Welcome to  EFL ONLINE in association with 

Diploma in Teaching English Online

Online Workshop Six

 Setting up a web site

At first glance setting up a web site seems to be an enormous task but as with most things, once you begin to get going it will all fall into place.

What you need:

• A Domain Name – such as www.somethingwebsite.com
• Web Host – this is where you ‘park’ your site. A web host will give you space on the world wide web so that anyone can access your site.
• An Editing Programme – this is the programme you use to write in the content of your site. It can be as simple as notepad or as complex as dreamweaver.

The easiest way is to let someone else do it all for you so that you can concentrate on your business and customers. That is why EFL ONLINE offers you the opportunity to leave all the hard work to us and let you concentrate on your teaching. With Package C, we will provide you with a ready-made web site, domain name and hosting. We will even submit your web site to all major search engines for free! You just need to tell us what you would like as your content. Please click here to view a sample web site. You could have the same within a few days!!

The most important aspect of any web site is content and clarity. Is your web site easy to navigate and can your viewers find the information they are looking for easily?

You have probably visited some sites yourself while surfing the net and been turned off by the layout or difficulty in seeking out information.

Task - Website Survey

Go to these sites and make notes about what was good/not so good

http://www.thegoldendogs.com/

http://www.fanciers.com/

http://www.visitliverpool.com/

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Home.htm

http://www.bt.com/index.jsp

What do you find annoying about websites?

Here are a few things that seem to be common likes and dislikes:

Domain Name

When choosing a domain name, think about this from the customer’s point of view and don’t let your ego get in the way!! Your own name may have a lot of association and meaning for you and your family but not for anyone else. There are lots of schools named ‘John’s School of English’ or similar but is it really what your student wants on his/her certificate? Don’t forget that your domain name does not have to be the same as the name of your school. For example The London Teacher Training College domain is www.teachenglish.co.uk so the domain reflects the activity rather than the Institution and helps to say what we do.

The domain should not have hyphens in them as people rarely remember them and they end up going to a competitor who has the same domain name without the hyphen. Neither should it be too long. It is hard to keep typing phrases such as

www.iwouldliketolearnEnglishonlineplease.co.uk

There are many, many companies which will offer to search to see if your domain name is free. The registration companies keep records of what is being searched for and you may inadvertently be giving other people ideas of what names are becoming popular and they may possibly buy them before you have the chance to make up your mind. A better method of seeing if your domain name is still free is simply to put it up in your browser bar and see if it is already taken.

e.g.

So now you know it is free you can purchase it. By doing it this way, you will also find out what web sites with a similar name are offering.

(By the way, www.learneflonline.co.uk now belongs to us and is available with Package C !)

Web Hosting

Building your site

So now you have your name and a place to ‘park’ your site. Next comes the hard part – build your site and decide on its contents.

You will need to have the software to build the site or one of the many free services available e.g.,

1. First draw up a list of topics and elements you would like to include on your pages.

For example, most web sites will have as standard a home page, about us, an FAQ (frequently asked questions) page, fees, products, etc, etc.

It is tempting to try and put all the information on the home or index page of your web site as this is the first page anyone will see. However, resist this as most people find it overwhelming and won’t read most of it. In our experience, most visitors will only read in small chunks of text, and a ‘text bound page will not get looked at. You will then find yourself being emailed with lots of questions that ask for answers already on your site and you will waste a lot of time answering them!

2. Decide on the effect you would like to have on any visitors. What kind of theme do you want? What kind of impression do you want to make? Should it be dark or light colours? Will the text show up on the background? Do you want to reach people everywhere in the world and will they need a very fast connection to view your site? For example, if you use flash (moving images) will they be able to view this if they are in countries where connections are slow and difficult?

Do you need to have areas of your site which are protected? E.g., a resources centre.

3. Decide where you are going to have your web site based. There are free sites available – try:-

http://www.homestead.com/

http://geocities.yahoo.com/

http://www.tripod.lycos.com/

http://www.freewebsites.com/

http://www.bravenet.com/

Of Course, you can always leave the whole thing to EFLONLINE and let us do the hard part for you! Package C will give you everything you need to get up and running on the Internet with your own ready made Online Language School!!  

 

Task - Website Exploration

Go to one or more of these sites above and explore the possibilities yourself.