2009 April
If you are new to the website building, you might be overwhelmed by the new terms and techniques required to set up your website. A lot of products sold on the internet offer ready built “Free Websites” in their package together with other videos and ebooks, and in their advertising you are guaranteed a quick start with slogans similar to this: “can start to earn money the same day”. This is not exactly correct in my opinion, unless you understand how the websites and webhosting works.
First of all, in advertising their products, the seller does not tell you that in addition to the package they want you to buy, you also require a website hosting services to “activate” your “free website”. This activation is nothing less than website hosting which you need to purchase through them, and it usually costs around $100 to $150 per year.
Secondly, with the ready built websites, you can have an easier start on the internet but you never learn how to build them or update with changes you will require at the later stage. One day, you will need to learn how to do it, and I recommend that building your own website is an experience you should not miss.
The website building softwares are available free with all webhosting plans you presently purchase on the internet, and they all are relatively easy to learn with step by step instructions and videos, even for very unexperienced newbies. In this article, I wanted to explain few terms which people usually find difficult to understand and sometimes unable to find any information. From my own experience, the HTML and WYSIWYG were two things to master, and it helps to know about them up front.
You will need HTML to insert links, ads or banners for the products you want to sell. The sellers’ instructions to copy and paste the links do not provide any more help on their websites, and if your links do not work, you will be losing customers who will become impatient and go somewhere else. So read through this information as it will help you to get your website up and running.
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is a programming language used on the World Wide Web (www) in which webpages are written. Behind all webpages there are the programming codes with special characters for everything you want to display : letters, colours, tables, spaces, with special instructions to position them left or right of the page or, where you want them to go.
To view the webpage in HTML you need to switch from DESIGN to the SOURCE code. All HTML documents consists of tags which contain instructions how to display the HTML elements. All HTML elements start with an opening tag <HTML> and end with a closing tag </HTML>.
All HTML documents have the following basic structure:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>
The opening <HTML> tag tells the browser that this is the beginning of the document.
The opening <HEAD> tag contains your header and it is not visible when you open your page in your browser. It is closed with the closing </HEAD> tag.
The only text displayed in your browser is the one between the opening <BODY> tag and closing </BODY> tag.
To find the <BODY> tag, click on “CTRL” and “F” keys for Microsoft, and “COMMAND” and “F” keys on Mac to open the FIND TEXT box. Type <BODY to find the opening tag, or </BODY for the closing tag, and click FIND NEXT.
The website building softwares use the WYSIWYG design enhanced HTML editor which allows you to view your webpage in the normal design mode. It stands for “What You See Is What You Get” interface which is like a word processor where you can preview your page.
If your website building software does not allow you to locate the HTML source code for your webpage, you need to contact your support for the instructions how to find it.
To copy the link of your product’s ad or banner to your webpage, click in the place you want it to appear and switch in your editor from DESIGN to HTML source view. Copy the full link code for the product ad and paste in the place where the cursor is blinking between <BODY> and </BODY> tags. When you switch back to DESIGN view, the ad will be already visible.
Hint: Inserting a table first and then pasting the ad code inside the table is a good way to box your ad and position in exact place you want it to appear.
After pasting your link, publish the webpage and check if it works. It is also a good idea for the links to open in the new windows as your customer will not lose your website and may want to come back to it to investigate other products. To do this you need to go to Edit Hyperlink window and chose option to open in the new window.
By Eve Rich
Internet Marketer
2009 April