Chapter 1 AL Web Publishing Basics In This Chapter RI Getting started with Web publishing Putting together a Web page the easy way — and the easier way TE Examining types of Web sites MA Reviewing Web page guidelines T GH TE D he Web is an incredibly easy way to get your message — any message — out to anyone in the world who’s interested in it.
10 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Understanding how the Web works The Web, formally called the World Wide Web, is a collection of a bunch of text and graphics files (plus some other stuff) that make up Web pages. Web pages are combined into linked sets of pages called Web sites. People often use the term interchangeably, but technically, a Web page is a single HTML text file, possibly with one or more graphics and other features added; a Web site is one or more Web pages linked together.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Getting Webbed This book talks a lot about the Web, but doesn’t discuss how to get on the Web as a user. Even if you’re on the Web already, perhaps through a connection at work, you may also want to get on the Web from home. How do you do that? There are a wide variety of broadband offerings — some tied to cable TV or satellite TV services, others to phone offerings, and even a few to mobile phones.
12 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Figure 1-1: URL-y to Web, URL-y to rise. Protocol http:// Domain name www.server.com/ Pathname folder/filename.ext The “For Dummies” Way to Web Publishing Reading this book is going to make you a Web publisher — because anyone who puts up even a single, simple home page is a publisher on the World Wide Web.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Web terms to know To clear up how I define and use some Web terms, here’s a brief primer: Web page: A text document that is published on a Web server, has HTML tags in it, almost always includes hypertext links, and usually includes graphics. When you click the Back button in your Web browser, you move to the previous Web page that you visited.
14 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Figure 1-2: The For Dummies home page shows Webpublishing skill. Making simple things simple If all you want to do is create a simple “I exist” Web page, either for yourself or for your business, you don’t have to go through the rigmarole of figuring out HTML or learning a tool, finding server space, and so on. Chapter 3 helps you use Google Page Creator, a tool from the leaders in Web search, Google.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Seeing HTML When Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML at CERN (the European particle-physics research facility) in the late 1980s, he probably never imagined that so many people would be interested in seeing it. Today, most browsers include a command that enables you to see the actual HTML source instructions that make the page look and work the way it does. For example, in Internet Explorer, choose View➪Source to view the underlying HTML file.
16 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Personal sites Personal Web sites can have many goals. Often, your goal is simply to share something about yourself with coworkers, friends, family, and others. Personal Web pages are a great way for people to find out about others with similar interests and for people in one culture to find out about other cultures. You can also use a personal Web site to share family photos and events — kind of like a holiday letter that’s always up to date.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Are personal Web sites still relevant? Most of the activity you hear about on the Web these days relates to large, commercial sites, political sites, advanced technical sites, and so on. Individuals are still contributing a great deal of content but it’s through more specialized sites — photo sites, video sites, socialnetworking sites, and so on. But these tend to appeal to only some people rather than to everyone.
18 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Consider your privacy. A Web page is just like a billboard — except that 1 billion or more people can see it, not just a few hundred. Don’t put anything up on your Web page that you wouldn’t want on a billboard. Identity thieves can do a frightening amount of damage with your full name, your address, the name of your employer and your mother’s maiden name.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Getting personal with blogs A Web log, or blog for short, is a sort of online diary that usually includes links to Web sites that the user has recently found interesting — thus the term Web log. Blogging, or maintaining a Web log, is a whole new form of Web publishing. You can create a Web page or Web site that’s nothing but a blog, or combine blog content with traditional content. Some blogs are extremely personal — sometimes uncomfortably so.
20 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Create a succession plan. If your Web site grows beyond your capacity to maintain and extend it properly, find someone to help out or to take it over. The first person you should ask about taking over is anyone who’s complaining that you’re not extending the site fast enough! Decide what role you can handle and then ask for help in doing the rest.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Figure 1-4: The BATCS home page gets the job done. Get permission. Unless you own the business, you need to ask for permission before putting a company page on the open Web. You also need to make absolutely sure you have the permissions you need for any images or documents that you use before you publish your Web page. Inside or outside the firewall? Deciding who gets access is tricky.
22 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Monitor usage. Investing time, energy, and money in a business Web site requires a trade-off among the Web site and other things that those resources could go to. One of the crucial questions you may need to answer in order to justify Web site maintenance or expansion is how much use the site gets. Investigate ways to measure the use of your site. A good way to start is a basic hit counter, such as the free one you can find at the following URL: www.statcounter.com.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Is your page cybersmut? For most Web page publishers, the best policy with respect to putting anything potentially offensive in your Web pages is to keep your site clean. The use of gratuitous sex and violence in your Web pages will simply put off many people and put you and your Web site in a bad light. Also, consider your environment — the site the content appears on. MySpace pages are full of dubious content, whereas YouTube tries to keep things cleaner.
24 Part I: Create a Web Page Today not having someone else create it for you? The answer helps you determine some important things about the page. The following list details the most common reasons for people to get involved in creating a Web page: For work: More and more people are being asked to create Web pages and Web sites as part of their jobs; for example, they use the Web to communicate with people inside or outside their companies.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Big issues for big sites This book focuses on the needs of people who create a single Web page or a small Web site, and who do so on their own. Larger sites, or sites that need to be put up quickly or changed rapidly, need to have additional people working on them. If you want to create a larger site down the road, start thinking now about what resources may be available to put into it.
26 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Put the good stuff first Imagine the Web as a giant magazine rack and the person surfing the Web as someone scanning the front covers of all those magazines. People who see your Web page decide whether to stay at your site — or go elsewhere — based largely on what they see when your page first comes up. If your purpose is to provide information or links, put that information first.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics But, like the Fabrik Web page, your home page also should help people who seek a quick “hit” of information; they’re more likely to come back later if you don’t waste their time during their first visit. Think twice about download times Putting lots of graphics in your pages is time-intensive for you because creating or finding good graphics and placing them appropriately in your Web page can take a great deal of time and effort.
28 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Know your audience According to Web researchers, Web users overwhelmingly speak English as either a first or second language. Consequently, the great majority of Web content, Web creation tools, and Web browsers use the English language. More than fifteen years after the birth of the Web — which happened in Switzerland, where there are three official languages, none of them English — the English-speaking world is still considered the “center of gravity” for Web access.
Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics Although you can overuse text bites, they’re very important in Web-page design. Text bites help you convey as much information as possible in the limited amount of time users spend looking at each Web page. And they help you balance the basic elements of Web page design: text, links, and graphics. If you want to put long documents on the Web, consider rewriting them as a series of text bites.
30 Part I: Create a Web Page Today Web-site information that is obviously out of date is one of the quickest ways to leave a bad impression of you or your organization or company; it steers visitors right away from your Web site. For business, an out-of-date site can cost you customers. Not only do you want to update the Web site, but you also want to avoid using “Under Construction” signs and otherwise apologizing for things that aren’t there yet.
