Town of Sheridan
How to Make a Township Website
Basic web site information - - - written by David Plunkett (715-949-1792) April 18, 2009
How web sites work:
This web page you are viewing in not "in the clouds" it's a file on a computer.
Sheridan Township does not even own a computer. The township pays a company to host the website.
My personal web pages written here in Wisconsin are hosted by BlueHost in Utah.
When you go to a web-site you are just getting a copy of a file(s) from the host's computer.
How magic is the web page?
Extremely simple. It's just a simple text file with markers.
It's even called Hyper-Text-Markup-Language (html).
Sample Web Page
<html>
<head></head>
<body>
Hello, World!
</body>
</html>
Web page in action
See the sample web page in action by clicking on this link, then use the back arrow to get back here.
Hello World
The only things in the Sheridan web site that are more complex than this are the use
of links (the click here to go there), frames (the menu on the side), a few tables and use of photos.
COST:
Name Registar: You have to pay to own a web site address. Sheridan pays to own "www.sheridantownship.org".
It's like owning a phone number. This is the "Domain Name" and costs about $10 per year.
Hosting Cost: For my personal web site I use (and recommend)
BlueHost.
When someone surfing the web chooses to go to www.sheridantownship.org
then the hosting company sends the visitor a copy of the homepage.
The visitor's web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer) translates and displays the file.
I recently paid BlueHost $168 for two years of hosting.
Special Software to write web pages: $0.00
If you have a Microsoft Windows PC you should already have Notepad and Wordpad.
These are simple utilities for editing text files.
You should avoid using MS-Word for web pages, it burdens the page with useless extras.
A very good tool for writing web pages is Kompozer, a free download at Softpedia
Kompozer for Windows
Programmer Cost: For Sheridan Township the cost is/was $0.00.
It requires little enough time that I volunteer my time.
If other townships in Dunn County, WI want help setting up their web-site
I'll help you get started for $10 a hour if you keep the site simple like the Sheridan site.
If you want on-line fill-in-the-blank forms and videos that play a greeting then you should plan on paying
$50 an hour for someone else, a very open-ended deal.
On-going monthly update cost: For Sheridan Jim Hoover volunteers entering the minutes from the board meetings.
Once you learn how, it's no more difficult than typing a letter in a word processor
(I recommend the free OpenOffice.org office suite).
In fact if you use a word processor for the town's documents
then you can create a web page from the document with just copy and paste, then upload to the host.
Bottom Line:
The minimum cost is about $90 per year for the name and hosting.
The software needed is all available free on line. Training is also available free on line.
(w3schools)
Monthly updates etc are easy to do. Create the file and upload it to the hosting computer.
Revise a menu page to give the visitor a click-here link for the new page, upload that page.
This would be a clerical cost or a trivial addition to the Clerk's work (only the Clerk would object :) ).
To copy the layout of the Sheridan site and set it up for a new township should take less than 10 hours
provided you already have photos and documents.
A new township site like Sheridan's should cost about $200 the first year, $100 a year after that.
Plus the clerk/typist cost if current employees will not do the maintenance.