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How to build your first website (with podcast)

Free, online classes, available 24/7: www.hp.com/go/learningcenter

Class overview

How to build your first website (with podcast) Websites aren't magic. Planning, designing and implementing a site for yourself, your small business, your family or your model car club is well within the capabilities of any person with a reasonable amount of computer know-how. A broad range of free and low-cost tools are available to assist the novice web publisher. This class shows you how you can let these tools do the technical work while you focus on your vision. Podcast version of this class available.
193 Ratings

Current class sessions

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What you'll learn

  • Design an effective website from scratch
  • Discover tips and tools to help you build a site you can be proud of
  • Build a website
  • Get your site published on the World Wide Web
  • Add audio, video or slide shows to your website
  • Promote the site and keep visitors coming back again and again
» Preview the first lesson

Lessons

» Lesson 1: Elements of a website
Building a website should be an enjoyable process. Getting organized first will help. In this lesson, you'll learn what you need to think about and plan for before you begin construction so that your site doesn't overwhelm you or become a burden in the future.
Lesson 2: Web design basics
You don't have to be a graphic design expert to build a site you can be proud of. Web designers have learned a lot over the years that you can apply to your own site design. Learn a few tips, understand some basic rules and find out where you can go for freebies to help make your design job easy.
Lesson 3: Putting it all together
In this lesson, you'll learn the nuts and bolts of website construction. Find out which tools are available for building a website, how to work with graphics, when and how to add links to other pages and how to determine what your audience is going to see and experience.
Lesson 4: Give your website a home
The web consists of an overwhelming array of an almost infinite number of websites. So where will your site go and how will you get to it? In this lesson, learn the ins and outs of publishing your site on the web, including how to find a service provider and how to choose a web address.
Lesson 5: Jazz up your website with multimedia
Often a simple text- and image-based website is all you need. However, there are instances when adding multimedia elements—movies, presentations or music—is appropriate. In this lesson, you'll determine if your site needs these elements and how to add them.
Lesson 6: Promote your website
Now that your site is posted on the web, how do you let people know about it? In this lesson, you'll learn what you can do to make your site more visible, how to make sure your site can be found easily by web surfers and how to keep visitors coming back for more.

Instructor

Virginia O'Connor
Instructor
» Virginia O'Connor
56 Ratings

Virginia O'Connor knows that designing and building web pages for websites is not rocket science. An experienced technical writer, she creates web pages primarily for intranet and internal software product usage. She knows what it takes to create compelling, intriguing and useful web pages for personal websites, as well as for business websites and intranets.

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»  Lesson 3 - what should you know about templates?
»  Lesson 3
»  Lesson 6 - promoting your site with metatags
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Class reviews

Nov 2, 2009
(Edited about 4 days ago)

Lesson 1

This is a very good introductory lesson stressing the importance of preplanning. When I did the mission statment it helped me to focus on what the site was about. Looking at other web sites and site maps was an interesting assignment as the varyation was very noticable.
Thanks I hope I can learn HTML and CSS in future lessons. Rusty72

Oct 31, 2009

How to build your first website (with podcast)

I have really learn't so many things within this short time.

Oct 27, 2009

Excellent for Beginners

Thanks to Instructor Virginia O'Connor I am learning quite a bit for a first time Web Designer. I would also like to thank HP for all the Classes that they offer. Thanks again

Oct 19, 2009

How to Build Your First Website

Well, I finished the class. It was a lot of work because I was building my actual Website, MusicandKeys.com After this class I am determined to get my Website up and running. I mean making an income from th internet. I'm already doing consultant work on the Web, so I'll make this Website work for me too. Thanks to Virginia and the other students for the information I've received.

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