The Daily Orange

&mpJob applicants often don't realize how important having a Web site is as part of their resume and portfolio. To put it in perspective, think of any company you'd like to work for. Do they have a Web site? Will your interviewer have a computer? That's what I thought.

It's sounds cliche, but everything is moving online, and to stand out as an applicant, you need to move to the Web as well.

A Web site is essential - especially in visual, interactive, multimedia or creativity-based fields. Sending business copies of your work, or even a CD of the work, simply doesn't compare to being accessible 24/7.

CDs get scratched or broken in the mail. Prints, resumes and cover letters can get lost, ripped or have coffee spilled on them. Barring a few freak occurrences, your Web site can be accessible come hell or high-water.

But before I begin, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Complete all the traditional steps: resume, cover letter and so on. But the Web site can put you over the top.

Creating your online home isn't hard, especially because Syracuse University provides a place to host your site for all current students. If you have the money to spend, you can buy your domain name (AKA the Web site's address) - GoDaddy.com being the most respectable place to get a domain name. Paying for your own Web site host goes from $50 a year and up.

Here's a quick-and-dirty guide to getting your site online:

1: Set up your account on syr.edu: go to http://its.syr.edu/web/ and follow the instructions on the side panel to activate your account. Don't be intimidated by the command-line procedures! You can copy and paste every command that you need to input. Only follow the first four parts of the syr.edu procedure. The rest is outdated. There are simpler ways to do it which we'll get to soon.

*TIP* A domain name is not a host. Hosting is where your files are stored online; a domain name will refer visitors to where you are hosted. Make sure you realize what you're buying if you purchase anything online.

2: Now you need content. If you know HTML, you're in the clear, and most likely you only needed step one of this guide. But if you're still reading this, you need a little more help. No problem. If you're on a Mac, you can use iWeb. The interface is self-explanatory. Though there isn't as much control over the design as there is with some other programs, it's an easy way to get something online. If you're on a Windows computer, there are lots of free programs available. Web Weaver is a common solution. There's also Dreamweaver, which works on both Mac and Windows.

3: Designing your site. Think about what you need before you design: Sketch ideas. Keep it simple and professional. Save the snippets of your life for a blog or for Facebook, not your Web site.

You need:

  ;nbsp;  A: A homepage with links to all of your important pages. Remember this is your introduction to any potential employer or client, so keep it interesting. Keep it updated with recent news and work.

*TIP* make sure your homepage is titled index.html. That is the default page of a site that a web browser will go to, so make sure it's not within another folder in your Web site folder, and name it properly so that you don't get errors when people visit you.

     B: A page for your resume.

     C: An "about me" page that should sell "you," giving a more detailed description of yourself.

     D: Samples of your work. For example, writers should have links to their stories online or include clips. Artists should include their portfolio.

     E: Don't include a contact page. Put contact info in your PDF resume so that they have to download it, or at the very least, don't actually type out your e-mail on the site - spambots can recognize email formatting and you'll start getting a ton of unwanted mail.

*TIP* As you design, keep all your documents in one folder - HTML links are relative, so if your stuff is all over the computer, you'll have to move it around and re-link everything before it goes online - unless you keep everything in one folder.

4: Test your site beforehand by opening up your homepage in Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. Make sure everything looks good, and make sure all your files are in one place. Now you need to use an FTP client to upload your work.

Or, if you went with a host besides syr.edu, you may have different options for uploading - check your account information with your hosting provider

*TIP* If you're getting an error when you try to upload, make sure you set your permissions on the public_html folder. You can do this by going to http://its.syr.edu/web/ and following the instructions.

5: Congrats, you're online! Now your page will be visible at http://web.syr.edu/~username, or you can register a domain name.

6: This last step is optional, but if you want to be found easily on Google, it's a must. Open up your index.html in a text editor. TextEdit on a Mac or Notepad on windows.

Look for a "tag" like this:

After that tag, hit enter and copy and paste, or type this in:

<meta name="description" content="Type a description here"> <meta name="keywords" content="type keywords here, separated by commas"> <meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

Replace that filler text with your own before you upload your files, and soon, you will be listed on search engines. The most important thing is to include all variations of your name in the keywords because that is what people will likely search for when trying to get to your Web site. Keywords are separated by commas, but you can have multiple words as a keyword - or your name example, it could be as follows:

<meta name="keywords" content="john smith, john, smith, jonathan smith, jonathan, j smith, johnny, johnny smith, jon smith, jon">

*TIP* Make sure you don't touch any of the other codes unless you know what you're doing! Otherwise you could make your carefully planned Web site layout go all funky.

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