Step 1: What Will Your Site Be On?

First off, decide what your site is going to be about. This is the most critical part. If you don't have good content, no one will come to your site. To get some ideas, browse Tripod's Pods or Geocities Neighborhoods. Both these places display good pages in certain categories.

Every year, thousands of sites are made which go un-noticed. This site is not un-noticed, because it has the gimmick of free stuff. People like free stuff and they especially want a good site to tell them about it. That's what I set out to do in August of 1997.

Above all, think of a topic which you are interested in and other people will be too.

HTML is the computer language used in web pages. It is simple to learn, I can't understand BASIC or C+ so if I can do it, so can you. There are programs that do HTML for you, but in order to have a successful site, you need to learn HTML. I know HTML, but I use a program to do it for me because it is faster. Many times I have to go back and hand edit the pages made to make them better.  A working knowledge of HTML will also help you design better pages as you know the capabilities of what HTML can do.

A book store or local library should have a book on HTML. I suggest you try to find one of the thinnest books available. The lengthy ones give to much information. You can always learn that extra stuff later. You can also try an online HTML tutorial.  Many people have learned from these and I learned all about the new stuff HTML has with these.

Good HTML Books
Online HTML Tutorials
Software To Do The Work

Getting a place to host your site or store it on the internet is one of the more crucial but easier of things to do. Just sign up at a place and you are nearly done. They will have instructions on how to put the pages to their server (or big computer that stores your web site in simple terms).

Free Web Hosting

You will most likely want graphics on your page. Don't go overboard with these. They may be nice, but they slow down the length of time on how fast your page loads. I and other people commonly press 'Stop' if a page loads slow because there is no point in viewing it. Use graphics sparingly.

Also, find images to match what color your background is. This makes your page look allot slicker. I also personally suggest not to use a tiled image say of your dog for example as a background. It comes out ugly and un-readable.

Free Graphics
 

These are not necessary, that's why they are called extras. You will have to find out how to insert them on the site that provides these extras how to put them in. There are so many I just don't know how everyone works. A guest book is a thing that allows visitors to leave their name, email address, comments and more on a web site. A counter counts the number of visitors a page has received.

Extras can be nice and fun, but don't overuse things like Java and javascript. Speaking of those two, I will have a list of sites with Java and javascript soon. Sorry but I was busy making this page.

Guest Books
Counters
 

Get your page noticed. Since you probably have the best page on the internet, you want people to see it. Try telling all your friends about it, newsgroups and chat rooms (when appropriate), sites which offer awards, submit it to search engines, and anything else. Above all, send your site to search engines so that way when someone types in the subject of your page lets say Tim Robins, they will see your page in the listings.  Banner exchanges are one of the better ways to get your site noticed. All you do is put a banner (an adverting image) on your page that randomly changes with each visit. Then, on other sites, they will see your banner sometime as all images are randomly shown. You promote other people's sites, they promote yours. Confusing yes, but it works.

If you make a good page, it would be a shame to go unnoticed. Do whatever you can that is legal to get it noticed.

Web Site Promotion
Banner Exchanges

If you link to me, I'll link to you. Plus I also want to know if this helped anyone.  This is not necessary.

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