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WEB-HOSTS
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Shop
around for the best web host for you.
Lots
of free host sites but please do the research on what each provider wants or
expects in return. Read the policies. Here's a good site
for FREE!
Free Website
Providers
This
site is hosted by MasterSites, which provides both free and paid hosting :
FREE:
Welcome
to MS11.NET
PAID:
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GRAPHICS
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I was given free use of all the
graphics and posters from Allposters.com and Amazon.com
by signing up to their affiliate programs.
Affiliate programs are
something website owners may want to think about in order to get your site
to pay for itself. Catch is that you have to refer or link to allposters.com
when using the graphic. ie. my homepage with Picasso's Quixote.
allposters.com
amazon.com
Some
of the larger graphics on the site are c/o Chris Elliott, a great local
Ontario resident connection that I met at an open house at Sheridan a few
years ago. Connections are everywhere!!
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SITE
PROMOTION |
Submitting your website to search
engines.
Google
apparently publishes webmaster tips. Google and Yahoo are the search
engines to hit for a chance at a truly global audience. It takes about
4 - 6 months for new sites to be searchable on Google and Yahoo.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/
These
sites also provide guides to submitting to the big search engines:
searchengine
watch
self-promotion
This
site below submitted my site for free to a bunch of engines at once.
This site also helped me to create and understand META TAGS. There are a lot
of free submission sites out there. Shop around.
AddPro
I
highly recommend going to the web tutorial links cited in point 6. of this
page.
Promoting your site to other sites. Link Exchanges.
In
order to generate more public interest, websites will tend to have links to
other websites with similar interest -- hence this on-going metaphor of webs
and spiders. You will want to promote your site to other sites,
not only to gain links to your site or to possibly link your site to theirs
but to make yourself more attractive to search engines.
**When
promoting your site you want to make sure you do not sound like SPAM.
Do not use sensational words in your subject heading, like 'FREE' or using
ALL CAPS. Try to make some specific reference to the site you are
emailing, in the subject and body of your emails. In the body of
your email, get to your point quickly and simply. Some webmasters can
get up to 2,000 emails a day. The ones that look like spam will not
even be opened.
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MESSAGE
BOARDS |
Use a message board
so visitors can be more interactive on your site with you and your
other visitors. Below are some samples. A good board should
have minimal pop-ups and banners and a clean look.
Boards2Go
EZboards
- If your interest is mainly discussion and community building, a board like
this may be more useful than a website. By creating a board you also
become part of the EZBOARD community, which gives you a cushion of marketing
to fall into.
ProBoards
- this site is currently using Proboards. Very organized and
user-friendly.
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AUDIO/VIDEO
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Audio/video
clips, above all, should:
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open
easily and quickly
-
sound
and look immaculate. No skips and freezes.
-
if
you crash your visitor's computer -- that is bad.
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TUTORIALS |
Eventually, you will want to know
a thing or two about HTML language. This site provides cheat sheets
and a quickie tutorial. Web
Monkey
Both
Web
Monkey and
Free Website Providers provide web tutorials on design, site
maintenance and promotion. FWP is easier for beginners.
I
got some neat web-doctor links from this tutorial. Free analyzers that
check for errors in your files.
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Web-Designers |
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WEB
ANALYSIS |
So apparently most web
hosts provide "log files' of errors and who visited your site and when
and where and who and what kind of information.
Unfortunately, the logs make no sense at all in their original forms.
You need a 'service' or software program to read the data and issue a
report.
This link provides a
freeware version of their analyzer. Catch is that you have to
re-download the software every few months or so, being the free
version. P.S. you have to enable look-ups if you want to grasp
something of where your visitors come from Settings
> Analysis > Network > DNS
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Feedback: |
Have your say. Add your comments on this page by sending an
email to
lyw.
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