The method we are going to use as the example, will allow you to have as many pages are you require in your website from just a couple of pages or a couple of hundred. Using this method only the centre section on each page will be different (the page content). The top, side and bottom pages are all ‘included’ automatically by PHP.

For instance, if you have a website of about 20 pages and you need to change the menu system or add a few more links, then by making use of PHP includes you can change just the one file (the included one) and then all others pages which utilise this included file will also be automatically updated. Just think of the time saved by changing the one file compared to changing 20 of them! From a designer’s point of view, it does not bear thinking about!

Back to what we were doing, the layout of our page will be like:-

Step One A good rule is to keep all files which are related to a particular website in the same folder. This prevents any dead links or linking errors which may creep in later on when the website gets quite large. This applies to all websites you create and not just this tutorial. Another good tip which is worth remembering is to keep all filenames you create for pages in lowercase.

Now we know to keep all our files in the same folder, create a folder and call it whatever you want, just remember where it is. Then open up your HTML editor and create a new page, save this page as template.php inside the folder you have just created. The extension of the page you create has to end with .php and not .html. All page extensions need to end with .php to allow PHP to parse the pages and include the includes! Type the following into the blank page in source view or if you know a little HTML, create the tables in WYSIWYG view.

Using the code above, we have created a table with two columns. We will use the first column as our navigation menu.

Step Two Now we have the actual page which will create our individual pages from, what we need now are the pages to include. So open up a new blank page in your editor and then save this blank page and call it header.php

Repeat this process for footer.php and menu.php. So now you should have 3 blank pages and the template.php page. You now have all the pages created that will form the basis of your website. Remember this is a tutorial only and you can add any colour format / style after you have got to know a bit about how to use the PHP includes in a website.

Pages you should have created are:-

• template.php (Our main page which we will be using again later)
• header.php (Our included page header)
• footer.php (Our included footer page)
• menu.php (Our included page which will have our menu links on)

Step Three Open up the header.php page and add some text or logo. For our template just add some text which says: “Welcome to PHP Include Test”.

Open up the footer.php page and add a copyright notice. The footer can be used for other purposes including more links, but all this can be added later. We will just use it for our copyright notice.

Open up the menu.php page and add the following:

Home
About Us
Contact Us

Now we are happy with how our site is progressing, it is time to open up the template.php page. You will notice this page is blank and it will remain so. We are just going to use this page as a template page to create our other pages. So with this page open in your HTML editor, save this page as index.php.

Open this new page (index.php) as this is our new main index page. Repeat this process as many times as you want creating a number of pages to correspond with your website.

Now we have the foundation and pages created, add the text to all the pages you have just created and then open up the menu.php page again. You now have the number of links and pages that you need to add to this file.

For instance, if you created 3 pages from the template.php page (index.php, about.php, contact.php) you can now add these links to the page. Anything you now add to the pages header.php, menu.php footer.php will automatically appear on every page on your website if you use the template,.php page to create extra pages.

Now, to view the pages you have created you will need to upload them to a PHP enabled web server. Nearly all hosts support this now as standard. Point your browser to the uploaded index page and you should be able to see the basic layout and pages we have just created. Have a p[lay around adding text and images so you get the full idea of what PHP Includes can do. It’s a great way to create and make a website very maintainable.

Footnote After following this tutorial, you should be able to create your own website which is very easy to maintain and consists of loads of pages with quality content for the search engines to find.

All of these products are either open source, completely frëe or have a functional frëe version.

Remotely Hosted Blogging Software
(Note: I cannot really recommend any of these from an SEO stand point since optimizing a domain you do not own or control is obviously not a good marketing plan.)

Blogger

Blogger is completely frëe and currently owns the majority of the remotely hosted user base, but not by a landslide. Bought out by Google in 1999, Blogger essentially fired up the blogging trend we see today. It is by far the easiest overall solution to use and, if you are a novice user looking to throw up some recipes or poetry, this is for you. Blogger is completely frëe and includes some great features like comments, photo blogging, and a basic community feel with user profiles. Because it is so dumbed down there are some features you may not find with Blogger that are only available through 3rd party add-ons. As a side note Blogger weblogs do quite well in the search engines and this was recently exploited with it being the first choice for sp@m blogs or splogs. A splog is a weblog used for the sole purpose of gaining inbound links or generating thousands of keyword stuffed pages with Adsense and the like. The recent Google Jagger update cleared a large portion of this up. Frëe.

Typepad

Released in 2003, Typepad is a product of Sixapart, the makers of Movable Type. It is largely based on MT but there are some major enhancements and differences. Your blog can accomodate one or more photo albums with auto thumbnail generation. You can easily add music, books, and other media to Typelists, which grab a thumbnail from Amazon and other retailers for easy displaying in your sidebar. Typepad is also a great deal more technical than Blogger so a bit of HTML know-how is recommended. On that note, editing your blog to look the way you want is also quite easy and Typepad blogs are known for being very eye-pleasing, intuitive and easy to navigate. In Sixapart’s business model, Typepad is aimed at regular home and small business users while Movable Type is targeted at largër businesses or for internal intranets. Price: Basic, $4.95 a month; Premium, $8.95 to $14.95 a month.

Xanga

These guys originated back in 1999 as a site for sharing book, music and movie reviews. Although it quickly morphed into a full blown blogging tool, Xanga still maintains the ability to run a powerful review site. Xanga pulls data from several retailers like Amazon.com including thumbnails, pricing and a cover. The software also is very usable by novices with a powerful WYSIWYG editor allowing for easy HTML editing, adding smilies, links, and other symbols. By using Blog rings it is also easy to interface with Xanga’s other 3 million users to share interests, ideas, and of course traffïc. Xanga comes in a frëe and $25 flavor.

Mentions: Blogsome, Blogster, MindSay, Multiply

Self Hosted Blogging Software

WordPress

WordPress originally began as a mod of an older open source package known as B2. WP is MT’s biggest competition and is often the bain of endless WordPress vs Movabletype style threads around the internet. Although launched just over a year or so ago WP has really taken the blogosphere by storm. And with good reason – WordPress is completely frëe under GNU licensing and is packed with many features you will not find anywhere else. It is also much easier to install and get blogging for novice users and has a very large and helpful community. WP runs on PHP/mySQL and is quite scalable judging from some of the very large and trafficked sites I see using it. It also sports utilities to import files from Movable Type, Textpattern, Greymatter, Blogger, and B2. WordPress recently upped the ante when Yahoo recently included them on their hostíng packages, in addition to MT. I have to admit I am finding myself more and more digging WP and will likely convert Profitpapers to WP as I get time (it can be a biznitch). WordPress is frëe.

Movable Type

Aside from maybe Greymatter (the original open source blogging tool), Movabletype dominated the blogging market share in 2002-2004. Released in late 2001, Perl based Movable Type by Sixapart has maintained a large portion of the blogging market share, due mainly to the fact that there is a frëe version (supporting up to 3 weblogs) and that it is incredibly powerful, intuitive and easy to customize. Template driven Movable Type also sports one of the largest communities of developers and blogging enthusiasts around, meaning lots of support, idea sharing, and of course plugins. Movable Type can be configured to dynamically generate HTML, PHP or any other kind of pages you like, meaning it is incredibly scalable, fast, and loved by spiders. It is perhaps the most well known blogging software for SEO purposes and it is what currently powers Profitpapers and several of my other projects. Moveabletype is either Frëe with 3 authors, 1 weblog, and no support or $69.95 with unlimited weblogs, authors and full support.

Textpattern

Textpattern is the brainchild of Dean Allen and was written to ease publishing of content for those not inclined to learn HTML. Like WP and MT, Textpattern runs on PHP and mySQL for easy administration, backups, and power. What really sets textpattern apart from the others is the integration of Textile. Textile is a tool for easily formatting content for those who do not know HTML. WP & MT have modules for textile as well but it is native to the Textpattern system. Another bonus of the app is its superior handling of comment sp@m due to its smaller market share. On the blogs I maintain running WP and MT, I often find myself clearing out sp@m every day, whereas on some very busy textpattern sites I receive only manual comment sp@m (not bot driven). TP is open source.

Mentions: Blosxom, LifeType, Serendipity

Community Based Blogging Software

Slash

Waaaaay back in 1997, Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda launched a website known as Chips & Dips, supplied via his student account at Hope College in Michigan. In 1999 Andover.net acquired Slashdot. Shortly after, the underlying code was released as open source software called Slash. Like Movable Type and Greymatter, Slash runs on Perl, but it also has established hooks into MySQL and a very strong track record of scaling to enormous traffïc levels. To give you an idea, the term ‘slashdotted’ originated from acquiring a link on this nöw infamous and very popular tech news website – and consequently watching your servers melt. If you have nevër messed around with Slash, you really should as it is quite a powerful platform. Slash is open source.

Scoop

Another well known Perl based community blogging software is Scoop. Scoop is the software that powers Kuro5shin, DailyKos and many other busy community weblogs. Scoop took the Slashdot idea and expanded on it, making the discussion rather than the news the focus of the application. Where Slashdot entries tend to have a link with added commentary pointing readers off the site, Scoop points to stories written by members of the community keeping the reader within your own weblog. Scoop is also well known for handling large volumes of traffïc and a large very technical community. Scoop is frëe .

Drupal

Drupal is a well known open source community blogging platform with a very large community of users and developers. Not only is Drupal frëe but it is damn powerful. Instead of Perl, which is quite hard to decode at times, even if you are a fluent coder, Drupal uses a PHP/mySQL platform. Drupal is also a very community focused application with a built-in forum, download area, and hundreds of other home brewed mods and hacks. If you are looking for a lot of functionality, give Drupal a look – the project has become quite mature. It is also much easier to use and customize than either Scoop or Slash. Drupal is also another open source project.

Mentions: LiveJournal, PHP Nuke

Tech Support -Good tech support is a big factor to be looked at when choosing a website hosting company. If your website is down or you have a critical problem, you cannot afford to wait hours or even days for help. You need immediate attention to your needs.

Bandwidth – Data transfer (bandwidth) is measured in gigabytes. Images can take up a large amount of kilobytes, and file downloads can be several megabytes in size. If your website will have a lot of downloads, you will probably need many gigabytes of transfer – 10 gigabytes should be good to start with for most sites. Be careful about exceeding bandwidth – many web hosting providers charge for every extra gigabyte of bandwidth you use. Extra bandwidth charges can add up quickly.

Control Panel – The control panel is the interface where you can administer your website functions such as uploading files, creating email accounts, checking your website hits (unique visitors are more important than hits) and statistics, adding more domains, installing scripts and making other changes to your website. The control panel that is offered by the hosting company you choose should be easy to use. Make sure you ask what control panels are offered with their hosting accounts. Control panels such as C-panel make adding scripts such as blogs, wiki’s, message forums, shopping carts, photo galleries and more a breeze. You can install these scripts in just a couple clicks. Ask prospective hosting companies if they have a demo control panel you can try before you commit to a hosting package. Most reputable website hosting companies offers a demo control panel you can try before you buy.

Disk Space – Just like your home computer has a hard drive to store files and data on, your website is stored on a server. Most small businesses will start with a small website requiring less than 50 megabytes of storage but there will be some that need more storage space. Websites that use many images or that feature videos will require a lot more disk space than text data. Most website packages offer an ample amount of space for most new website owners. Disk space can be upgraded at a later date if required.

Number of Domains Allowed Per Account – Another important factor that must be taken into account when choosing a web hosting company is the number of websites that allow you to host in a single account, some hosts allow only one domain per account while others will allow you to host limited to an unlimited number of domains or websites per one account, meaning several websites at the expense of one. Successful internet businesses usually expand beyond one domain and end up with multiple domain names. This makes targeting keyword phrases much easier. You can always upgrade your hosting account to accommodate your growth. Choosing the correct domain name for your business is also very important. Most of the good .com’s have been registered but there are some good domain names still available. Here are a few tips for choosing the right domain name for your business: -    Try to choose a .com or .net domain name -    If you use a hyphen, don’t use more than one hyphen in a domain name. -    Try to include your most important keyword phrase in your domain name for example: a flower shop in New York could use a name like: www.newyorkflowers.

Other Considerations – depending on your needs, these factors should also be looked at when choosing a web host.

-    Do you need a Linux, UNIX or Windows Server?

-    Are scripts such as shopping carts, message forums, chat rooms, wiki’s and blogs included?

-    How many MySQL databases are you allowed?

-    What type of backups are offered?

-    Does the host offer a money back guarantee?

-    What type of Email features are offered?

-    Secure Certificate options (SSL)