Introductory HTML - last one

Jonny English · 08-November-03, 04:57 AM

This is my last news post for a week - Kayinstorm will be here on the next two Sundays, with Darksamurai tackling the days in between.

I shall return ... on Monday the 17th. (flip, too many syllables! I was going to do an Iron Maiden pastiche there).

Introduction to Part Five

If you've read the previous installments, you'll know that I've written this series of tutorials with someone with little to no knowledge of HTML in mind. By now, you should have the key concepts that will allow you to produce your own pages.

Let's have a quick summary of what we've covered so far:

In part one we covered: Basic page creation & layout; Text fonts, colours & sizes; Text alignment; Backgrounds; Heading styles; Rulers; The new paragraph tag; Text formatting.
In part two: Capitalisation in filenames & links; (More on)Text Formatting; Lists; Tables.
In part three: Images; hyperlinks; Reserved characters.
In part four: Frames; Forms.

META Tags

META tags are data about data - theoretically you should use them to provide a description about your site & a number of keywords, and this data will be used by search engines. However, a lot of sites don't bother with them, as search engines now tend to do their own homework.

If you do want to include META tags, they need to appear in the <HEAD> section of your main page. The two most relevant tags take the form:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT= "site description">, and
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keyword,list">
where "site description" should be replaced with a short(ish) description of your site, and "keyword,list" should be replaced with a number of keywords about your site, separated by commas.

FTP

Ok, so on to the main point of this final tutorial: transferring your pages to your ISP's server, so the rest of the world can see them.
Many ISPs require you to submit your pages via pages on their website, or use their own application. If this is the case, you haven't got an awful lot of choice about it. On the plus side, they should also have help pages on using their pages and/or application.
This is really beyond the scope of this tutorial - short of signing up for every bit of free webspace & reporting back, I can't really help you here.

On the other hand, your ISP may just have given you an FTP address, username & password, and left you to get on with it.
In this case, you are going to need some FTP software. I use Globalscape's CuteFTP as it was an excellent price at the time - free! The current "evaluation" version is 5XP, and is available for download from www.globalscape.com/downloads/cuteftp.asp.

Once you've downloaded, installed & started CuteFTP, click the 'Start Trial' button - this will fire up the "Connection Wizard".

In the wizard, the things you'll need to enter are:
a suitable name for your connection (like My Site);
the FTP address for your ISP/webspace (the example they give is ftp://ftp.ISPname.com);
your username & password;
the default local directory (e.g. C:/HTML Tutorial if you've been following the examples here from the beginning).

Once you've done all this, close the application. Connect to your ISP & restart CuteFTP. In the form it opens, select your connection name & click 'Connect'.

You'll see that the CuteFTP window is divided into three panes - the lower left & right panes should be straightforward if you've even used Windows Explorer or File Manager.

In the left pane, select the files/folders you want to upload, right click & select 'Upload'. You'll see that (eventually, if you're on dialup), the files are transferred over to your ISP, and appear in the right hand pane.

Open up your web browser & type in the URL your ISP have given you (with free webspace it'll probably be long, obscure & have a tilde in it) - your pages should now be available to the world.

Search Engine Submission

There's no reason to pay for getting your site submitted to a search engine IMO - most will find your site (eventually), or allow you to submit you site manually.
For example, Google claim that their web bots will find & list your site, but you if you want to submit it manually, check out www.google.com/addurl.html. It seems to take at 6 weeks for your site to appear in Google listings either way.

Other search engines you might want to make a submission to are: Yahoo (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/) and Altavista (http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new).

Opinion on automated listing tools varies - those trying to sell you a service will tell you it's essential and the best thing since sliced bread, others say that the search engines invariably ignore sites submitted this way.

Summary

If you've been playing along at home, your "site" has now officially reached (or even exceeded) the limits of my knowledge.
Hopefully, these tutorials have whetted your appetite & you'll go on to bigger & better things.

08-November-03, 04:57 AM		#1 (permalink)
Jonny English Etiquette & English Gentleman	Introductory HTML - last one This is my last news post for a week - Kayinstorm will be here on the next two Sundays, with Darksamurai tackling the days in between. I shall return ... on Monday the 17th. (flip, too many syllables! I was going to do an Iron Maiden pastiche there). Introduction to Part Five If you've read the previous installments, you'll know that I've written this series of tutorials with someone with little to no knowledge of HTML in mind. By now, you should have the key concepts that will allow you to produce your own pages. Let's have a quick summary of what we've covered so far: In part one we covered: Basic page creation & layout; Text fonts, colours & sizes; Text alignment; Backgrounds; Heading styles; Rulers; The new paragraph tag; Text formatting. In part two: Capitalisation in filenames & links; (More on)Text Formatting; Lists; Tables. In part three: Images; hyperlinks; Reserved characters. In part four: Frames; Forms. META Tags META tags are data about data - theoretically you should use them to provide a description about your site & a number of keywords, and this data will be used by search engines. However, a lot of sites don't bother with them, as search engines now tend to do their own homework. If you do want to include META tags, they need to appear in the <HEAD> section of your main page. The two most relevant tags take the form: <META NAME="description" CONTENT= "site description">, and <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keyword,list"> where "site description" should be replaced with a short(ish) description of your site, and "keyword,list" should be replaced with a number of keywords about your site, separated by commas. FTP Ok, so on to the main point of this final tutorial: transferring your pages to your ISP's server, so the rest of the world can see them. Many ISPs require you to submit your pages via pages on their website, or use their own application. If this is the case, you haven't got an awful lot of choice about it. On the plus side, they should also have help pages on using their pages and/or application. This is really beyond the scope of this tutorial - short of signing up for every bit of free webspace & reporting back, I can't really help you here. On the other hand, your ISP may just have given you an FTP address, username & password, and left you to get on with it. In this case, you are going to need some FTP software. I use Globalscape's CuteFTP as it was an excellent price at the time - free! The current "evaluation" version is 5XP, and is available for download from www.globalscape.com/downloads/cuteftp.asp. Once you've downloaded, installed & started CuteFTP, click the 'Start Trial' button - this will fire up the "Connection Wizard". In the wizard, the things you'll need to enter are: a suitable name for your connection (like My Site); the FTP address for your ISP/webspace (the example they give is ftp://ftp.ISPname.com); your username & password; the default local directory (e.g. C:/HTML Tutorial if you've been following the examples here from the beginning). Once you've done all this, close the application. Connect to your ISP & restart CuteFTP. In the form it opens, select your connection name & click 'Connect'. You'll see that the CuteFTP window is divided into three panes - the lower left & right panes should be straightforward if you've even used Windows Explorer or File Manager. In the left pane, select the files/folders you want to upload, right click & select 'Upload'. You'll see that (eventually, if you're on dialup), the files are transferred over to your ISP, and appear in the right hand pane. Open up your web browser & type in the URL your ISP have given you (with free webspace it'll probably be long, obscure & have a tilde in it) - your pages should now be available to the world. Search Engine Submission There's no reason to pay for getting your site submitted to a search engine IMO - most will find your site (eventually), or allow you to submit you site manually. For example, Google claim that their web bots will find & list your site, but you if you want to submit it manually, check out www.google.com/addurl.html. It seems to take at 6 weeks for your site to appear in Google listings either way. Other search engines you might want to make a submission to are: Yahoo (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/) and Altavista (http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new). Opinion on automated listing tools varies - those trying to sell you a service will tell you it's essential and the best thing since sliced bread, others say that the search engines invariably ignore sites submitted this way. Summary If you've been playing along at home, your "site" has now officially reached (or even exceeded) the limits of my knowledge. Hopefully, these tutorials have whetted your appetite & you'll go on to bigger & better things. Last edited by Jonny English; 08-November-03 at 08:11 AM.

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