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Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics
Topical sites
That’s “topical,” not “tropical.” A topical home page is a resource on a
specific topic. A topic can be an interest or volunteer group to which the
author belongs, in which case the page may grow over time into something
much like a business Web site. (Creating a Web site for a group is a
tremendous contribution that you can make, but it can be a lot of work;
watch what you may be getting yourself into!) Or your topical Web page can
be about any interest, cause, concern, obsession, or flight of fancy that you
have. In this sense, the Web is like an out-of-control vanity press, allowing
anyone to go on and on about anything — sometimes offering something of
great value, oftentimes not.
Making a second career out of maintaining and extending a topical Web site
is easy, but the pay is usually low. Here are some things to consider when
you create a topical Web site:
 What’s on first? As with a personal Web page, the title of a topical
Web page and the first screen that users see need to make unmistakably
clear the topic that the page covers. And, to the extent possible, they
must describe what resources the Web site offers about the topic.
 Keep focused. A topical Web site loses some of its value if it goes
beyond a single topic. How many of the people who share your love for
Thai cooking also share your abiding interest in rotifers (microscopic
creatures that are too small to use in most recipes, Thai or not)? If you
have two different interests that you want to share on the Web, consider
creating separate Web sites.
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. Web
logs are also used in big Web sites, such as
major newspaper sites. In other words, Web
logs cross the boundaries between personal
sites and other categories — including the
topical and business categories — and some
of them are pretty entertaining as well!
I have the somewhat old-fashioned view that
you probably would benefit from knowing about
Web-page creation in general, not just blog-
ging, so I defer a detailed discussion of this
larger topic to Chapter 4. But if your whole
reason for wanting to create Web pages is to
create a blog to call your very own, please skip
ahead and read Chapter 4 now, and then come
back here when you want to find more about
Web pages in general.
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