Getting on the Web

Once you have created your web site on your computer, you need to put it on the Internet. This tutorial is designed to help amateur web designers understand some of the real world nuts and bolts of publishing a web site. I assume that you’ve already made your site on your computer and that it’s ready for prime time.

Web Space

The next thing you‘ll need is to get space on a web server. A web server is a computer which remains attached to the Internet all of the time. While some people have the money and know-how to set up a web server in their house, most people pay a service provider instead.

With E-mail
Many Internet service Providers (ISPs) like Mindspring and Verizon give you free web space (maybe 25 MB) along with your E-mail account. Contact them or go to your ISP home page and they should be able to guide you through the set up.

The downside to using your ISP is that you cannot customize your domain or web address. It is usually automatically generated, and is based in part on your e-mail account name. It will look something like this...

http://jacedian.home.mindspring.com/

Keep in mind that it can be harder to get people to your web site if it has an unusual URL. It looks less professional on a business card.

Totally Free?
Alternatively, you could use a free web hosting service like Tripod or Yahoo. While they do give you web space for free, they also tend to beseige visitors to your site with pop up ads, and again, you can’t customize your URL.

Show Me the Money
The more elegant (and expensive) solution is to get web space through a commercial provider. You can get a relatively large site (200 MB of web space) for a yearlly fee. The exact price typically depends upon a few things...

  • Amount of web space
    — 200 MB or 400 MB, etc. The more space, the more expensive.
  • How much traffic you receive
    — This is also referred to as bandwidth. A site that receives few visitors is cheaper than a site that receives a lot of visitors because the provider has to allow for constant downloads from the server.
  • Which web space provider you choose
    —Some providers are cheaper than others, so shop around.
  • What other services you use
    —If you want to host a site with forums or other extra bells and whistles, it can cost you.

My web space provider is called Powweb. I get 200 MB of space for a reasonable price. (Hey, if you try them, please mention jmort.com. Thanks!)

Domain Name
If you use a commerical provider, keep in mind that you’ll also need to reserve a domain name. A domain name is the main part of the URL (Universal Resource Locator, or “address”) of your web site. For example, my web site’s domain name is “jmort.com.” If you’re looking to make a serious web site, it’s more professional to have your own domain name and it’s easier for clients to remember.

To reserve a domain name, you will first need to check if the name you want is available. web sites such as Networksolutions.com can tell you if a name has been taken yet. You don’t have to reserve your name through Network Solutions, however, as there are many cheaper alternatives. I bought my domain name through through a company called Godaddy and there are many other domain reservation services out there.

Transferring Files
The typical workflow for creating a web site is to make a version of the site on your own computer that works and then upload a duplicate copy on the web server. How do you get the files from your computer to theirs? One way to do it is to use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) application. FTP allows you to send data files directly to the web server. During your initial setup of the software, the FTP utility will prompt you for a login and password which the web hosting company should have provided for you by E-mail.

There are many FTP programs out there such as CuteFTP which you can buy from the Internet. If you use Adobe Dreamweaver to make your web site, there is a built-in FTP utility built which you can access after you define your web site. (See the Dreamweaver help files for more information.)

Bring Visitors to Your Web Site
Once you make your web site, you’ll want people to be able to go to it and find it on search engines. There are 2 things you may want to do to accomplish this.

  • Add metatags and keywords to your main page.
  • Register with search engine web sites.

Metatags are extra pieces of information such as a description or keywords that you can embed into “Head“ area of the main page of your web site.

Keywords are a kind of metatag that help search engines categorize your web site by topic. For example, my web site uses the keywords “cartoon, cartoonist, Photoshop, tutorial, “ and so on. Use any words that you would want people to be able to use to find your site. If these same words appear in text on the home page

When a surfer runs a search that matches your site’s keywords, your site should appear in a the list of matches (with any luck). The list will show your web page’s title and Description (if you have added a description). The description is another metatag you can use to inform potential visitors what you site is about.

Registering with Search Engines
Of course, Search engines won’t direct anyone to your site if they don't know that you are out there. There are 2 ways that search engines become “aware” of a site... most search engines employ automatic webspiders that troll the web and add sites automatically as they come across them. The Internet is a big place, though, and there’s no guarantee that these spiders will find your site very quickly, if at all. What increases your chances of being noticed is if lots of other sites point to yours. A good way to accomplish this is to write to other web sites that share your same interests and ask them if you can link to their site and, in return, would they also please link to your site. This is really your best bet for getting "found" by search engines.

The other way to tell a Search Engine that your web site is out there is to register with them. The list below contains many popular search engines and the location where you can register your site. Some cost money, some are free. You can choose for yourself if you want to pay. Many search engines will enable your site to move to the the top of the search list for an extra fee.

Company
URL for submitting
AltaVista
www.altavista.com 		http://addurl.altavista.com/
Ask Jeeves
www.ask.com		 http://ask.ineedhits.com/
sitesubmit.asp
Excite
www.excite.com		 https://secure.ah-ha.com/guaranteed_inclusion/
teaser.aspx
Google
www.google.com 		http://www.google.com/addurl.html
HotBot
www.hotbot.com 		www.hotbot.com/addurl.asp
LookSmart www.looksmart.com www.looksmart.com/aboutus/
contact/subsite.html
Lycos
www.lycos.com 		http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html
MSN Search http://search.msn.com http://search.msn.com/addurl.asp
Northern Light www.northernlight.com www.northernlight.com/docs/
regurl_help.html
Open Directory
http://dmoz.org 		http://dmoz.org/add.html
Web Crawler
www.webcrawler.com 		https://secure.ah-ha.com/guaranteed_inclusion/
teaser.aspx?network=webcrawler
Yahoo!
www.yahoo.com 		http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest
Google
WWW www.jmort.com