Build Your Own Web Site... for Free!

Advertising has become the major issue on the Web. The companies will offer you anything just to read their ads or click on their banner. That's why it's not hard today to find the necessary resources for building your own Web site for free, if you are willing to accept some third-party commercial material appearing on your site. The first thing to think about is server space. You'll need someone to host your Web page. You need to find a company that will allow you use their server. If you want a more or less diversified listing try: http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/ Companies/Internet_Services/Web_Services/Free_Web_Pages/ Here, if you are an artist, or a U.S. Army retiree, you will find different solutions just for your case. As for the companies that offer free Web space for anyone, let's go for the biggies. Those are GeoCities http://www.geocities.com and Zoom, Inc. http://www.xoom.com Both of these companies will give you 11Mb of free space on their server without charging you anything. Also, Geocities adds into the deal different CGI scripts and promotional programs that you will receive as a homesteader. Personally, I've been satisfied with Geocities, until I discovered Xoom, and here's why. First of all, Xoom offers URL convenience. In Geocities you receive a homestead in one of their topical cities, then you have to choose a suburb you want to dwell in, then comes the time for your house number (everything is virtual, of course). Thus I ended up with the URL http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Campus/4074 which is quite long to give to a friend. Instead, at Xoom, you get an URL http://members.xoom.com/yourname, which is more convenient. Another feature that is especially valuable for Web designers is the ability to create directories on your homestead. If you're doing Web design in Adobe PageMill or Microsoft FrontPage, or any other commercial Web design program, you get your images or clipart in a subdirectory. Unless you want to rewrite the HTML code, you have to submit that information with the same path as in the main HTML document. In Geocities they won't let you create any subdirectories. In Xoom they don't care how many subdirectories you have. The next step to take is building your homepage. I won't dwell on the pros and cons of numerous site builders available right now, but considering our first presumption to avoid spending money on building a homepage, here are the links where you will find dozens of free software downloads: http://www.completelyfreesoftware.com http://www.download.com,http://www.winfiles.com Also, both Geocities and Xoom have handy software tools for different levels of competence. Xoom will also offer you free software downloads that it recommends. Graphics are very important. Too few make the page look shabby and outdated. Too many make the loading process slow and frustrated viewers may leave your site. Tip & Trick #1 for Web design is that you can copy any graphic file you see (background, photo, animation, etc.) just by pointing the mouse to the desired object, clicking the right button and choosing "Save Image As…" in Netscape Navigator and "Save Picture As…" in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Take care not to violate the copyright of the originator. But, you will find an abundance of material on the Web that is in the public domain. You will also find wonderful graphics that you can use for a small fee. Go to: http://www.photodisc.com/index.asp to find a database of 60,000 photos that you can search by "key word" and purchase for a very small fee. The World Wide Web contains many sites where you can download the necessary graphics -- backgrounds, clip art, animated GIFs, etc, as well as the software to create your graphics. But, if you're not very good at art, try this site: http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Design_Arts/Graphic_ Design/Web_Page_Design_and_Layout/Graphics/ Here you will find different collections and subdirectories. Also, please note that I like to give you the addresses from Yahoo!… but Yahoo! is famous for having many dead links in its database as well as not including the new stuff. If you feel that an attractive background is an important part of your homepage, then I am with you. Good backgrounds attract the human eye. From the collection above there is a link I especially like. At http://www.infinitree.com/imagine they have their backgrounds categorized on the basis of color, texture, quality and brightness. You cannot possibly find a background collection site that can satisfy all your needs and wishes, so I recommend that you have a special folder in your bookmarks with the background collections you like. Anyone who has created a decent homepage, knows how it feels. You will start caring about your web site as if it were a living being. And, of course, when you have your homepage up and running you will start promoting it among your friends. Then among colleagues… and, when you consider yourself to have become an experienced webmaster, you are suddenly stalked by the question: "How many visitors does my homepage have on a daily basis?" There is a great promotional program called LinkExchange http://www.linkexchange.com, I would be greatly surprised if you told me you have never seen a banner from this organization, because they have quite a large audience. To promote your site through LinkExchange you have to get an account, post your homepage, insert their piece of code in your HTML, and then submit your own banner that will be rotating on the other members' homepages. But if you interested in getting information about your visitors, here is a great site I found recently: http://www.thecounter.com . After opening an account here, you will need to submit a piece of JavaScript code into your HTML, and then they will do the entire job for you. Every time you login with your ccount number and password, they will tell you about your audience. My favorite is the browser statistics report. Now you can figure out whether you want to write the Navigator-best-viewed or Explorer Dynamic HTML. Next, you will want a guestbook for your homepage. With a guestbook your friends can drop you a line such as, "This homepage is cool!!!" Geocities will supply you with one if you have your homestead there, if not, you're not alone. At http://www.guestpage.com they will give you a free guestbook after you register, which is easily accomplished. Now you can proudly show your homepage with the lines "Sign Guestbook | View Guestbook" for the guests of the family. Don't forget to make them promise that as soon as they get home, they'll get to your homepage and sign the guestbook. Also, don't forget to sign it a couple of times yourself, using different names, of course, just to prove to the others that your web site is extremely popular, and everyone is just dying to get there. Congratulations! If you have followed all of the above directions and tips, you now have a full understanding of how and where you can get all the resources you want to build your own web site for FREE. So… what are you waiting for? Log on and do it! --Alexander Moskalyuk