Making the Ultimate Star Wars Site
A Guide in Ten Steps

By KJ

Hello future webmasters. The following list is a comprehensive ten step plan to creating the ultimate Star Wars website. I am confident that this plan will help you on your quest whether you are hoping to making the most powerful Star Wars site ever, or just a simple site trying to make its way in the universe. Enjoy!

1. Have a plan. There are many general Star Wars sites out there. If you want yours to be noticed, you have to focus on a specific area, and become an expert on it. If, say, you're a fan of Kit Fisto, start by creating a site dedicated to him and then branch out from there.

2. Map it out. Before you even think about looking for a host for your site, sketch your site out on paper. Ask yourself questions like: Do I want my navigation bar on the left, or on the top? What colors do I want to use? Oh, and speaking of colors, that lead us to our next step.

3. Avoid black background and yellow font. Black background and yellow font has been done so many times it makes me want to scream. Besides, don't you want to be original? Also make sure your colors don't clash. For example, grey font with a black background can be hard to read, and did know that red font on a blue background can give some people seizures? No joke. See how compatible your links and background color will be with this handy Colorizer Tool.

4. Surf around online for a host. There are a ton of free hosting sites out there. Honestly, I don't know much about free hosting. The only free web hosting service I've dealt with is Geocities. It worked out pretty well for me, although their popups can be annoying. Type "free website" into Google and see what you come up with. Shop around a little till you find a host that suits your needs.

5. Brush up on your HTML. If you don't know HTML by this point, now is the time to learn it. Webmonkey is a good resource to help you learn or brush up on your HTML. Their HTML Cheatsheet is especially helpful.

6. Got forth and create. Begin the actual construction of your site. Refer to the sketch you made earlier, and tweak your original design and layout as necessary.

7. Avoid frames. If you use frames guests will not be able to bookmark or link to specific pages on your site. When you or someone else wants to print out part of your site, frames will screw that up too. If you feel that you absolutely must have frames, be sure to create a no frames version of your site for the reasons previously stated.

8. Advertise, advertise, advertise. Now that you have a site, it's time to get it noticed. Go to Star Wars message boards, especially the major ones like the boards on StarWars.com and TheForce.net, and post a link to your site. Make connections with other Star Wars webmasters and exchange links and banners. The more links you post and webmaster friends you make, the more exposure your site will get.

9. How's my driving? Get feedback. Check with others to make sure that your navigation is intuitive, font is legible, pages load fast enough, etc. Feedback from others can prove to be a valuable resource.

10. Expand your Empire. This one should be self explanatory. Keep building on what you have and update your site as often as you can.