Creating Web Pages For Dummies®

Chapter 16. Publishing Your Web Pages

In This Chapter

• Getting Web server space

• Finding help for Web publishing

• Transferring your files to the Web server

• Putting your site to work

Publishing is the most exciting stage of creating your Web page or Web site. After all the fooling around with tools, HTML, and all your images — and after figuring out what you want to say and how you want to say it, you can finally “go live,” as they say in the business, and let the world see your creation.

Publishing on the Web can be straightforward if you're putting up a personal or topical home page that a few friends and/or coworkers see. But if you're creating a site for a business, or just creating a site that needs room to grow, publishing involves several steps.

The first step in publishing your Web page is to get Web server space. You have a lot of options here. Can you get free space or must you pay for it? Do you want your own domain name, so that your site has a simple URL (such as www.budsmith.net), or are you willing to let your site be a subdirectory in someone else's domain (such as www.geocities.com/budsmith)? You need to choose a server space provider that gives you reasonable pricing and support now plus room to grow later. Then you need to transfer your files to the site and check to see that your page really is online.

But you're not done yet. The whole purpose of getting your Web site online is for people to see it. With all the sites out there, you have to cut through the noise and get ...