Do you have your own Website? Photo Restoration Hints Part Seven

OK...most people I talk to don't really understand how a website works.  It's pretty simple, really if you don't get lost in the gobbledeegook....is that the right spelling?

You need a URL(aka Universal Resource Locator)...that's the http://www.coolnamehere.com part.  The cool name here part is most commonly called a domain name.

You go to someone like godaddy.com and check to see if your domain name has already been chosen by some other nice person.  If not, you can "buy" (actually rent it)  the name and have godaddy.com "host your site" on their server/computer.

Once you get that done, you can buy or use a lot of programs that allow you to "post" your content to your individual website space in cyberspace using an ftp (file transfer protocol)  program that is either provided by the hosting website or something like I use, cuteftp.com   I have used cute ftp for years and I like it because it is easy to set up and work with.  You establish a password and get the set up instructions from the hosting provider...they can walk you through it so you don't have to be all geeked up to do this.

I use Microsoft Publisher for my website .... any wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) program is just great.  I can use html (hyper text markup language) for programming my page when I get into a situation that I need to manually fix a page for some reason.  However, I find I need to do that less and less as time goes on.

So, try out Microsoft Publisher and see if you like doing it all by yourself.  Or, use the software that comes free from the hosting provider or go to a place like wix.com and make a page.  They have gorgeous templates...but you have to have a really long website name because you are not using your own domain name.  If you link from your signature on emails, that isn't a problem.  Learning how to use links on your blog, email signature, or on facebook really helps you avoid the problem of a long long long website name that nobody will bother to go to.  Check out my simple but easy to update page here at www.rltphotoartist.com or photorestoration4u.com.

Since the webcrawlers like changing content, make sure you update often and use alt descriptors on pictures.  AVOID putting text content into .jpg files.  The webcrawlers like Google cannot read jpegs.  They can read meta tags, alt descriptions, and text boxes.  Flash gives you a really pretty page, but your friends and customers with iPads can't see all the magic.  Check your page on all types of devices...I have yet to buy a mobi site, but I will probably do so in the future. Next week, I think I will get back to photo restoration...I have been going off into the blue on this stuff....