Creating a Website: 3

After working out how to do the technical stuff, comes the fun (and really important!) stuff. The Content. Unless you've got something worth saying, don't bother. There's enough garbage in regular print and broadcast media, without adding to it on the Web. Well, let's face it, there's even more garbage on the Web already, so maybe a bit more won't matter so much.

Seriously, though. People will only visit your site, and it will give you much more satisfaction, if it's worth visiting. Which means, if you have something worth saying, if you say it interestingly, if there's some reason for people to visit and to come back. The Web is BIG. And that means it's not all that likely that anyone will ever find your two-pennyworth, or even if they do, that they will read it or want to call in again. So, have something interesting to say, and say it well, wittily, with passion.

One of the sad things about the Web is the great amount of glitz and bells and whistles, which is all very fine, but just looks as if people are showing off, doing it just because they can, rather than to provide useful and interesting stuff that adds value to people's surf time.

Next, how do you produce a web page anyway?

I'm one of those people who recommend that the best way, is to learn a bit of HTML, (HyperText Markup Language), the special style of adding 'tags' to a text file so that it can be read the way the author intended, by a web browser like Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, or (God forbid!) Internet Explorer. If you want to know what this actually looks like, click on the 'View' part of your Menu bar, and go to 'View Document Source' or similar. Learning a bit about this really will help, and the best book I found to start with was Rob Young's Introducing Web Design. One of the great things about the book is the CD with examples and trial versions of some of the software you'll need, including FTP programs. Some of it may be a bit out of date by now, but it probably still works (though who can tell, with Microsoft moving the goalposts all the time?) and in any case includes URLs of the websites where you can download more recent versions.

There are, of course, lots of places on the Web where you can find introductions to HTML, and how to get started. Dave Raggett's is a good one.

But I'll tell you the truth. My very first attempt at writing for the Web, was not in HTML. It was with Lotus WordPro: I set up the page with text and pictures, like any piece of desktop publishing, and then used the 'Export as HTML' option from the File menu. This worked OK (-ish) but often does something rather odd to your page when it exports it. You get more control if you learn some HTML, and then edit it with a plain text editor like Notepad or EditPad.

You can also use specially designed HTML editors like those I've already mentioned:

• HTML Kit from Chami, for Windows
• Quanta Plus, for Linux

These work with a graphical interface, and add the tags for you when you click on the menu bar. Beats having to learn them all straight away!

Enough to get you started? There is, naturally, much more to learn and I'm still very much learning. But who would have it any other way? Like I heard someone say once, of somebody: "Lifelong learning is her idea of a good time." "I like the sound of that woman," I thought to myself. And when I met her, I was right: she was lovely.