TM 601 - Building a Club Web Site
WEB 101
| HTML | |||
| Hypertext Markup Language. A "text" file that gets "marked up" with simple codes that allows browsers to add special formatting and allow for "hypertext," i.e., clicking on a link brings one to another point in the document or in another web site. Actually, HTML is a piece of cake that can be learned in a few hours. No kidding. Don't be intimidated by thinking it's a fancy computer language. It's not. People teach HTML that may charge a $125 class fee, but you go right ahead and take a few hours to interactively learn HTML for free! | |||
| Tutorial Sites | |||
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Interactive Tutorial for Beginners Writing HTML - A Tutorial Find A Tutorial through Google |
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| Style & Steal | |||
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Use the Toastmasters web ring to look at other Toastmaster sites for ideas. |
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| Use the TM Ring for ideas and HTML formatting. | |||
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Or Look around District 53 for fellow club sites for ideas. |
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| District 53 Club Alignment for ideas & HTML formatting. | |||
| HTML Editor Programs | |||
| An HTML editor is a software application for creating web pages. Although the HTML code of a web page can be written with any text editor, HTML editing software offers convenience and functionality. For example, most HTML editors have features for creating Cascading Style Sheets and templates. | |||
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Good HTML Editor freeware programs at CNET. Get your HTML software at CNET Download.Com Enter the program name in Search, to find the product. |
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| - Nvu | |
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| - HTML Kit 1.0 | |
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| - PageBreeze Free HTML Editor | |
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| - HTML Editor | |
| FTP Programs | |||
| FTP File Transfer Protocol. FTP allows you to copy or send files such as HTML-documents, graphic images, spreadsheets, in fact any file, from one computer to another via the Internet. | |||
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Good FTP freeware programs at CNET. Get your FTP software at CNET Download.Com Enter the program name in Search, to find the product. |
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| - FileZilla |  |
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| - SmartFTP | |
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| - AceFTP |  |
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| - DeluxeFTP | |
| FreeToastHost | |||
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Free Webhosting for Toastmasters Clubs. Providing your club is listed on Toastmasters.org, there
is no-cost for this service! FreeToastHost is a webhosting company specifically for local Toastmasters clubs anywhere in the world. Each website comes with easy-to-use web-based software ideal for any Toastmasters club. FreeToastHost.org is a result of designing the perfect club website for our own local chapter. Until now, clubs had to settle for other free hosting solutions filled with ads which lacked the needed tools to do the job. To run a successful club, one must be able to attract new members and retain current members. FreeToastHost.org provides the tools needed to do just that. |
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Read about and/or sign up for freetoasthost.org The default club URL will be [clubname].freetoasthost.org. However, you can choose to purchase your own domain name then have that used by freetoasthost and point it to your site. |
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| See some real ToastHost Club Sites.... | |||
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- henryhudson.freetoasthost.org - hartford.freetoasthost.org - goldengavel.freetoasthost.org - legourmet.freetoasthost.org - s2s.freetoasthost.org - sdh.freetoasthost.org |
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| easy-Speak | |||
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Free Toastmaster Automation - Which servers the purpose of a backend process to automate your clubs' webpage for the members. The easy-Speak software allows Toastmaster clubs to automate their meeting planning and to track and support members' development. It may sit behind the club's existing web-site to deliver data management for the club and, if the club has no other web presence, it may also be used as a simple portal to present the club news and promotional message. |
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Read about and/or sign up for easy-speak.org |
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| Free Web Hosting Service. (Well, almost free.) | |||
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Some do not want to be constrained by a service such as FreeToastHost.org. These people are the "geeks", or just
the free sprits. At the same time most Toastmasters can not afford the cost of a standard web hosting service. Most free
web hosting require pop-up or banner ads with your website or they may restrict what you can do with your site. Below are two services that offer a free service. There is a catch, they require a transfer fee to transfer your domain name or will charge a inflated price for registering a domain name through them. Either way you can have them host your website for around $2 a month or less. |
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Things to look for... - No Banner or Pop-up Ads - Domain Name Hosting (e.g. www.yourdomain.com) - FTP Server Access - Real Email Accounts - Email Forwards - Established Service Provider |
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Suggest: Affordable Multimedia $27.95 per year Domain Name Renewal or one time $27.95 Domain Transfer Fee. or DotEasy $25 per year Domain Name Renewal or one time $35 Domain Transfer Fee. $45 for 2 Years and $90 for 5 years. |
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| Domain Name Trick ($15.55/Year) | |||
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Sign up for a domain name with a discount registrar. Do not sign up for the discounters web service.
Sign up for 5 or more years. For example: Sign-up for myclubname.org for $42.75 and transfer to DotEasy for $35. (This will not work with Affordable Multimedia). Total cost for 5 years $77.75 or $15.55 per year. |
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Suggest to purchase a domain name: - Domains Right Now - Dynonames - Go Daddy - You may save even more w/ Go Daddy by searching for coupon codes. |
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| What to Include | |||
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- TI Logo Official Toastmaster Logos - Where you meet - When you meet - Who to contact (Person's Name, email & phone) - Directions (Mapquest/Google Maps) - Map Graphic |
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| Search Engines | ||||
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If a tree falls in the woods, is there a sound? If you build a website, will anyone find it? Try to get publicity in general circulation newspapers. Have all club members add the web site's link to their automatic email signatures. Link to other Toastmaster web sites in exchange for them linking to yours. Send an occasional short and sweet email to coworkers advertising your Toastmasters site and providing the web site link. Try to choose an easy-to-remember web site address. Finally, get listed on various Internet search engines. Search engines allow users to find web sites by searching for key words. Take advantage of "meta tags." Meta tags tell search engines what you think are the key words and site description. |
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Google |
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Google asks you to share your place on the net with them. They add and update new sites to our index each time they crawl the web. Submit your URL. They do not add all submitted URLs to their index, and cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear. |
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Add your URL to Google |
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| At some point after you add your URL to Google, check out Google Webmaster Tools, which provides you with detailed reports about your pages' visibility on Google. | ||||
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Google Webmaster Tools |
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Yahoo! |
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Yahoo! Directory |
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Directory > Social Science > Communications > Organizations > Toastmasters International > United States On the upper right of each page you will see a small link Suggest a Site. Click on Suggest a Site, then follow the directions. |
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Bing |
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Generally their web crawler, BingBot, can find most pages on the Internet. However if your site does not appear on Bing, you can send them the address. Submit your site to Bing |
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| Toastmasters | ||||
| Sample Club Info. at TI | ||||
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Toastmasters member section - (Need your personal ID & Password) and click on Login After logging in click on Club Central to be taken to the Club Central selection page. Click on your club name, (There may be more than one if you are an officer in mutiple clubs) Choose Update My Club Meeting Information item. You can then add your new URL/Domain Name in the Website box. If you need to change other information, you can do so at this time. At the bottom of the page, click on the Update button. |
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Meta tags to help the Search Engines identify your site |
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| On-Line Schedulers and other club software | |||
| Toastmasters International provides a page as a service to the members and officers of Toastmasters clubs. Toastmasters International does not endorse or license any of the software. Software available through links on the page must be available completely free of charge. | |||
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Toastmasters Club Management Software |
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| Privacy other requirements | ||||
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Toastmasters Internet Guidelines |
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The following statement should appear on you webpage(s) |
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The names "Toastmasters International", "Toastmasters" and the Toastmasters International emblem
are trademarks protected in the United States, Canada and other countries where Toastmasters Clubs exist.
Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. |
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| No Search - No Follow - Hide | ||||
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There may be times where you need to keep pages on your website secret. To make sure only those who need to know that
the page is there, instruct the search engines not to index, (include on the result list), this page. |
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How to keep a page secret. 1) Don't link to it. 2) Add the following <Meta> tag in the <Head> tag section
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| Email Scripts | ||||
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Using the same techniques that the search engines use, Spamers will scan webpages for email addresses.
The following script will prevent them from finding email addresses on your website. However, the script will
allow you to set up email links that your visitors can use to contact you or others. |
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Using the following Java script to publish email addresses will help reduce Spam. Save as "EAddr.js" in the same folder as your webpages(s)
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In the <Head> section of your HTML, add the <Script> tag...
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Where ever you want to show a secure email, add the <Script> tag...
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This would result in the following segment on a webpage
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