Making a simple webpage

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As we discussed in episode 6 of TRP (being published soon), we strongly recommend that physicians have some kind of presence on the internet that they have control over. The following are instructions to create the simplest website that we would recommend for physicians. You can certainly get much more complicated and expensive than this, learning how to code yourself, paying for more robust hosting, or hiring designers and coders, but before you get into that, do this first.

We've created a template that you can use and keep as is, or modify should you decide to learn some HTML/CSS or have someone else improve it for you. The basic website will look like this:

  1. Sign up for a Dropbox account.
  2. Enable the public folder.
  3. Create a new folder inside the public folder. You can name it whatever you want. I recommend "website".
  4. Download the HTML and CSS files and put them in your website folder. Right click and choose "Save file as…" or "Download linked file as…" here for the HTML and here for the CSS files.
  5. Right click to open the HTML file with a text editor like TextEdit or TextWrangler. You won't be able to just double click to open the file as this will open the file in the web browser.
  6. Change any information currently there to match your own. Make sure you don't change any of the source code unless you know what you're doing!
  7. Right click on the file index_TRP.html and select "Copy public link".
  8. Send that link to someone else and make sure they can see your website.

You now have a functioning website, but the url is not very rememberable or pretty. You'll now need to register your name as a domain. Go to any domain registrar and buy/rent your domain. yourfirstnameyourlastnamemd.com is a good option. There are many registrars. I recommend and use Hover because they are easy to use, very helpful should you need it, and relatively inexpensive. Currently it is $15 a year for a domain. Use the code DANSENTME for 10% off. The rest of these instructions will be for Hover, but the domain registrar you choose should have instructions for doing the same thing in the help section of their website.

  1. First, register your domain.
  2. Go to the main/home screen.
  3. Click on the link to your domain. You'll see I have 4. You will likely have only one.
  4. Click on the edit button in the line for "Forward this Domain".
  5. Paste the long, public Dropbox link into that field.
  6. Enter a page title, description, and keywords.
  7. Click the box to enable stealth redirection.
  8. Go back to the main page to save.
  9. It may take a few minutes to work, but then type your new domain name into your web browser. Your new webpage should appear.

Hopefully, at some point, I'll make several different templates to choose from.

If you have trouble, contact me and I'll do my best to help you out.