Right Place for your First WebSite learn how. Review on Geocities

How long you have been on net, you have no knowledge of web designing and you wish to have your web site free of cost. Let us go to the world of making one for you.

This article aimed for people who have nil to some knowledge of web, but wish to create their web site.

Prerequisite

The first very question, what I should learn to create web site. Answer to this is nothing. You just have to know how to use computers and how to browse web. That is all needed to build a web site.

First thing I need to do?

Yes, a million dollar question, first thing you should know is what you want on your web site. Suppose you are planning a site to tell everyone about your family. You should make web pages for each member on a paper and a home page having links to all pages. So site map should be ready with you on paper before you start with it.

Do I need special software?

Since it is your first website in making I would advise you not to make it complex by going to special software or special effects on your website. Plan static pages but within that we can have dynamism as you learn to use more of it (see add-ons). Within Internet Explorer there is software called Front Page Express. In Netscape there is Composer.

Where to find Front Page Express

Programs - Accessories - Front Page Express.

OR

Programs - Internet Explorer - Front Page Express

If you do not find it in either place.

Take CD that has Internet Explorer (generally available in installation packs of your ISP). Run Internet Explorer setup select custom installation - select all features of IE to be installed. This will install Front Page Express.

I have Front Page Express, now what?

You are ready for making your first website. When you open Front Page Express a blank page named new page 1 will open. Save this page as index.htm. This index page will be your Home page. Type the content you wish into it. If you want things into columns and rows, create table of desired size and type content into it. You can hide the margins of table so to give it a nice look. Also you can give different colors to different boxes. Similarly create pages for all family members in the same folder. Make sure all pages you make are in same directory; preferably create a new directory on your hard disk under which you do all this.

Inserting Photos

Bring all photos that you want to insert, into this directory (this will decrease possibility of error). If you have Photoshop or similar software edit your photos for size and bytes. If you do not have one leave them like that. Photos in jpeg (jpg) format are light in bytes. Now place the curser on your page in Front Page Express where you would like to put this photograph and go to insert - picture - select - ok. Your picture is there on the page Right click on picture for image properties, there you can have option to give hyperlink, border, alternate text (which appears if you put a curser on photo).

How to create hyperlinks?

Select the text for which you wish to create hyperlink. Insert - hyperlink - window will open asking you the link address. There is no need to write the full address, just write the file name with extension. Please see htm extension is different from html extension. Like this create all links to your pages and reverse links back to home page.

How to put them on net?

There are many websites that offer you this service for free. Yahoo Geocities is the simplest and most reliable service I have experienced. If you have a yahoo account the same will work for yahoo geocities. But if you do not have one, create one. Remember your yahoo id will be your web address, something like https://geocities.com/yahooid/ , so be choosy about it. You may also join yahoo premium services where you get web address like https://yourname.com for your web site at geocities. After you have taken your yahoo id go to geocities.yahoo.com. There you log in using your yahoo id and password, agree with there term and conditions. You are ready with 15 MB of free web space for your web site. In geocities, go to file manager. In file manager go to Upload link, upload your entire directory using easy upload facility. Now you can access the your web site at https://geocities.com/yahooid/. You may change the content when ever you wish by uploading same corrected file, it automatically overwrites.

This can be improved later on by using several geocities features.

Yahoo! Page Wizards

Yahoo! Page Builder

Several add-ons from yahoo gives your pages a professional look.

Email Forms, Guestbook, Yahoo! Presence, Counters, Yahoo! Directions, News Headlines, Yahoo! Maps, Public Yahoo! Calendar, Public Page Stats, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Auction Search, GeoCities Search, Stock Quotes, Weather, Webcam, Wedding Countdown, Yahoo! Picture Gallery.

Hope you will enjoy making your first web site with yahoo geocities.