You may create an easy to navigate website in 5 minutes or less and have it cost you NOTHING!
I signed up to be a new member, used their software (unfamiliar to me) to create a one-page website, customized every button, and used the FTP software to upload a little morale booster. I did all of that in less than 15 minutes. I did not have to talk to anyone, the instructions were clear and easy to follow. The colors and styles are totally customizable. I chose to be a bit garish, but it is only an example.
Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) may already provide you
with free webspace. This may be much faster for your users than
a free site. Speed is dependent on how far the provider is from
the user, user volume, and data traffic patterns. Compare the
sample site above to its clone that I loaded onto the space provided
by our ISP (in Anchorage): www.kreig.com/nbci, and again on the
American Land Rights webspace (in Hawaii) at: http://www.landrights.org/OCS/nbci/.
In Alaska, using our own local ISP in Alaska was lightning fast
while nbci’s free site was sometimes very slow. It will be
interesting to see if that is still the case when we try this
in New York!
Here are some other ways to make webpages that are already at
your disposal. You need buy NOTHING!
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>put the title text here</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
enter the text you want to display
</BODY>
</HTML>
Save the file as text with the extension .htm and you have a webpage.
To create a hotlink, use this form of code:
<a href=“http://www.hyperlink.com”>hotlink words to display</a>
If you want to get fancier, (such as bold face, italicize, change background colors, etc.), you only need to know a tiny bit more HTML, but you don’t even need to buy a book. There are wonderful tutorials and references online, such as: http://www.w3-tech.com/crash/.
3) Copying is not only the highest form of flattery, it is
an excellent way to build code quickly and to learn from others.
If you like the color and look of a website you see in your websurfing,
copy it and modify it to suite your needs. To do so, right click
on a webpage. Choose the option “View Source.” The window
that pops up is in HTML. Just copy and paste the code into your
text editor and you have a webpage. If you are looking for ideas,
my sample website has hotlinks to the sites of over 100 Private
Property Rights Friends and Allies.
4) The software that you use to view the internet is called a
browser. The two most popular browsers are Microsoft Internet
Explorer and Netscape. Some versions have a webpage composer for
creating webpages with ease.
TIP: Before you FTP, you can view your homemade webpages as they
will appear on the web by opening them with your web browser.
TIP: A variety of commercial software for creating a website is
available. We use Microsoft FrontPage, available at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/
for $149 (or $6.95 for a 45 trial offer) and have found it to
be extremely cost effective for managing a more complicated website
and maintaining a uniform appearance.
Other helpful freebies on the net:
1) Add a local website Search Engine — a must! This will
help your users find material on your website by typing in a word
or two.
It’s free and easy at: http://www.freefind.com/
Tip: Read freefind’s FAQ — how it works, how to prevent
indexing a portion of a page, etc.
2) Add a counter . . . and more! Find out how many users have
visited your site. A counter service will also provide user statistics
such as how many are new to your site, the type of browsers used,
what search engine if any brought them to your site, etc. You
may make the counter invisible to your users or visible, but the
user statistics are available only to you and can help you cater
your website to your visitors. One such free counter service is:
http://www.thecounter.com/
A little more advanced, but not required are graphics (pictures).
A word on graphics — they can really slow down your website
to the point that no one will visit it OR they can make it lively
and interesting. Doesn’t the photo of park rangers dragging
Lizzie Jenkins, 5 months pregnant, off her land in the middle
of winter make you want to read more! (see Past Abuses on my sample
website)
If you are going to use graphics, I highly recommend trying out
the evaluation copy of PaintShopPro which may be downloaded from
http://www.jasc.com. Use this
software to crop the photo or digital image to its essence. Then
reduce the size to the height & width you plan to display
and reduce the number of colors used. Reduce reduce reduce until
it degrades too much and then undo your last step. Then save it
in .gif format. Your users will appreciate the effort you have
made!
You are now a webmeister!
[These notes are posted on my sample website (or clones). Use
the website to experience the advantage of hyperlinks to all referenced
sites.]
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