Understanding common web coding protocols
The World Wide Web (WWW) is different hypertext pages linked together and can be viewed via a web browser. A Web browser is something which lets one’s computer read the hypertext language (CSS, HTML) so one is able to view the code in it’s desired format (rather than just seeing the code). The browser interprets the coding and displays it as the actual text and images.
There are three main common web coding languages, these being HTML, XHTML and CSS, which means Hypertext Markup Language, Extensive Hypertext Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets. HTML is the main coding language, used my most websites. HTML and XHTML are very similar, however XHTML is more of a sharpened version of HTML, a lot more care needs to be involved whilst coding something in XHTML because it is less forgiving. CSS is something which can be used alongside HTML and XHTML, it is placed in the ‘head’ section.
To build a basic website you need first to do an ‘html’ tag. Inside that needs to be a ‘head’ tag, then inside that goes the ‘title’ tag which is what comes up in the tab name on the browser. Any CSS codes and Javascript also go in the ‘head’ as well as metadata and the base fonts and base links. Then the ‘head’ tag is closed and the ‘body’ tag is opened, which contains the content of the website, which is seen inside the browser window. This contains everything, images, videos, texts, etc. There are also 6 header tags which are named ‘h1’ though to ‘h6’.
Tags are opened like <head>, but must be closed, like </head>. Anything between these two tags will be in the head section. Tags must be closed properly to ensure that the codes do not get mixed up, this is called ‘nesting’.
‘What You See Is What You Get’ (WYSIWYG for short) is software which does all the complicated coding for you. There are two types of WYSIWYG software, disc and cloud. Disc is where the software is on the user’s hard disc instead of on an internet server. This is ‘cloud’ style software, for example ‘Moonfruit’ or ‘Wix’. They let you design your own website online for ‘free’ however they are likely to charge for the more services you require off of them. Basically What You See Is What You Get software lets you edit your website visibly and the software does the coding for you, for example, you drag the image to where you want it, and the software writes the alignment and position code.
To publish a website, one would need to first have some server space, this is basically a place for the website to sit and be stored online instead of being on your computer’s hard drive. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is needed in order for the files to be transferred from the server to a viewer’s browser. (FTP is used at the beginning of an address before www, it looks like this ‘ftp://’) Passive FTP is where a website is able to send files but does not expect to receive any from the website user.
Search Engine Optimisation (S.E.O.) and Social Media Optimisation (S.M.O) are the things which allows your website to be found. S.E.O is content that you place in the coding which is read by the search engine ‘spiders’ so people can find your website in a search engine search. Places that the ‘spiders’ search are the meta tags, which are tags you would add to the head of your website, they are words which relate to the your website. Misspellings are also a good thing to add to the meta tags because if the people searching misspell a word, your website will still come up. Only 5 or 6 words should ideally be used in the meta tags or search engines may disregard your website as a spam site. Other places the ‘spiders’ will look is the page title, which is within the <title> tags, also the <h1> and <h2>. This is why these areas should have words relating to your website in them, to give it more of a chance of being found.
Social Media Optimisation (S.M.O.) is the use of social media websites to promote your website. Two of the most effective websites to promote on are Facebook and Twitter because they are some of the most used. Promotion works a lot better if it appears that one of your ‘friends’ has reccommended something.
Evaluation.
I am very pleased with the website I created and I think that it definitely serves the purpose that I created it for. I am so happy that I would be proud to publish it and show it to people as my main site. I think that it looks professional and although it is simple it is effective, and it’s simpleness does not pose as a disadvantage in my opinion. I designed a photography website, to act as a portfolio and display my photos, and this is exactly what my website does. Admittedly I could add different things to it, such as being able to click on the photos to view them larger, and also I could have made my ‘contact’ page a bit more interesting and attractive. My links are quite small but they are like that purposely, I do not want anything to distract the website user from the photos.
If I were to do my website again I honestly would not do anything to change it. The way I would attract people back to my website is to update it with new photos every now and then to keep it interesting.
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