How to Construct a Homepage
-
Write a "Dear Birth Parent" letter
-
personal information for each family member
-
hobbies, career info, personality
-
lifestyle, home, location
-
pets, vacations, extended family
-
parenting philosophy
-
adoption philosophy (level of openness, whether you will tell your children)
-
type of life you will provide for the child
-
provide a phone number and an e-mail address
-
Find photos of yourself, home, pets, extended family
-
try to find light backgrounds if possible
-
use a digital camera, OR scan the photos (invest in a scanner, or go to
Kinkos), OR have your photos developed and saved on a CD or floppy disk
-
store them in JPEG format (.jpg) - Adobe Photoshop allows you to do this
easily
-
make sure the files aren't too big, or they'll take too long to load (~40K
per photo is ok if you have 1 or 2 photos per page)
-
Decide general layout/navigation
-
single page with all info and photos
-
multiple pages for different topics
-
will you use frames or not? (not all machines can read frames)
-
Get a quick guide to HTML
-
Use an HTML editor or other Web design/publication tool
-
Netscape Composer (part of Netscape)
- this is free!
-
Web publication software such as MS Front Page or FrontPage Express, Adobe
Page Mill, or Symantec Visual Page
-
Newer versions of popular Word Processing programs
-
See article from The Washington Post (Sunday, January 28, 2001, p. H6)
"Tools
for Web Work" for more ideas.
-
Make sure the text and photos are clear, readable
-
Add navigation (links to your other pages); make sure each page has a link
back to the main page; you'll need to know where the page is being hosted
(see Publishing below)
-
Add meta tags (keywords which will be used by search engines)
-
Make you page prettier
-
Change the Text Color (including link text and followed link text)
-
Add some graphics (use JPEG or GIF files)
-
Add a Background
-
search various graphics sites (conduct a search on any search engine for
free clipart)
-
if you're windows-based, use Windows backgrounds
-
clipart
-
free graphics sites (usually require you to copy the files to your hard
drive, and add a link to their site) -- buttons, lines, bullets, backgrounds,
background sets, graphic figures
-
use a software package to create your own graphics
-
Some free graphics sites:
-
Add a counter. Download a free counter or HTML code. Try http://www.TheCounter.com/.
Some counters can be hidden on your page; some allow you to get statistical
information too.
-
Test your Page!
-
Preview your page using your internet browser (you can do this without
being connected)
-
Ensure the links are all correct and that all the text and graphics shows
up on each page
-
Make any needed corrections
How to Publish your Page
-
If hosting the page using your ISP:
-
upload all the files (html, jpeg, gif, etc.) to your own space using FTP
or similar program (Netscape Composer has an option to Publish which will
upload all graphics files used within a page at once)
-
Test your page! Ensure the navigation works correctly and
that everything looks correct!
-
If an internet adoption service is going to host it, send them all the
files
Tell Everyone About Your Site!
-
If you have adoption business cards, put your e-mail address and web page
URL on them
-
Send e-mail to all your friends/contacts with your adoption web page URL.
Ask for their help in getting the word out.
-
If you send a letter to your friends and family asking them to help you
find birth parents, include your e-mail address and web page URL in the
letter
DON'T get too frustrated, it takes some time but the sense of accomplishment
is great! Remember, once you've adopted it's good to have this knowledge
so you can create your family homepage with the baby's pictures for all
your friends and relatives to see.
|
