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Build a Website for Free Mark William Bell

Build a Website for Free By Mark William Bell

Build a Website for Free by Mark William Bell


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Build a Website for Free Summary

Build a Website for Free by Mark William Bell

Build yourself a state-of-the-art website.

It's incredibly easy...and it won't cost you a dime!

You need a website. But you don't need the hassles that usually go with building one or the expense of hiring someone else to do it. Here's your solution: Build a Website for Free! You'll learn how you can use new Web 2.0 technologies to create a site that's impressive and effective. And here's the best part: You'll do it all with software and tools that won't cost you a dime!

  • Plan, organize, and design a site that really works, using tools you can find for free
  • Discover the simple secrets of writing pages people want to read
  • Adapt your site for easy viewing on mobile devices
  • Use video on your site--and get someone else to pay for hosting it
  • Add an easy-to-update blog and start building your own web community
  • Quickly and easily handle nuts and bolts tasks, from getting your site name to uploading your content
  • Get your site picked up by Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines

About Mark William Bell

Mark Bell is a Ph.D. student at Indiana University. He studies media and its 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, 8, and the husband of Sarah Intellagirl Robbins. Mark blogs at blog.markwbell.com. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I: The Basics

1 The Order of Things 11

The Website Creation Process 12

1. Planning 12

2. Design 13

3. Building 14

4. Testing 14

5. Promotion and Maintenance 14

2 Choosing a Location for Your Site 17

Web Hosting 17

What Is a Web Server? 18

Determining Your Web Hosting Need 19

Cost 19

Technical Knowledge Required 19

Maintenance Needs 19

Storage Space 19

Accessibility 20

Bandwidth Needs 20

Domain Name Service 20

Hosting Options 21

Home Hosting 21

Free Online Hosting 21

Online Hosting Service 21

Professional Hosting 22

Commercial Hosting 22

So What Works Best for You? 22

Working with Different Types of Hosting Services 23

Free Services 23

Low-Cost Commercial Sites 25

Other Resources 26

Part II: Plan and Prep

3 Planning Your Site 29

What Type of Site Do You Want to Build? 30

Types of Sites 30

Learning from Sites You Go To 33

Website Goals 34

Organizing Websites 35

Organizing the Site 36

Organizing the Page 37

Best Practices of Website Organization 38

Keep Your Website Simple 38

Keep Your Website Consistent 39

Keep Your Website Easy to Maintain 39

4 Designing Your Site 41

I Can't Make a Website That Looks That Good! 42

Content Before Design 42

Overall Design 43

Design Ideas 43

Central Image Design 43

Colors 43

The Magic Four 44

Hex Color 44

Color Schemes 45

Color Blindness 47

Fonts 48

System Fonts 48

Fonts as Images 49

Fonts and Color 50

Images 50

Cascading Style Sheets 51

Design Best Practices 51

Content Is King 51

Put What Is New Front and Center 51

Keep It Simple 51

Don't Use Attention Grabbers 51

Be Consistent 52

5 Gathering Your Tools 53

Finding the Right Tools for the Job 54

Tool Sites and Reviews 54

Downloading New Software 54

Essential Tools 55

Operating Systems 55

Web Browsers 56

Office Suites 56

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Programs 57

Text Editor 58

Graphics Editors 59

HTML Editors 59

Sound Recorders 61

Video Editing 61

Advanced Tools 61

The Future of Free Web Tools 62

6 Moving Files to and from the Internet 63

Storing Your Files 64

Naming Files 64

Keep All Your Web Files in One Place 65

Have an Organizational Structure 65

Use a Version Control System 66

Uploading Files to the Internet 66

Logging In 67

Adding New Files 67

Changing Existing Files 67

Downloading Files from an FTP Server 68

One File or Many 69

Downloading from a Browser 69

Types of Download Files 69

Best Practices for Downloading Files 71

Part III: Website Building Basics

7 Elements of a Website 75

Content 76

Content Best Practices 76

Content Standards 77

Parts of a Web Page 78

Title 78

Header 79

Body 79

Footer 80

Sidebars 80

Navigational Elements 82

Parts of a Website 83

Home Page 83

Content Pages 84

Web Advertising 85

Banner Ads 85

Animated Ads 85

Google AdSense 86

8 Using Existing Websites 89

Social Networking Sites 90

MySpace 90

Facebook 96

Other Web 2.0 Sites 101

Flickr 101

Twitter 102

Delicious.com 103

9 Web Page Services 105

Google Sites 106

Signing Up for Google Sites 106

Creating a Google Site 108

Editing a Page 111

Creating a Page 113

Move a Page 114

Delete a Page 114

Edit Page Settings 114

Edit Site Settings 115

Google Sites Features and Limitations 116

Wetpaint 116

Signing Up for Wetpaint 116

Creating a Site on Wetpaint 118

Editing a Page 119

Wetpaint Features and Limitations 120

Netvibes 120

Signing Up for Netvibes 120

Personalizing Your Netvibes Page 122

10 HTML 101 123

The Structure of HTML 124

The Structure of Tags 125

Common HTML Tags 126

HTML Structure Tags 126

Text Tags 127

Lists 129

Tables 130

Hyperlinks 132

Images 132

Free HTML Editors 132

Text Editors 133

WYSIWYG Editors 134

Resources 135

The Latest Version of HTML 136

11 Working with Images 137

Web Graphics 138

Lossy and Lossless Compression 138

The Image Tag 140

Background Images 141

Image Maps 141

Animated GIFs 141

Optimizing Images 142

Resizing Images 142

When to Use Different File Types 142

Slicing Images 143

Finding Images 143

Free Images 143

Other People's Images 143

Using Your Own Images 144

12 Working with Multimedia 145

Digital Audio Files 147

Audio Formats 147

Audio Players 148

Digitizing Audio 149

Audio Editing 149

Audio Resources 150

Digital Video Files 150

Video Formats 151

Video Players 151

Digitizing Video 152

Video Editing 153

Video Hosting Sites 154

Video Resources 155

13 Building a Site Using HTML 157

How Web Pages Work 158

Page File 158

Extensions 158

Tools for Creating Web Pages 158

Parts of a Page 159

Cascading Style Sheets 167

Format of a Style Sheet 167

Creating and Linking a Style Sheet 168

Scripting 170

Using Templates 170

14 How'd They Do That? 171

Viewing Code from Other Websites 172

Web Development Firefox Add-Ons 172

Recommended Firefox Web Development Add-Ons 173

Recommended Chrome Web Development Add-Ons 176

Recommended Safari Web Development Add-Ons 177

Badges 178

Templates 180

Developer Networks and Sites 181

15 Making Your Site Mobile 183

Why Should You Care About the Mobile Web? 184

How People Access the Mobile Web 184

Become a Mobile Web User 184

Mobile Web Devices (MWD) 185

Mobile Operating Systems 186

Mobile Browsers 187

Limitations of the Mobile Web 189

Making Your Website Mobile 189

Mobile Browser Detection 190

Domains and Subdomains 190

Use the Right Code 191

Page Sizes 191

Interface 191

Things to Avoid 192

Mobile Web Tools and Sites 192

Testing Your Site on a Mobile Phone 193

Part IV: Site Testing and Maintenance

16 Testing Your Website 197

Why Testing Is Important 198

Building a Test Plan 199

Start at the End 199

Testing Basic Functionality 199

Testing HTML 200

Testing Browsers 201

Testing Resolution 202

Testing Printing 203

Testing Navigation 203

Testing Consistency of Design 204

Testing Security 205

Testing Mobile Web 205

Testing Accessibility 206

After Testing 206

Testing Tools 206

17 Promoting Your Website 209

Self-Promotion 210

Have Excellent and Unique Content 210

Update Content 210

Publicize Your URL 211

Connect with Others 212

Search Engines 214

How Search Engines Work 214

Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines 216

Keywords 216

18 Maintaining Your Website 219

What? I'm Not Done? 219

Regular Maintenance 220

Weekly Tasks 220

Monthly Tasks 220

Annual Tasks 220

The Power of Analytics 221

Common Analytics and What They Mean 221

Using Google Analytics 222

Tweaking Your Site Based on Analytics 228

Part V: Website Workshop

19 Building a Blog Using WordPress 231

What Is a Blog? 232

Why Should I Blog? 232

Blog Publishing 232

Syndication 233

What Is WordPress? 233

Software Versions 233

Five Reasons to Use WordPress.com to Host Your Blog 233

Five Reasons to Create Your Blog Using WordPress Software 234

Building a Blog Using WordPress.com 234

Signing Up for WordPress.com 235

Activating Your Account 239

Logging In to Your Blog 240

Writing Blog Posts 241

Managing Blog Posts 243

Changing the Design of Your Blog 244

Manage the Comments on Your Blog 245

Setting Up Your Own Blog with WordPress Software 246

Information You Need Before You Begin 246

How WordPress Software Works 246

How Much Does All This Cost? 247

Before Installing Your Software 247

Confirm That the Right Software Is Installed on Your Server 247

Get a Text Editor 248

Get an FTP Client 248

Pick a Username and Password 248

Download and Install WordPress 248

Download WordPress Software 248

Customization of WordPress 249

Adding Themes 249

Adding Plug-Ins 250

Personalization of WordPress 251

Modifying Themes 251

Creating Themes 252

Creating Plug-Ins 253

Blogging on Your iPhone 253

Keep an Eye on Things 253

20 Building a Business Site Using a Content Management System 255

Five Reasons to Use SocialGO as Your CMS 256

Five Reasons to Use Joomla as Your CMS 257

What Is SocialGO? 257

Building a Social Network with SocialGO 258

Sign Up for SocialGO 258

Invite Friends 260

Add Photos and Video 261

Start Admin Center 262

Building a Site with Joomla 264

Before Installing Your Joomla Software 265

Download and Install Joomla 265

Adding Articles 267

Managing Users 268

Modules, Plug-Ins, and Templates 269

Keep an Eye on Things 270

21 Building a Multimedia Website 271

Best Practices for Multimedia 272

Using Multimedia 273

Storing Multimedia Files 274

Downloading Audio and Video Files 275

Streaming Audio and Video 276

Advanced Multimedia Options 279

Wix.com (www.wix.com) 279

Webtrends Apps (www.transpond.com/) 279

Advanced Open-Source Multimedia 279

22 Building a Site Using a Wiki 281

Five Reasons to Use PBworks to Host Your Wiki 282

Five Reasons to Use MediaWiki for Your Wiki 283

What Is PBworks? 283

Building a Wiki Using PBworks 284

Signing Up for PBworks 284

Activating Your Account 286

Editing a Page 287

Adding a Page 288

Linking Pages 289

Viewing Page History 290

Setting Up Your Own Wiki Using MediaWiki Software 291

Information You Need Before You Begin 292

MediaWiki Software Architecture 292

Before Installing Your MediaWiki Software 292

Download and Install MediaWiki 293

Keep an Eye on Things 295

Part VI: Appendixes

A List of the Most Common HTML Tags 299

B Free and Open-Source Software Sites 303

History of Open Source 304

Open-Source News 304

General Open-Source Sites 304

Operating Systems 304

Web Browsers 304

Office Suites 305

File Transfer Tools 305

Text Editors 305

Graphics Editors 305

HTML Editors 305

Video Editors 306

Sound Recording 306

Web Servers 306

Database Tools 306

Blog Software 306

CMS Software 307

Wiki Software 307

Script Tools 307

Index 309

Additional information

GOR005869080
9780789747181
0789747189
Build a Website for Free by Mark William Bell
Used - Good
Paperback
Pearson Education (US)
20101118
360
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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