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Building Your Local Web Site«Return to Church Resources
Purpose:
To offer tips and suggestions and offer resources for the construction of your own local web site.
WE WILL MAKE A SITE FOR YOU
First, if you are not familiar with the Internet or web site-creating-software and desire a local ICG web site, the Web Site Office will be happy to create one for you. We have a separate site which houses all the web sites we have created as well as ICG sites created by other individuals. Contact us at chriscumming@gtatv.org. The Gateway web site is located here: http://www.icgchurches.org/index.shtml.
MAKING YOUR OWN SITE
Education will be your first step here. Following are some elements you will want to consider. What you see below is just the beginning. We will be adding a number of resources as we go along.
Education
- Consider taking a class in web site design or which teaches how to use a specific kind of software for making web sites. Many local colleges offer these types of classes.
- Look at and try out the various types of software designed for making web sites. Some are better than others. Some are simple and limited in scope. Others are much more complex but learnable. I never thought I would learn to use the FrontPage software that makes this web site.
- Consider purchasing one of those on-line software-teaching programs. I used Video Professor to learn how to operate FrontPage. I found it rather easy and could not believe I put off learning it so long. There are many companies offering learning software and some are better than others so shop around and get user feedback before making a purchase.
- Self taught - at your local bookstore are many booklets that can help give you some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and general basics in proper design. A great website for FREE online learning is w3schools.com. This website is complete with online interactive tutorials where you can experiment with various elements of website building!
Creating A Site
- Surf the Internet looking for sites you like. This is what Mr. Armstrong did in coming up with the design and layout for the EA site. He gave us the address of some 3 or 4 sites that he really liked. We based the final design from the key elements of those sites. Here are some sites to get you started:
- Learn about color and color combinations. Each color and each color combination presents a message and sets the tone of your site. Click here to see a site showing the various colors. As you begin working with color you will learn about "color wheels" and how they are used to choose color combinations that will be pleasing for your visitors. One great interactive color wheel is found here. On this page, fill in your name and e-mail address and this will take you to the next page where you can activate the color wheel. I found this very helpful.
- Learn about the elements of Layout. There are many books and web sites that speak to the basic principles of layout design. How you lay out your site determines how many visitors will return and keep returning to your site. It must be pleasing to the eye. Following are some sites to help you in this regard.
In this last site you will learn about the elements of Proximity, Alignment, Repetition and Contrast, as well as other key elements.
Publishing the Site
- Obtaining a domain name. A domain name is the same as the Internet address where your site can be found. The domain name of this site is: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/
The best place to establish a domain name is with the company that will house your site. The first step will be to see if the name you have in mind is already being used. You can do this at Register.com http://www.register.com/ If you need help with this let us know. At this page you will see a box to type in the name you have selected and the suffix (.com, .org, etc.). We use .org for our church site as it is an organization (hence .org).
- Obtaining a web host. Simply type in to a search engine, "Web Hosting" and you will get all kinds of responses of companies offering this service. We use one of the top companies around, APlus.Net http://www.aplus.net/ This is an easy to use site and the staff will even communicate with you on-line [in text messaging] to help you with whatever you need.
They will want to know what software you use to publish your site, so make sure you have this information ready. Following is a list of the top hosting sites of 2005 by a consumer network.
Top 20 Web Hosts of 2005
We do not recommend the use of free hosting sites. The following site will confirm this even though it gives what it feels are the best of the free hosting sites.
100 Best Free Web Space Providers
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