Tiffmeister's Guide

Tiffmeister's Guide to Creating a Homepage!

What's Here: So, you'd like to get yourself your very own web page? You've come to the right place. Below are some great servers that will give you a homepage, plus helpful tips on acquiring other features for your page. All of it for FREE!

LinkExchange
LinkExchange Member Free Home Pages at GeoCities

Geocities - A Little Plug for My Sponsor

This page hosted by GeoCitiesGet your own Free Home Page

Here is my sponsor of my site. They really rock the web with helpful features, support and free goodies.

Free homepage site with 2 Megs of Memory
Easy On-Line Editor wither Basic or Adv.
Community set-up that allows you to belong to a neighborhood with your interests.
Helpful Support from Community Leaders
Cool programs, such as GeoGuide and GeoRewards, in which you can win points for free stuff, like AA miles. NO, I'm not kidding.
 Free email, help in listings, and feeling a part of a community.

Check out the Geocities World below. See what other people, like the CFC, are doing for their personal sites.


Other Server Services

If Geocities seems a little too much right now, like the words "I need something more simple" leaps through your mind: NEVER FEAR!
Try WBS-Worldchat Broadcasting System

WBS is a chat service that has really cool services for members, including web pages.

Free Web Page for becoming a member Easy Beginning On-Line Editor
Cool Chat Rooms with Pic URL CapabilitiesFree counter and Background Images for your page.

Links for Samples:
My Personal Bio Page
Lizzybo's Home Page

Link to WBS!!

Other Web Page Features

On-Line Services, such as AOL, Earthlink, or PacBell, will supply a webpage to their main account holders. Check with your on-line service to see if you can get a free web page from them.Often, it's included in your membership for free.

The Importance of Knowing HTML

HTML stands for Hyper-Text Mark-Up Language. It's one of the languages used to write web pages. However, editors are making it possible to not have to learn this language, or others really for that matter.
So don't sweat. The beginning level of most on-line editors will help you creat a great page.

But if you are like me, and you want to really make your page rock the web, here are some HTML tutorial links:

A Beginner's Guide to HTML

Crash Course on Writing Documents for the Web
This is a great place to type in HTML Tutorials in the Find It section. You'll find tons of articles with tips and help.

HTML is an easy language. It was written to be so. Basics of it can be learned very quickly, and you can use your web page to practice, like I did.
See How the Tiffmeister's Forum Got Started

Guestbook for Your Page

Well, this is the way to see who stopped by. Geocities addeda guestbook feature after I set up mine on a different service. You can use Geocities if you get a page from them, or get one from Lpage and stick it on any where you put your page up. Here's the link to my guestbook host:

This is my sponsor for my guestbook.Guestbook by LpageLink here for your guestbook FREE!
Sign My GuestBook :-)
View My Guestbook! See what your's could look like.

You can also do a search in a web directory under guestbook, and check-out what comes up.

Counters

Both WBS and Geocities supply their members with free counters. But if you already have a page, and want a counter, searching a web directory using "counters" should produce some counter services. Here is the link to one of the larger ones':
Web Counter Home Page

Graphics or "GIFs and JPEGS"

Graphics help jazz up your site. But where do you get them? The Crash Course HTML tutorial reccomends as advice..."steal, steal , steal"(Eamonn Sullivan, 1996) to learn more in any area. Most personal pages are graphics from others (borrowed or stolen, you chose the phrasing you are most comfortable with).

Since I learned by word of mouth, in chat rooms asking people, etc., I'll give you some of my trade secrets I've acquired.

The Magic of the Left Double Click

Ever wonder what the left button on your mouse was for? It's magical, I tell you. On most web pages, you left click on any image and a window appears: (assuming you use windows, and I don't know if it works for Mac. Let me know if it does)

My Secret Graphic Cache

I have gotten a lot of my graphics from WBS chat graphics directory. They are used in chatrooms, and are the perfect size for web pages too. I've already had several borrowed from my pages.

To the Secret Graphics Cache

Viewing Source

There are some services that not only tell you to steal; they give you mark-up to do it with. How else do you think I got the Geoguide and Lpage Guestbook to work? Those more complicated featrues are often in languages like Java, Perl, and soon to come, HTML2.
You put them in your page by copy and paste. This comes in handy when you see something on somebody else's page you like.

I highly recommend not copying someone's format, or exact words. Web pages are documents, and if you see this...©...it means it's copywright protected by law for one year after the given date.Be creative. You don't need exactly how someone else does it, cause you can make it better right?

Ok...you've build it, How do you get people to Come to it?

Oh, the magic word here is search engine submission. The way to get people to go to your site is to submit a listing to the big directories that list websites. Now, you can do that individually, or you can use an engine to do it.

What's an engine? Basically a site set up to help you list your site in many different directories at one time. YOu don't have to search for them, and type over and over. All of the engines have pretty easy to follow directions. If you get stuck, can always hit back.

HERE are some engines to help you get the word out!

FunTrivia.com On-Line Submissions
Here's a webmaster out there with a heart trying to make it easier for the rest of us. Real easy and fast submission to the big webpage indexes.

Submit-It!
An easy engine to get you started.

Yahoo!
One of the largest directories out there. If you want to just get the best listing first before everything else.

The Webring Organization
This is the grand daddy server that hosts all those webrings you see on other pages. Search the directory to see what rings you might fit in, and follow directions to add your site.

Award-It! This is like Submit-It, but for applying for awards. Once you think you've got your site styling, try applying for a few. Nothing like a few awards to reward you building time and effort.

Tiffmeister Directory and Rings

Yes, and I even have my own directory folks. My personal site directory called The Cyberfriend's Community helps cyberpeople get the word out about their site and support each other. Link here for more info.

Let's not forget the CyberFriend's Webring....always looking for my members to help us rock the web. If you would like to add a ring with someone who will walk you through the steps, check out this ring. We're just people like you trying to rock the web with our personal sites on our interests and ideas.

Now you've got a page, listed it...now what?

The best thing to do is go look around at other pages! Keep your eye out for stuff. Most of the time there are free goodies that are basically just being thrown at you. Free email, on-line stores...the list is getting bigger every day. The importance of websites personal or otherwise maintained is growing. And everyone is out there to help you as you help them.

Some places to look for cool freebies....