A Helpful Guide by: Jared Munson

Part 0: The Introduction

How many of you folks out in the Simpsons community want to make their own Simpsons website? Hmm, I count about 20 of you. Well, that is enough. In this handy dandy guide I will give you the help to start out your own website. Parts 1, 3, and 5 will be at both HGS and JDI. Part 2 will be exclusively at HGS while Part 4 to JDI. After about 6 weeks, after they are all up on their own sites, all 5 will be available at each site. So enjoy!

Part I: The Basics

To have a good Simpsons website you need to know a few things first. You want no cloud backgrounds, bad hosts (EX. Tripod or GeoCities), ads, plagiarism, stolen content, or sites that only offer things already available on other sites.

For example, let’s say website A had an episode guide, reviews, and the family bios. And then let’s say that website B just opened with the exact same stuff, just written by different people. Which site do you think the WWW audience would visit more? They’d pick neither. They’d pick website C which offers and episode guide, reviews, family bios, and editorials. People would visit site C more because they offer something different.

If website A was to have the exact same content, stolen and all, as website B, what do you think would happen? People would start to question which site made which content. That is why when you decide to make a website all your material is different and fresh. Maybe add a copyright at the bottom of pages.

You also want to know HTML, PHP, and FTP before you start making a website. If you use the ‘Site Builder’ thing it just gives you a preset template and all you have to do is add stuff. Blah! No one will want to visit that site. Take some time to make a design or ask someone to do it for you. Take some HTML tutorials, or again, ask for help.

If you need a title, don’t use one already taken. Just think of stuff pertaining to the Simpsons. Stuff like Evergreen Terrace, Just D’OH IT, and others like those have been taken for years. If you want a good name you’re thinking of, hurry up and take it before someone else does. Don’t choose something dumb like The Simpsons Site of Fun or something lame like that, not many people will think the name isn’t catchy and not go to it.

Coming Next Week...

In Part 2 I’ll explain what it takes to have a good design. It will have a list of design yes’s and design no no’s. Look for it coming soon to a website near you!