Creating Your Website Home Page


What Will Go On Your Home Page?


Your golf players will first "land" on your home page when they visit your website. What do you want them to see? Website Designer has various types of building block pages called Page Types which you can use to build each of your web pages. Depending on what you want and need on your home page, you will choose a certain Page Type to create your home page. Refer to Creating a New Web Page to help you make this decision.


The blank building block pages range from the Announcement page type--which allows for headings, subheadings and text, making it very simple to use--to the Document and Spreadsheet page types which are very flexible and can do many things. If you want to start off with something very simple to use, try the Announcement page. If you want to put photos on the home page and other non-text elements, try the Document and Spreadsheet page types. If you've used a word processor like Microsoft Word or Word Perfect, you can easily use the Document and Spreadsheet page types too.


Note: Any of your web pages can be the home page. The home page is the one at the very top of your navigation menu. See Modifying or Editing the Navigation Menu to see how to move a page up to the top to make it the home page. The home page does not need to be named "home."


Helpful Suggestions


League or Club Identity


On your home page you want prominent identifying information. At the top of the content area, you probably want to put your League, Club or Organization name.


Description


Along with your identifying information, you may want a short descriptive paragraph about your organization.


Timely Information


You may also want timely information on your home page such as event schedules, rainout announcements, etc.


Links


You may want to have some hyperlinks which participants can click on to go to other important pages on your website.


Images


You could have a photo of your golf course or league group photo.



Example #1: Create a simple home page using an Announcement page type.


  1. To add a new “Announcement Page” to your menu items list, select "Insert Menu Item (New)" from the Menu menu.



  2. From the "Insert Menu Item" window double click on "Blank - Announcement page".


  1. In the "Page Information" window type in the Page Name, "Home", and Menu Text, "Home" (It can be the same or different) and click OK. [The Page Name identifies this page when you click on the "Pages" tab above the left-side menu in Website Designer. The Menu Text is what displays in the left-side menu for this page.] You will now have a page that looks like this:



  2. To add text in your “Home” page, simply click anywhere on the right hand side and enter text on your page.  It may look something like this:




  3. Click the Preview Website button at any time to see what it looks like in your browser.


Example #2: Create your home page with photo, formatted text, table and hyperlink.


  1. To add a new “Document Page” to your menu items list, select "Insert Menu Item (New)" from the Menu menu.



  2. From the "Insert Menu Item" window, select "Blank - Document page" and click the Insert button or doubleclick on "Blank - Document page".


  1. In the "Page Information" window, type in the Page Name and Menu Text (it can be the same or different) and click OK. [The Page Name identifies this page when you click on the "Pages" tab above the left-side menu in Website Designer. The Menu Text is what displays in the left-side menu for this page.]



  2. You will now have a page that looks like this:




  3. Type "My Golf League" at the top of the blank page and highlight (select) what you have typed.

  4. Select "Character..." from the Format menu. In the "Font" window that opens up, change "Size" to 36 and "Color" to "Teal" and click OK.

  5. Click the button to center your heading. Your page will now look something like this:




  6. Move your cursor down several lines by using the down arrow on your keyboard.

  7. Select "Hyperlink" from the Insert menu. In the "Insert Hyperlink" window, type "USGA Website" in the "Text to display" box at the top and type "http://www.usga.org" in the "Web Address" box at the bottom. Click the OK button.



  8. Move your cursor down several lines by using the down arrow on your keyboard.

  9. From the Table menu select "Insert" and then "Table". In the "Table Attributes" window, type 2 rows and 6 columns.





  10. Move your cursor down several lines by using the down arrow on your keyboard.

  11. From the Insert menu select "Picture". From the "Insert Image" window select the previously saved photo or image you want to display on your website and click the Open button.





  12. Your home page will now look something like this:



  13. This example is meant to show how to insert different elements (title, link, table, photo) into a Document page type for a home page and is not intended as an example of ideal page design.


Note: Sometimes when you attempt to insert a digital photo you will receive the message that it is too large (file size in KB or MB; not the photo dimensions). In this case you will  have to reduce the file size of the photo to 150 KB or lower. Please refer to Importing or Inserting a Photo on a Web Page for further details.