INTERNET ARTICLES

How To Create A Web Page

This article explains the basics of how to create a web page ...

If you are the type of person who is wondering how to create a web page, chances are that you are not yet quite Internet savvy. Creating a web page can be easy or difficult, depending on how ambitious you are and what you want to include in your web page or web pages. If you are only after creating your own blog, then there is absolutely nothing to it. All you really have to do is to register with one of the many services set up to make blogging easy, such as myspace.com, or livejournal.com. They will tell you step by step how to create a web page, but believe me, it is easy to do on one of these sites. The layout is already set up for you, the page is basic and functional, and no programming knowledge is required.

If you are after something more elaborate, then more effort is required. You can register a domain, for example, which will cost some money. That way, you get to chose what name your website goes by, and set it up yourself. Once you do that, you can set out to learn some basic html.

HTML (hyper text mark-up language) is the code that tells your web pages how to format your text, where your pictures and graphics are located, what color, typeface and style your page should look like, where to hyperlink your pages to, etc. There are many great free basic html tutorials available online - just do a search for "free html tutorial" in your favorite search engine and you will find many sites containing free html tutorials.

Now, keep in mind that you don't need to become a web programmer, you just want to learn the basics, like formatting a text in bold, italic or underline, adding line breaks, inserting hyperlinks and graphics into your pages, making fonts large or small and in various colors, adding borders and tables to a web page, etc. That way, you will not only learn how to create a web page yourself, but it will help you understand how web pages are put together so you can better communicate with web designers and programmers later when you become more internet savvy and want to focus on more important areas of establishing your online presence. This will also help you save money.

For those who simply don't want to bother learning html, there are several web page creation programs that offer what's called WYSIWYG web design features. WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is What You Get". This advanced web design feature lets you build web pages by clicking on buttons and using options from ready-made drop-down menus and then inserts the html code into the page behind the scenes. In other words, you simply format your text as you would if you were working on a Microsoft Word document, and the software adds the code required to display the pages correctly in your visitors' internet browsers in the background.

A shortcut is to learn one of the many web programming applications set up for people who do not know much about how to create a web page, but want to do something customized on their own. Of course, learning one of these programs will take more effort than just pasting your text up on your blog, but if you want to know how to create a web page instead of using some prefabricated template, there is no better solution.

The most popular web design programs (also called page editors) are Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and XSite Pro. Of these three applications, the one I most recommend for beginners (and experienced internet marketers alike) is XSite Pro. This powerful application is very intelligently designed, extremely easy to use and making changes later to the pages is a breeze. Macromedia Dreamweaver is the preferred option of many professional designers and MS Frontpage is not as feature-rich as Dreamweaver, but both of those programs still require some experience with html and web design in order to work quickly and efficiently.

Of course, once you learn how to create a website, there is still the question of what to put on it. The Internet has so much junk already, just there to look cute and take up space, so it would be a shame to just add more to the trash. Honestly, the secret to how to create a web page which people would want to read is to understand, and write for your audience. If your desired audience is just your friends, then it is easy. You simply have to put up things that your friends would like, such as pictures of social gatherings that you have together, and maybe information about what you are doing.

If you want a wider audience, however, a good bit more thought and planning must go into creating your website. Again, I have found that XSite Pro is the program of choice for quickly building good-looking professional websites that are easy to modify, add content and keep updated.

After you have created your web pages, you then need to upload these to a web server, so that everyone on the internet can see and visit your web site. This part of the process has more to do with web hosting than web design and it's too broad a subject to be covered in this article.

For more information about web design, web hosting, domain names and internet service providers (ISP), see the "resources" section of this website, or go to articles about web design and web hosting.