal ID (this is your site name) and your password. Once you have entered the site go to ‘open file manager’ and select the upload option. Enter the names of the files you want to upload in the boxes and upload them. Your files are now on the web. Before your site is live however you will need to create your index page.

Making an index page

All web sites need an index page – also known as the homepage – from which all other pages are accessed. Geocities automatically creates and index page for you but you will need to delete this and create your own. Use the ‘delete’ instruction to remove the file automatically created and then the ‘rename’ instruction to create your own. The file you have designed as your homepage should be renamed as ‘index.html’. once you have done this then you have a complete site on the web.

Return to Sharing our Practice