Making a one hour mini site is a very easy thing to do. I once made a mini site in the back or a cab in a traffic jam. I also made one on a quick flight from Malaysia to Phuket, Thailand. Both times it was about an hour so it can be done even if you are a novice on Photoshop like me.

Here is what you need:

One quality hour of your time

Photoshop

Microsoft FrontPage

And some free mini site templates

To get started you will need to find some free mini site templates that you like. You will want to save the header and footer graphic to a folder you can remember. I use "myminisite" as a folder name but, you can use whatever you like.

You first need to change the large text in the header graphic. You can play around with different fonts and background colors as well. If the header has a background photo I do not recommend changing it at this time. It Is better to find a header you like and work with it then changing too many things on the header. It can become a lot of work to change too many items and it will show down the process.

Next you will need to change the small text in the header graphic using the text tool. There is also a hand tool in Photoshop that will allow you to move around the text to get everything the way you like it and centered in the graphic. Once you get everything the way you like it you should now save your work and your mini site header is now finished.

Working with the footer graphic is pretty much the same as the header graphic. You will want to change the text in the footer to match the header. The footer is usually a smaller graphic so you will want to use the same font style but maybe a smaller size of font. It is best to pick a font that looks good with the graphic and not worry about the size too much.

The secondary text should be a good closing to your mini site theme. I like to use this line as sort of a site summery of everything they just read summed up in about 7 words. Ehen this is finished your footer graphic should be complete and you should now save this should be also.

Both the header and footer graphic should be saved as .gif files and when you save them you can save them in the "Save for web" option of Photoshop. This option will allow you to make the graphic smaller in file size without taking away from the actual picture size. It does this by making the graphic have less pixels in the image so you do lose some quality from the original graphic. By doing this it will allow your mini site to load faster and this in important when you have along page vertically or a mini site with a lot of pictures and or graphics.

Now your header and footer are web optimized for quick loading times and it is a good time to put them back into you main web template and start your mini page template. You can easily add your web copy to your template and add your final touches and graphics. It is important to use headline fonts and strong headlines in your mini site. You want to make it so it can be easily scanned by a reader who doesn't have a lot of time to spend reading your site.

After you have made your headline strong, added bold text, underlined important text and maybe even highlighted a few things in yellow, you add your final graphics, pictures and whatever else you need to add you will now want to save your mini site and graphics to a folder for uploading. It's a good practice to check all your work in the preview tab in FrontPage to make sure you don't miss anything before you upload all your work.

If your mini site looks good and everything checked out ok it is now time to upload your work to your hosting server. I like to upload from my desktop using windows explorer. You can use a FTP program also so it is really up to you here. I like the ease of using my desktop but a FTP program can be much quicker if you are uploading large files.

After your work is published on your server it is wise to really go back and check your work and all the hyperlinks. You want to make sure you put alt text in your photos. This is also a great place to add a few extra relevant keywords to your site. You new mini site is now finished and you should still have time left over. Use mini sites today and get your new web page idea posted within the next hour.