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SETTING UP A BASIC CONSTRUCTION WEBSITE Bradford Sims Everyone is getting into the flow of information through the Internet. It almost feels that if you don't have an Internet website, you're falling behind the times. The Internet hosts a multitude of websites-those providing outstanding information, and some providing poor information. Sites vary in complexity and quantity of information. Some sites are simply company or individual brochures in electronic form, while others contain a wealth of information or graphics, or a combination of both. There are Internet sites that make money helping you to make your Internet website more visible and accessible to the world, and offering hints for using the right keywords or the right size of images, and how to increase optimal viewing and searchability skills. In viewing the many helpful sites, establishing your own website can appear to be an intimidating process, however, with a simple presentation of the basic steps, it can be a less challenging experience, and become a rewarding few hours of effort. This paper will lead the reader through the basic process of setting up a website from one's home or work computer. Connecting your Computer to the Internet I have a computer and where do I start? This is a question the author pondered in December 1997. The first step is to have Internet access. The easiest way is to contract with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for your home or office. This ISP allows you to connect your computer directly to the Internet. You must have this Internet connection to set up and maintain the website you plan to place on the Internet. To obtain this Internet connection, your computer must have a modem and an Internet Browser. Typical Internet connection methods The modem is the typical home connection hardware. Modems typically are called by their abbreviated speed. Some speeds that are advertised on modem boxes are 22.8k, 33.6k, and 56k. These modems will work with a standard phone line and provide sufficient speed for the novice website builder. Most all ISPs now support the fastest of these modems at 56k, and the 56k modem is not much more in price than the older modems. Expect to pay approximately $100 for your modem, and approximately $15 to $20 per month for your ISP. You will need to ask the ISP for the local telephone number with the 56k connection, otherwise you may end up connecting to a slower speed line. Most local and long distance telephone companies offer ISP service. This service usually comes with one free email account and sometimes space for a small website with the address already specified for you. If you have Internet service at work through a network, you won't need to have an ISP. Large companies usually have very high-speed connections called T1 or T3 connections to the Internet and have eliminated your need to find a local ISP. In between the ISP home modem service and the T1 and T3 large company connections, there is a service that is called ISDN. This service provides a connection speed between the 56k modem and T1 connection and can be used at home or for a small business for approximately $40 per month plus the cost of a connection box. Obtaining an Internet Browser The Internet browser needs to be selected next. The browser is a program that you install with disks or CD-ROM onto your computer's hard drive that allows you to view the Internet. There are many browsers available on the market. The two browsers that are most used are the Microsoft Internet Explorer* and Netscape Navigator*. There are really only minor differences when using either of these browsers to view the Internet. When using various browsers, the largest difference is that when you design your webpage using one type of browser, it may appear a little differently in other browsers, or its special features may not function in another browser. When you sign up for an ISP, they will typically send you a browser to install if you do not have one preinstalled on your hard drive. The ISP will also provide you with the technical data that you will need to add to the Internet browser so that once it's installed you can access the Internet and email. Choosing among Webpage Design Programs and Features Next, you will need to purchase and install on your hard drive one of the many webpage design programs that enable you to build your website. A website is made up of one, or often more, pages of information and graphics, with a unique Internet address. These webpage design programs will allow computer users the avenue to make and design professional-looking webpages without knowing the behind-the-scenes coding or language of webpage design. The one this author uses is Microsoft's FrontPage 98*. This program can be purchased for approximately $100. This program contains basic templates to help make your first webpage design look professional, and then, the rest is up to you. You can cut and paste your company's logo, graphics, and any text from a word processor into this web-design program and it will automatically convert it into the needed language used for webpages (hypertext mark-up language, HTML). This program also possesses features that you can simply click on to directly add them to your webpage. There is an organization feature that allows you to see the webpages in a graphic hierarchy structure in which you can drag and drop the webpages into your desired structure. This program also has many features that will allow for your increasing webpage-design abilities. HTML coding This author recommends that you purchase a book on HTML code to reference. Occasionally, your webpage will not appear exactly as you would like, and by knowing some of the basic HTML, you can fix such problems easily. In FrontPage*, there are three ways to view the page you are currently designing. The typical view is the Normal view that appears each time you open a webpage to work on. Then you can click on a tab to go directly to the HTML view and perform editing of the codes in HTML. Finally, you can click on the Preview tab to see what the webpage will look like once it is placed for view on the Internet. As an added note from experience, it is always a good idea to preview your webpage directly from the Internet (rather than from within the webpage-design program) before deciding to place it on the Internet and to advertise it for all to view. Sometimes the preview feature on your webpage design program will not exactly present the webpage as it will be displayed on the Internet. (To preview your document on the Internet directly from your hard drive, open the Internet browser, and type in the address of your document, such as C:/folder name/document name.html.) Selecting a Web-Hosting Service Now with your website designed, it will be necessary to select a web-hosting site. There are three types of sites where you can display your website including (1) free sites through the Internet, (2) homepage sites that are a part of some ISP service providers and are included in your monthly bill, (3) and commercial sites where you will pay a monthly fee to host your website. There are typically two problems with the first two sites. They usually have limited space, and your web address is chosen for you. The ISP the author was assigned allowed 5 Megs of space and an address to use such as www.home.theircompany/myid/index.html. If you are just starting out and need to practice designing your webpage and loading it be viewed on the Internet or you don't mind a limited visibility site, this way is a great way to start. If you want more features available to your website and your own domain name such as www.yourcompany.com, a web-hosting company is the best way to go. Before you can obtain your own domain name, you must already have a web-hosting service. You can use your website as soon as you sign up to the web-hosting service, but until you receive your domain name, your website is accessed through the use of a number as its address such as 102.657.32.44. From the web-hosting service, there are two numbers that you must receive to be used in obtaining your domain name. Most web-hosting companies on the Internet provide a variety of services and web-hosting packages to choose from. Some will allow you to obtain your domain name through them. Some will even allow you to purchase a domain name, and for a monthly fee, forward that domain directly to another web address such as the one you would obtain from a free website or ISP provider. The person using this service would probably be known as a middle-of-the-road user who wants to maintain a low-cost webpage but maintain personal identity. Expect the yearly fee of a domain name to cost between $35 to $50, with a monthly web-hosting fee of $15 to $25 for the basic package. In this author's opinion, the best route to take for the basic webpage setup is to find one of the low-monthly-cost web-hosting providers and purchase your own domain name to be used. When searching for a web-hosting service, start off by making sure the basic package includes unlimited data transfer, at least 20 megs of space, and the option of FrontPage extensions. This author's web-hosting service is called Webkeepers and is located in California, while the author currently resides in Indiana. Your web-hosting service selected could be anywhere in the world and still be easily accessed from your home or work computer. If you decide to design your website using Microsoft's FrontPage*, it is best to sign up with a web-hosting service stating that you want the FrontPage* extensions installed. This will allow you to use all of the FrontPage*'s options, otherwise some of the options will not function. There are multitudes of web-hosting sites you can review on the Internet and read about in magazines written for the Internet user. Take your time and review them for your best value. Purchasing a Domain Name Now that you have selected a web-hosting service or are going to use it to forward a domain name to your site, you must purchase an available domain name. The most comprehensive site this author has found on the Internet to purchase any domain available in the world is Alldomains.com*. This site not only will allow you to purchase the commercial domains ending in .com, .net, or .org, but also will allow many other country domains ending in .st, .to, etc. This virtually allows you to find a domain available with the name that you desire. Many of the foreign country domain endings are actually housed and administered in the United States. Alldomains.com* will also provide the two necessary web-hosting numbers to the domain service allowing you to obtain your selected domain until you move the domain to your web-hosting service. If you are going with the middle-of-the-road option of simply having your domain forwarded to your free site of ISP-provided space, Alldomains.com* will also do this for a small fee. With your domain name, the web-hosting service you have chosen can provide unlimited email accounts that are password protected. That way everyone in a company can have a personalized email such as brad@construction.st. The characters before the @ sign are by personal choice, and the characters after the @ sign contain the one domain name that your company has purchased the right to use. Please note that the basic web-hosting packages usually only include 3-10 free emails for the one domain (one person can use all of the emails or the emails can be split up among employees). The extended service plans include many more free email accounts set up for you. Loading Your Files Once you have your website designed and domain name selected, now you are ready to load your files onto the site that will hold your information to be accessed by the world. The most common form of file transfer is a common program called file transfer protocol (FTP). This is typically included with most web design programs or is easily downloaded from many sites. If you are using Microsoft's FrontPage*, click on the button that says Publish to move your files to the site where they will be located for Internet access. FrontPage *will determine if the web-hosting site has FrontPage* extensions installed and then it will publish the files accordingly. If FrontPage* determines that its extensions have not been installed, it will default to FTP to move the files. If you have used a different website-design program or a word processing program to create your webpage, you can save your document as an HTML document, and then FTP your document from your hard drive to the web-hosting location. Announcing Your New Website Finally, once your site is available for viewing on the Internet and the domain name you have selected is ready for the world to see, it is now time to announce your site. There are many ways to help your site be seen. The first and most important way is to go to the major search engines and add your site. This is a time-consuming process that can take many hours. Instead, there are many sites on the Internet that will submit your new site's address to over 400 search engines for a cost between $15 to $35. There are also several banner exchange sites. These banner exchange sites will help you create a banner ad for your site, as well as provide you information to help you expose your site. Once you have created your ad banner, you will place a few HTML codes on your website to have ads shown and your ad banner then will be shown on other sites. You can additionally view other sites on the Internet that are considered the industry hot spots to see if there is a page that will allow you to add your website and perhaps a description. The banner exchange sites as well as your web-hosting service can probably provide statistics on visits to your site which will allow you to see when the most people visit and from which countries. Summary In summary, the following are the major steps: 1. Obtain Internet service at home or at work. 2. Obtain a webpage design program. 3. Design your basic website design. 4. Find a web-hosting service for your needs. 5. Obtain a domain name that you want. 6. Place your files onto your web-hosting service location. 7. Make sure all your email accounts work. 8. Review your webpage for errors and design through the Internet browser. 9. Announce your webpage to the world. 10. Update your webpage as necessary. Expect to initially spend approximately $400 (and several of your own hours) to get started, and then you will be charged monthly Internet and web-hosting charges along with the yearly domain-name charge. Of course, you can search the Internet to find a service that will provide all the above services. It may sound overwhelming to some, but this author believes that those who are comfortable using a computer will find that it is not really as difficult as it is time consuming. This author is not much more than a novice webpage builder, and has only endeavored to touch on the initial steps of placing a basic construction website on the Internet. Readers can access the author's website at www.construction.st to view the basic construction of the author's webpage as well to contact the author via email. The Internet is a tremendous source of information and all companies should have a website to provide information for potential customers. Before designing your website, it would be a good idea to view similar sites on the Internet for ideas. Good luck, and remember that it will be easier the second time around. Disclaimer: This author does not endorse Microsoft Internet Explorer*, Netscape Navigator*, Microsoft's FrontPage 98*, Webkeepers, or Alldomains.com* as being the only or the best services or software to use. The author only used these as examples of what just happened to have been used in personal efforts to produce a website. All these sites or products are also copyrighted. Bibliography Microsoft Internet Explorer http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ Microsoft FrontPage http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ Netscape Naviagtor http://home.netscape.com/navigator/index.html Webkeepers http://www.webk.net/ Alldomains.com http://www.alldomains.com/ The Construction Education Connection http://www.construction.st/ Bradford Sims is currently a Graduate Instructor and a Ph.D. student in Purdue's Building Construction Management Program finishing up his last year of studies. He can be reached through email at brad@construction.st or telephpone (765) 494-5736. Return to the List of Articles |
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