 When
you receive your web template package, extract the
entire zip file into a folder you create. It doesn’t
matter where you extract it to or what name you call
the folder, just as long as you remember where you
extracted all the files to.
As always, we recommend that you use
a good zip / unzip utility such as WinZip, PowerArchiver,
or Winace. If you prefer otherwise, it’s up to
you.
Here are the 8 initial steps to take
in order to set up your web template successfully:
1. Open your favorite web editing
software in order to view your template. We highly
recommend using a WYSIWYG editor such as Microsoft
FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver. If you don’t
have either, you could go to www.download.com and search
for a free yet powerful web editor that you could use.
2. When the template is open, begin
by typing in your text in any top and side bars, copyright
notice on the footer of the page, and begin to write
the main text of your page. These templates come with
pre-inputted text so you get an idea of where to start
typing.
3. Now when the text is all complete,
begin by inserting your require images into the template
by using your favorite graphics program. We highly
recommend using Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Fireworks
or Paint Shop Pro. Again, it’s up to you however,
make sure your graphics program is easy to use and
creates good quality images. On the actual template,
your images would usually fall into the top logo bar
or the main text space where your visitors would adhere
to them more. And again, it’s up to you but make
sure your images are not too large and are in line
with the pages layout. Templates Resource offers great
rates on template customization, implementation and
other services.
4. Don’t forget to save your
page into a folder you have allocated. It is recommended
to not save it into the templates directory because
it’s best to keep your directory of templates
clean. Just save it into another folder. For example
it could be c:\myweb and so you would save all your
newly created pages into this folder.
5. Once your first page is complete,
it would be time to create other pages to link up to
the main page. I.e. contact, about, products etc. Well
the ‘short-cut’ to doing this (and is what
most web designers do), is firstly by saving the first
page you then erase your text from the first page from
the area you’d like to change, and add the new
information treating it as a different page however
you keep the titles, navigation bars and footer all
intact. (It’s advisable to link up all your navigation
bars first even if you haven’t created the page
for it yet so that when you do duplicate more pages,
you don’t have to sit and edit every one).
So once you have created the new page,
remember to change the title of the page in the HTML.
i.e. change the words between the <title></title>
tags. And then finally you save the newly edited page
as a new name. Repeat this process with all your pages
until you have your entire web page set up.
NOTE: If your website has 10+ web
pages to edit, it’s best to use a web editor
that has a function that shares specific objects in
the page. Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage
are highly recognized for their ease of use in this
matter. For example: Frontpage also has a ‘page
insert’
device that allows you to insert the ‘page insert’
into the space you’d like. For instance, the
navigation bar ‘page insert’ from the page
with the actual navigation toolbar you created earlier
is placed inside. FrontPage will know to open the page
in that very spot so even if you had 200 pages with
that page insert tag, you only would have to edit just
the one
‘original’ page and that would edit all
of its inserted tags on every other page. (You can ‘insert’
as much as you want on the same page to make your editing
a breeze).
6. Once your web page is added with
your text, color, images and other devices, you then
should take a final look at the folder you created
to make sure ALL the files are in there. Also be sure
that you save your images in a sub-directory called ‘images’
so that you keep your website well organized.
7. Then using your web host (Yes you
need a web host in order to publish your web site on
the net. If you don’t have one there’s
hundreds on the net you can choose from or if you just
want to quickly test your page out, you can either
preview it in your web editor or browser, or use your
internet providers free web space they would have given
you, to preview how it would look on the live on the
internet.
8. Always be sure to back up all of
your work. The more places that you back up your files,
the better!
9. And that’s about it. Congratulations!
You now know how to create your very own website!
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