Liberal Democrats Online: Using the web

Before you start creating a web site

• Creating the site
• Getting people to visit it
• Getting people to come back

Creating a web-site

How to write it

• The first way is to use a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") web-page editor like the free ones included in
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer - called 'Frontpage Express'
  • Netscape Communicator - called 'Netscape Composer'
  • or a standalone one (and much smaller download) like Web Wizard.
  Writing a page with a WYSIWYG editor is surprisingly easy: just like writing a document with a simple word processor.

• The second way is to learn HTML, the simple mark-up language used to write web-pages. If you know HTML you can write a web-page with a text editor like Windows Notepad or Wordpad. Alternatively, you can download a free editor from HTML-Kit. There are some good tutorials on HTML at So You Want to Make a web-page, http://www.gettingstarted.net and WebMonkey. You can also learn a lot by looking at the source code for other people's pages - use 'View Page Source' in your web browser to do this.

What to put in it:

• Contact details - including postal address, telephone number and email addresses.
• A link to the national site.
• A survey form on a local issue - or a 'grumble sheet'. Your service provider will probably provide information on how to do this. There's also a free web-service called Response-o-Matic that can help you to do it automatically. Alternatively, you can copy the example survey form on this site.
• An opportunity to join a local mailing list. Local voters and supporter may only visit your site once or twice, but if you have their email address on a mailing list, you will be able to get them information on a more frequent basis.
• A Mind-It button to enable people to be automatically informed when your site is updated.
• One of the new web-ready versions of the national LibDem party logo at http://www.cix.co.uk/~martyh/libdems/logo.html. Many thanks to Martin Howes and Brian Robinson for posting them up.
• A link to the LibDem webring.

  This web site is a member of the Liberal Democrat Ring. [ Prev | Skip It | Next 5 | Random | Next ] Want to join the ring? Get the info.

  
  

• A link to the local Liberal Democrats web-site directory.
• If you have the time to keep it up to date, add a news section as well. The easiest way to do this is to add your latest press releases and Focus leaflets to the site - once you've written them, all you need to do is copy them onto the web. If you find you don't have time to keep your news section up to date, then remove it, since out-of-date news is worse than no news at all.
• You can easily add an opinion poll via MisterPoll.
• If you want to provide a facility for discussion on your site, Beseen offer a free bulletin board or guest book service. You can also set up a guest book at GuestWorld.

How to publish it

Your internet service providers will almost certainly have instructions on how to do this. As an example, CIX users can find the instructions on how to upload their web-pages on CIX here.

Alternatively, If they don't and you want somewhere to host your web-pages for free, Tripod UK offers 12MB of free space.

Giving your site an easy-to-find name

If you want to give your site a slick-looking name like http://www.whereyoulive-libdems.org.uk or http://www.whereyoulive.libdems.org/ then you can:

• Contact Nigel Roberts at nigel@roberts.co.uk. He can set you up with http://www.whereyoulive.libdems.org for a donation of £24.
• Ask your ISP if they can provide a special name for your site. Many will charge extra for this, but Dircon include a web-address like http://www.whereyoulive-libdems.dircon.uk in their basic service.
• Try a commercial service such as Register.com. A name like http://www.whereyoulive-libdems.org.uk/ will cost you around £79 for two years.

Getting people to visit your site

• Print your web-address in every leaflet.
• Ask to be added to the local Liberal Democrats web-site directory.
• Add yourself to the LibDem webring.
• Make sure that the national party has your web-site and email details. The national LibDem web-site is likely to be the first places one of your potential members will look for information.
• Get yourself added to the major portals and search engines like Yahoo! UK and Excite UK. A quick way to do this is to use the free trial offer of a service like SubmitIt which will send your site details to at least 10 different search engines.
• Use the major portals and search engines to find other local sites to publicise your site on.
• Many local newspapers have websites that include a collection of local links. Yahoo! has a collection of links to UK newspapers here.
• Add yourself to the UK telephone number, website and email address databases like Scoot or the Yellow Pages. You can submit your details to Scoot online using this link. To get in the Yellow Pages, you need to call 0800 533433.

Getting people to come back to your site

Via content:

• Add a 'What's New' section to the front page of your site.
• Upload Focus Leaflets and Press Releases.
• Add a discussion forum from Beseen or some similar free service.

Via e-mail:

• Build a mailing list and send its members email whenever you update your site.
• Add a Mind-It button button.

And finally...

If there's some useful information on your site that hasn't yet been send out on a piece of paper, then (to paraphrase the late David Penhaligon) take the message, print it out and push it through some letter-boxes!