Let's start with some of the basic things you need to consider and some of the decisions that you need to make regarding creating and maintaining a presence on the WWW.
What is the purpose of my page/site?
Personally, I have experience with and can assist you in doing the first three. Especially if the majority of the information is text based. I can include graphics, and have a good sense of proportion and balance for arranging things, but my forte is words.
If you require more of a commercial focus, my recommendation is that you find a company that specializes in providing such services and already has multiple clients. They should be able to provide a list of the sites they have done for you to check out. Visit those sites and make sure that the company has done the kinds of things you are looking for. If you want some help in generating your requirements or in evaluating the work these companies are doing or proposing to do, I would be happy to serve as a consultant working on your behalf.
For presenting information, there are a number of Basic HTML Options.
How much information do I have to present and how often is this information likely to change?
This is important because it determines what hosting options are available to you. The more information that you have, the more likely you will need an account with a local service provider on which to maintain your WWW accessible information.
The more often your information will change, the more you should consider having an account with a local service provider and either making basic modifications yourself or hiring someone to do so for you. These basic changes are relatively simple to do. They don't even require degreed people in many cases. In fact, much of WWW page maintenance is just glorified word processing, with some useful tricks here and there, and a few basic SW programs to learn to enable you to manage the files at your page/site.
Typically, the cost for adding a 5Meg shell account to an existing PPP account is around $7/month with an additional $1/Meg per month for over 5 Meg. If you stay away from heavy use of graphics, that is a lot of space for relatively little cost. As an example, everything at my Beyond Imagination site fits within about 12 Meg.
How familiar with computers am I, and do I want to create/maintain my own pages/site?
This is important because it determines what maintenance options are available to you. The less familiar and comfortable you are with computers, the more likely you are going to need someone else to host your information and maintain it for you .
If you've had experience with word processing, especially in the days of hide codes/reveal codes, then HTML is just a variation of something you are already familiar. Unfortunately, HTML editors are fairly crude. Word processors have come a long way in 5 years. Their HTML cousins will as well. In the meantime, it is amazing how much you can do using cut and paste in text editors like Notepad in Windows and Simple Text on the Mac.
When there is a lot of information already in a Word Processor format, other options are available for rapid conversion to HTML files. These are too numerous and detailed to address here. Also, they vary greatly depending on the types of files and in some cases the kinds of things included in the files.
Regarding maintaining your own pages, this may be driven by cost (e.g. can't afford to have someone do it for me) or time (e.g. don't have the time to do it myself) or desire/interest (e.g. don't want to do those kinds of things). You know yourself and your situation best. Regardless of the constraints, if it is worth doing, there must be a way to get it done! I'm very flexible. I'm sure we can find a working relationship that meets your needs effectively.
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Beyond Imagination
© 1996, Wayne Hartman [last modified: 13 Jun 96]