Features and Benefits
top
The ideal package for millions of non-technical people who want their own Web sites
Contains everything novices need: easy software, pro-quality templates, and friendly, step-by-step instructions
Covers every kind of personal or business site from blogs and photo sites to MySpace home pages and eBay stores
A proven, consistent best-seller -- now in its Fourth Edition and updated for the kinds of sites people want to build now
Table of Contents
top
Welcome to Create Your Own Website! 1
1 Creating Your First Web Page 5
The Components of a Website . . . . . . . . . . 7
Serving Web Pages with a Web Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Understanding Website Domain Names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Web Pages, the Building Blocks of a Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Knowing Your Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Building Web Pages Using Web Page
Authoring Software Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Installing SeaMonkey . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Starting SeaMonkey's Composer. . 17
Creating a Web Page with SeaMonkey Composer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Changing the Font . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Making Text Bold, Italic, and Underlined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Changing the Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Positioning Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Saving the Web Page . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2 Creating a Website 29
Finding a Web Host Provider . . . . . . . . . . 30
Important Web Hosting Metrics. . . 31
Picking a Web Hosting Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Registering a Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . 34
Choosing and Buying a Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Configuring the Domain Name . . 36
Uploading Web Pages from Composer to Your Website . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Building a Website from a Template . . 41
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3 Creating a Family/Personal Website 45
Examining the Family/Personal Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Customizing the Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Changing the Upper-Left Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Specifying Image Properties . . . . . 49
Removing the Image Altogether. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Changing the Font . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Adding and Removing Pages from the Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Customizing the Family Pictures Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Adding New Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Publishing Your Family/Personal Website. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Placing Linked Files in the Same Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Testing the Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4 Creating an Online Storefront 63
Examining the eCommerce Website Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Customizing the Home Page . . . . . . . . . . 66
Configuring the Add to Cart Buttons. . 67
Creating a PayPal Premier Account. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Getting the Add to Cart Button HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Adding the Add to Cart Button into the Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Viewing the Shopping Cart. . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Tying It All Together-A True Online Shopping Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5 Selling Products with an eBay Store 85
Simplify the Sales Process with eBay Stores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Creating and Customizing Your eBay Store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Managing Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Adding Products to Your eBay Store . . . 93
Collecting Payments and Order Fulfillment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Taking Advantage of Marketing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Sales and Traffic Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Inspecting Your Site's Traffic. . . . 100
Tracking Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6 Creating a Blog with Blogger 103
What Do You Blog About? . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Creating a Blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Adding Content to Your Blog. . . . . . . . . 109
Customizing Your Blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Examining the Basic Tab. . . . . . . 116
Altering the Blog's Appearance Through the Formatting Tab . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Managing Comment Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Archiving Old Content . . . . . . . . . 120
Working with Postings via Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Customizing the Blog's Template. . . . . 122
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
7 Sharing Images Online with Snapfish 127
Choosing an Online Image Sharing Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Creating an Account on SnapFish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Uploading and Managing Your Digital Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Adding Pictures to Your Account. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Editing and Deleting Your Pictures and Albums. . . . . . . . . . 135
Sharing Your Pictures and Albums with Friends and Family. . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Ordering Prints and Gifts. . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
8 Hanging Out and Making Friends at
MySpace 147
Joining MySpace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Expanding Your Profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Customizing Your Profile Page's Layout and Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Configuring Your Name Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Creating a Blog and Sharing Your Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Uploading and Sharing Your Photos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Expressing Yourself with Your Blog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Growing Your Social Network . . . . . . . . 163
Making New Friends . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
9 Posting Your Videos on YouTube 167
Getting Started with YouTube . . . . . . . . 168
Creating an Account . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Uploading Your Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Viewing and Managing Your Videos . 175
Customizing Your Channel . . . . . . . . . . 176
Customizing Your Channel Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Changing Your Channel's
Colors and Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Organizing Your Videos . . . . . . . . 179
Sharing Personal and Location Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Embedding YouTube Videos into Your Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Embedding a Video in a Blog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
10 Staying Connected with Facebook 187
Building a Social Network on Facebook. . 188
Finding Friends on Facebook. . . . . . . . . 189
An Overview of Your Facebook Home Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Viewing and Editing Your Profile. . . . . 196
Configuring Your Privacy Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Receiving Notifications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Using Facebook's Applications . . . . . . . 202
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
11 Bonus Material 207
HTML-The Language of Web Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Understanding How the Internet Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Examining How the Postal Service Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
The Internet as a Virtual Postal Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Optimizing Your Digital Pictures. . . . . 218
Resizing Digital Images . . . . . . . . 219
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Preface
top
Introduction
Welcome to Create Your Own Website!
As the popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web have risen since the beginnings in the early 1990s, virtually all businesses have established an online presence. Many individuals, too, have left their imprints on the web, creating a website for their family or posting pictures of their vacations. If you want to join the millions of people who have created websites but fear you lack the background or expertise for such an endeavor, this book is for you!
In this book you see just how easy creating a website can be. The CD included with this book contains professional website templates and a free web page editor. With the web page editor, you can quickly and easily customize the provided templates into your very own personal websites. Using the web page editor is as simple as using a word processor program. It's just point and click!
Since there are a number of different types of websites on the Internet, this book's CD includes templates for different types of sites. Specifically, the provided templates let you quickly create the following types of sites:
Family websites-With a family website, you can share pictures of you and your family with friends and members of your extended family.
Hobby websites-A hobby website allows you to share your hobbies with others who have similar interests.
Community websites-With a community website, your church, club, bowling team, or other group or association can post information, schedules, pictures, and other pertinent information.
Online storefront website-Sell products online by accepting credit card payments with an online storefront site.
In addition to showing you how to build your own websites from the ground up, this book includes chapters on how to use existing web-based services to quickly create common websites. Specifically, you'll see how to
Sell products at eBay Stores-eBay Stores are a quick and easy way to start selling products online. With eBay Stores, your products are listed on eBay.com, and payment processing is handled for you by eBay. You simply list your products for sale and ship them when purchased!
Publish content online with a blog-A blog is a type of website designed to allow users to quickly and easily publish content online. Blogs are springing up all over the World Wide Web, used by both individuals and businesses alike.
Share your digital pictures-You've just gotten back from your vacation to Tahiti with gobs of digital pictures. How do you easily share these beautiful pictures with your friends and family? Digital picture sharing websites make it easy to upload your pictures and share them with select friends and family.
Create a home page on MySpace-MySpace is one of many 'social networking' websites, where visitors can stay in touch with friends, meet their friends' friends, and make new social contacts. In addition to maintaining and growing your network of friends, MySpace makes it easy for you to create your own web pages, post pictures, share music, and host a blog.
Share your videos on YouTube-With today's video cameras, it's easy to upload your home videos to your computer, where you can watch or edit them. Once a video is stored on your computer, you can upload it to YouTube and share it with a world-wide audience.
Build your social network with Facebook-Facebook is another popular 'social networking' website, like MySpace. Unlike MySpace, Facebook allows users to join one or more networks which are organized by facets like geographic region, employer, and school. It's a great site for catching up with old friends from high school or college, as well as an excellent resource for making new friends at your company or in your neighborhood.
Whether you want to build your own, unique website or use a pre-existing web application, you learn everything you need to know to start building your own website today with this book. Get ready to see just how fun and easy it is to create your own website!
© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
About the Authors
top
Create Your Own Website is author Scott Mitchell's eighth book; his others are Sams Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 in 21 Days (Sams); Designing Active Server Pages (O'Reilly); ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code (Sams); ASP.NET Data Web Controls Kick Start (Sams); Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 24 Hours (Sams); Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours (Sams); and Teach Yourself ASP.NET 3.5 in 24 Hours (Sams). Scott is a regular columnist for Microsoft's MSDN Magazine and has authored more than 1,000 online articles on his website, 4GuysFromRolla.com. Scott's nonwriting accomplishments include speaking at numerous technical user groups and conferences across the country. Scott also teaches web technology classes at the University of California-San Diego University Extension. In addition to teaching and writing, Scott is a software developer. He works as an independent consultant and has authored and sold several commercial software applications.
