A while back I set this site up for people that were just messing around, looking for a way to publish a free site.  There are plenty of "quick and dirty" web templates out there if that's all you wish to do.  Go to http://geocities.yahoo.com/ and you can get a free quick site.  For a site that is a bit more functional that contains more than 10 pages, you need a good HTML editor.  FrontPage is still considered one of the best and easiest HTML and visual editors.  A website template is also nice to have, but it has been my experience that most templates are too restrictive in terms of number of links that can be placed, colors, fonts, etc.  My free website template is an answer to this problem.

Click on my pages webtemplate1.html and webtemplate2.html and follow the directions given below.

1. After opening each page, save the page to your computer.
2. After opening FrontPage, click on File, New, Empty Web.
3. Open each of the pages you saved.
4. Save the file webtemplate1.html as index.html on your new web. This will be your home page.
5. Save the file webtemplate2.htm as newpage.htm on your new web. This will be a temporary page that you will modify and rename.
6. For each of the links listed on index.html, replace "link" with a link of your choice named after a future page that will be part of your site.  For example, you might name a About Us and link it to the page aboutus.htm. In step 9, you would create the page aboutus.htm by saving the completed template as aboutus.htm.  Use as many links as you need.
7. For each of the links listed on newpage.htm, replace "link" with the same links as were used in webtemplate1 except for the following small differences. Instead of a "Resources" page (which may be a links page), you will have a HOME link so a person can get back to the home (index.html) page.  Also, you should link you banner on the far top left to the home page.
8. Make any changes to font size, color, or background color of both the index.html page and newpage.htm.  You can change the font color by changing the HTML code that is in each of these pages. This one change will change font in the entire page. For example, you could change <style><!--body { font-family: Verdana; color:#0066CC }--></style> to <style><!--body { font-family: Arial; color:#000000 }--></style>
    
9. Once you get all your links set up the way you want, save newpage.htm as each of the "future" pages you linked to.  Now all pages will have a uniform structure with the exception of the bottom right "unique" area. Once you have pages that correspond to each of the links you created, your site will be functional, except for one small step . . .
10. Create you content in the lower right area of each page.

OK, what I have given you is not the most elegant way of producing a site, but it is easy to work with and has the look of a site created by an advanced webmaster using dynamically served menus or frames.  Hope this works well for you.

The webtemplates of this site are free for you to use in creating a site, whether personal or commercial.  The templates are copyright protected for their value as templates.  In other words, use them to create any kind of site but do not resell or redistribute the templates. If you know somebody that needs these templates send them here!

If you could, please leave the link intact on webtemplate1.htm or provide a link back to us.

Web Hosting at This Link For $4.95 (for your own dot-com!)
For $4.95 per month, you get domain hosting at 50 GB of bandwidth per month (that's a LOT!), easy file publishing, and a bunch of other features including domain registration at no extra cost (that I understand!). There is even tech support at their help number. If you want more info about this service, click on This Link   Here is how you publish:
 

1. Sign up for Web Hosting at This Link for $4.95 per month or some comparable host - you get free domain name registration also.
    
2. You will receive an email with your user ID and password that you chose.  Also you will receive a link to the Control Panel.
    
3. Go to the Control Panel.  Log in.  Bookmark this site!
    
4. On SETTINGS, you will have to enable FRONTPAGE EXTENSIONS.
    
5. After closing the browser and reopening, you should be able to use the FrontPage "Publish" command to publish all new pages at once.
    
6. You may wish to pick up a book about FrontPage - I bought Jim Buyens "FrontPage Inside Out" and it has served as an excellent reference.  Other books are good too - check ebay and amazon.com for used books..
    

Step D - Getting People to Find Your Site

I fumbled around for several months trying to make my site find-able because I seem to like learning via the "school of hard knocks".  You can save yourself a LOT of headaches by doing the following:

1. Make sure your site is set up to be found.  WARNING!! - There are dozens, if not hundreds of companies looking to take your money by promising to "submit your site to thousands of search engines" or "top search engine rankings". Save yourself a lot of headaches and go to http://selfpromotion.com - This is a reputable site that does not charge a fee and only asks for a $10 donation if you use their legitimate submission service and you feel they deserve it. They also provide guidelines for designing a site with good search words and how to make sure your site is not considered to be "spam" by major search engines.  (Note: I am not receiving a commission for recommending selfpromotion.com)  
    

2. Get your site posted on related message boards (if it doesn't violate the rules of the board!) and join a related email group, or related online organization.   For example, if you make and sell home made wood toys, you would join a woodworkers or wood toys webring and join online woodworkers associations.  If you are promoting your ideas,  you would post your website address on related message boards and email groups, and join related associations.  Having people find your site without search engines is worth a lot!
    

3. Get your site listed in directories. http://selfpromotion.com lists these. Directory listings in http://dmoz.org and http://yahoo.com will do a lot for promoting your site!
    

4. Offer good related content and free advice and other related freebies at your site. The most traffic I receive is at my site page that gives away Free Bunk Bed Plans. Provide information! For example if you are selling wood toys, provide a page on the history of wood toys or perhaps free plans for building wood toys. If you place unrelated links or content, people generally ignore them and may even be annoyed by them.
    

5. Trade links with other related websites and have a special "links" page.  For example, if you make wood toys, you may wish to have links to children and family sites and have the linked sited provide a link back to you.  Google ranks your page better if other "quality" sites link to you.