Creating a website is an easy and inexpensive way to tell world what is important to you. You might be surprised how many people will be interested in your opinions, job, family, or maybe even your recent backyard barbeque.

When I first began creating web pages, I created a website for our family (www.naudusfamily.com). It started out as a simple site to just tell what our family has been doing recently. None of us expected anything from it. I was so surprised when hundreds of visitors flocked to our site and our friends sent us emails telling us how much they enjoyed and appreciated it. Even such a simple site has been so rewarding.

In this course, we will discover how you can easily create your own site at little or no expense. Some very useful programs exist that make web development a simple task. No skill is needed. Experience is not required. Learning HTML is unnecessary. Simply point, click, drag and drop, let program write all HTML for you, and you're on road to creating a great site!

Let's Start From Very Beginning...

A very important first step is to decide what your site is going to be about. Who is your audience going to be? Is your website for everybody, or for specific people? What are they interested in? Be specific. Write it down. Once you are able to formulate your thoughts clearly on paper, you are ready to proceed onto next step.

Next, think about specific pages you want on your site. Write down everything you think of. Finally, take everything you have written and organize it into a site map. Making a site map will help you visually plan navigation of your site. Avoid putting too many links on home page. If number of links exceeds 10, group them under several broad links. For example, if your site is about music, instead of having links for Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, etc. on home page, you would have one link named "composers."

Remember, taking some time to plan before you begin can save you a lot of trouble in future. Planning will also give your site a feeling of continuity, visitors can easily find what they are looking for, and as a result they will want to come back.

Web Page Editors

------------------------------------------------------------ copyright (c) Pavel Lenshin ------------------------------------------------------------

USABILITY

Usability is what makes your WS pleasant to deal with. While everyone defines personally for her(him)self how to make design nice to look at, memorable (in respect to branding) and serve customer/business needs in best way possible, technical side of usability can and should be corrected using standard requirements.

SOURCE CODE OPTIMIZATION

Firstly about four problems that come to my mind with "dirty" HTML source code:

1. Potential cross-browser conflicts as some particular useless Tags (a piece of HTML source code) may be neglected by one browser but create some visual errors, when viewed in other browser. 2. The more useless HTML Tags web-page has, more drive space it occupies. 3. As derivative of previous problem, more size of that web-page, longer it takes to visitor to load and view it. 4. Search engines like plain and clear textual information for easy search and scan. By having a lot of useless pieces of HTML code, you prevent SE spiders to proper index your web-pages. The result is obvious decreasing of your Search Engine rankings. That is why Meta Tags correcting is not only thing you should pay attention to.

Statistic shows that more then 85% of all WSs online demands graphics or HTML code optimization. That is actually a common problem, core of which lies in use of highly popular "home" web editors like FrontPage or other.

The "winner" among worst is well-known Netscape Composer, due to extremely "dirty" HTML code it generates while editing old or creating new web-pages. If you have ever used Composer and no one have "cleaned" those web-pages afterwards, they definitely contain a lot of HTML "garbage".

Based on my own experience every 50Kb Netscape Composer's web-page can be easily optimized to 40Kb file size or less, as a simple result of deleting junk HTML tags. If you implement Cascade Style Sheet and HTML compressor you will get same, but "clean & shiny" web-page totaling 25-30Kb (40-50% space savings) with enhanced visual effects.

The example above shows saving on a single web-page, but if we speak in terms of 50-60 pages WS, that occupy (without graphics) 3-5Mb of hard drive space, potential savings as a result of HTML optimization may reach 1-3Mb. So if you are experiencing lack of hard drive space with your hosting provider, solution to that problem lies in simple WS optimization. It doesn't only save a lot of space, but, as we know, eliminates potential cross-browser mistakes, helps SE spiders to properly index your web-pages and make your visitors' surfing more quick and smooth and therefore pleasant.

GRAPHICS OPTIMIZATION

When we speak about poorly optimized graphics we get two problems: more occupied space and worse load time. Given that first obstacle may be overcome by acquiring personal server with several Gigabytes of hard drive space, letter problem will continue to exist as majority of web visitors have low speed dial-up connection.

To make your graphics optimized on basic level, you should save it in proper graphic format. Many popular pictures of eBook covers can be easily optimized simply by re-saving .JPG format into .GIF or vice versa depending on particular file. That tactic alone can bring 15Kb file to occupy 7-10Kb in matter of 2 min.

The basic math shows that 10 optimized pictures (without HTML optimization) on a web-page are capable to decrease overall size of it from 120Kb to 70Kb with no visual loss in quality of picture. Are you aware of statistics how many visitors leave your site just because they are tired to wait until all pictures load? It doesn't mean that you have to simply delete these pictures completely as some people suggest, what it does mean is that they are better to be optimized because in case with eBook covers, they proved to triple selling potential and their absence will be hardly compensated by new visitors.