Register your product to gain access to bonus material or receive a coupon.
This PDF will be accessible from your Account page after purchase and requires PDF reading software, such as Acrobat® Reader®.
The eBook requires no passwords or activation to read. We customize your eBook by discreetly watermarking it with your name, making it uniquely yours.
This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version.
Build a great personal or business website… absolutely no experience needed!
Why pay a professional web developer? If you can use a word processor, you can do it yourself! This package contains all the software, templates, and simple step-by-step instructions you need to build a great site in practically no time!
Build sites like these using our professional-quality templates:
-Family sites
-Hobby sites
-Community and nonprofit sites
-Online storefronts that accept credit card payments via PayPal
-Post video on YouTube
8 Easy Projects
In this book you’ll see just how easy it is to create your own website. 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 templates into your personal websites. Better still, using the editor is as simple as using a word processor.
Use easy web-based services to:
-Sell products at your own eBay Store
-Create your own personal or professional blog
-Display your digital photos on your own Snapfish site
-Share your videos on YouTube
-Create a MySpace page that’ll stand out from the crowd
-Build your social network with your own Facebook presence
You won’t believe how easy it is to build your own site...or how much fun!
CD-ROM contains all the tools you need:
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