How to Create an Online Memorial

You don't need to be a "webmaster" or an expert at HTML to create an online memorial for your loved one. There are free webpage builders that offer free graphics, music and poetry. Follow these steps to create your memorial.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Gather Items to Use in Memorial

1. Make a separate folder on your desktop for personal items, such as photos, writings and obituaries from the newspaper. To do this, right click on an empty space on your desktop and highlight the word "new." Select "folder" and name it something easy to remember, such as "Items for Mom's Memorial."
2. Scan personal photographs and name them something easy to remember like "Mom's 85th Birthday." Save to the new folder.
3. Search the Internet for inspirational items you might like to have on your webpage memorial. For graphics, right click them and highlight "save as." Name it something you will remember and save it to your new folder.
4. Find a free "guest book" online. When you have found one you like, find a blank place on their site and right click it. Click on "create shortcut," and this will put the link to your free guest book on your desktop. You must first make the website and have the web address before adding the guest book. A guest book allows visitors to add their condolences or memories to your site.
5. Upload your loved ones favorite CD or DVD of music. Save it in "my music" and name it "For Mom's Memorial." Search the Internet for free music downloads if you don't have a CD or DVD. Save it the same way as if you had a CD.
6. Send an email to family and close friends asking them to email a favorite memory of your loved one. When you've received the responses, open a new document and copy and paste the contents of those emails.
7. Edit the personal memories you have copied and pasted for spelling and fonts. Save and name the document and drag to your new folder. Name it something easy to remember like "Emails about Mom."

Find a Host

8. Find a host for your online memorial. Most Internet Service Providers (ISP's) offer a free "homepage." This homepage can be used for your memorial, but free space is limited. You may not be able to post everything you want on a free homepage from your ISP.
9. Check memorial sites for prices and length of time the memorial will be online. Some sites offer beautiful memorials, but are very expensive. The first 90 days may be at a discount, but the price may increase after that. Some sites charge only a yearly price that is very reasonable.
10. Consider your very own website. You can buy a web-hosting plan and build the website with their own free webpage builder. This can cost as little as $7.95 a month with the added benefit of online help when you need it.
11. Let someone else build your memorial. This is much more expensive and may create headaches. Because the person you've hired really doesn't know your loved one, it is difficult to relay to them the importance of seemingly small or insignificant things.

Build Your Site

12. Download a free webpage maker. The webpage makers that cost money are really no different than the free ones, and can sometimes be much more complicated. These free builders require no knowledge of HTML.
13. Take your time, move the photographs around, change the fonts or the backgrounds. Save your work frequently, and preview it to see what it will look like in a browser. This is what visitors will see.
14. Upload the online memorial to your web host after you are satisfied with it. If you find something wrong with it, go back into the correct page in your downloaded webpage maker, correct the mistake and upload the page again. Your host will give you the correct information about how to upload (publish) the online memorial.