| Nothing could be easier than setting up your own website. Everyone wants a piece of the Web these days. Millions of products are bought and sold, information flows seamlessly and empires are built in cyberspace. From social activists to musicians and bloggers, we all want to get our hands on the world's most liberating form of communications technology.
The great virtues of the Internet — easy access, interconnectivity, lack of regulation, vast global audiences, freedom of expression, and fast flow of information, among others — have turned websites into digital billboards that inform and engage. If you’re ready to communicate your thoughts and images to millions worldwide, then it’s about time you set up your own homepage. Here are some tips: Crisp design
Websites are not just about pumping in content and hoping for traffic. They have to strike a balance between form and function, and be user friendly. Simple elegance is the key to good design. Pages should not be too long or cluttered. They should not carry too many images, fancy fonts or graphics, so they can load quickly — five to eight seconds should be the limit. Effective web design is also about marketing and reinforcing your brand. If your organisation already has a brand image, logo or colour scheme, then these should be used to make your site instantly recognisable. Go with the flow
A sloppy website with missing links or slow loading time is annoying, and can put visitors off your site permanently. Sites should be viewable and easy to navigate on different types of operating systems (PC or Mac), screen sizes and browsers. Often, a website designed to look good using a large screen and Internet Explorer may look terrible on a small screen and Netscape. Also check that navigation works without a mouse. The write stuff
Today's web users want what they want, at the click of a mouse. A website must contain all the relevant information that your audience is looking for, or they will look elsewhere. Remember it’s quality, not quantity that matters. Too much copy is boring. In fact, you can be brief and still give visitors lots of information. Don't put supplementary information on the front page — you can put it on a secondary page with very clear links to it. If your content is good, you can offer your articles to other websites for free placement, as long as they include a link to your site. Interesting articles usually end up being re-posted all over the Web, which will create links back to your site. Search engines rank websites based on their links from other sites, so having quality content has a double advantage. Sites should also be updated regularly to keep readers coming back. Human traffic
Like any new ‘venue’, websites need human traffic to spread the word. Newsletters, paid advertisements, paid listings, free email and free search engine listings are some of the methods you can use to attract visitors. It’s always good to exchange links with similar websites to draw more traffic and get listed on search results. You could also add a ‘news’ section to make your site more interesting. Seek and ye shall find
Submit your site to major search engines such as Google, Lycos, Yahoo and Excite for free listings that appear after you do a search. There are no guarantees but you can optimise your chances by making your content more search-engine friendly by using relevant keywords to make it rank higher. Here are some website courses offered by the People’s Association to help you get started. Creating a Website in 1 Day with Frontpage
Toa Payoh South CC 62596602 | Bishan North CC 64515955
Fee range: $50 – $55
Find this course on CC-Online. Click here and type “frontpage” Setting up an E-Shop with osCommerce
Toa Payoh South CC 62596602 | Bishan North CC 64515955
Fee range: $50 – $55
Find this course on CC-Online. Click here and type “e-shop” Setting Up an Online Community Portal in 1 Day with Php-Nuke
Toa Payoh South CC 62596602 | Bishan North CC 64515955
Fee range: $50 – $55
Find this course on CC-Online. Click here and type “community portal” Interactive Web Design Workshop
Ang Mo Kio CC 64529644
Fee range: $120 – $126
Find this course on CC-Online. Click here and type “interactive web” Learn how to Create Online Websites that Generate Income
Ang Mo Kio CC 64529644 | Bedok CC 64425317
Fee range: $45 – $58
Find this course on CC-Online. Click here and type “generate income” How to Create a Personal Homepage using HTML by CCK
Chua Chu Kang CC 67691694
Fee range: $85 – $90
Find this course on CC-Online. Click here and type “personal homepage” Web Page Construction
Bukit Batok East CC 65659330 | Eunos CC 64486971
Fee range: $145 – $160
Find this course on CC-Online. Click here and type “web page construction”
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