If you read this column last week, you'll know something about the Spin A Web competition for second-level students. Last Tuesday the winners were announced and a new website devoted to the competition was launched www.spinaweb.ie). The standard of the finalists' sites, which are hosted on the Spin A Web site, was so impressive that most of the page today is devoted to them.

As promised, this week I'm attempting to offer some guidance for students on how to create your own website, though I can think of no better advice than to take the time to browse through the sites of the aforementioned finalists. Then, for some really useful tips, the Spin A Web site itself has several pages of pertinent advice, with links to other resources.

The first thing to be said is that what matters is the content, not the technology. Imagine first that the Internet does not exist and plan your project as if it was going to appear on paper. Choose a topic that you are interested in and when you have an idea of what you want to do and how you want to structure it, only then think about what elements can be introduced which make use of the online medium.

These don't have to be incredibly hi-tech. The main advantages of online publishing are: space is unlimited; you can update material regularly; you can link to other sites; visitors to the site can interact with you, the publisher, and they can even contribute material to the site.

But obviously there is a technical element to creating a website. If you don't know HTML (the code which makes pages viewable in a web browser) either find someone who does (it's all about teamwork) or teach yourself. HTML is quite simple and there are plenty of sites which give free online tutorials. Check out the Spin A Web site or a directory (e.g. Yahoo!) for a list to those. The tips at www.htmlgoodies.com taught this year's winners of Spin A Web HTML and Java. One of the prime considerations has to be navigation. This refers to how easy it is for the users to find their way around. For example, when you click through to a page, is there an obvious link back to the home page and to all the sections? A site map is a wise inclusion.

Allied with navigation is design. No matter how good your material is, if it doesn't look good, visitors are not likely to stick around. And a major consideration in this regard is download time. Most users access the Internet through a modem, which can make things slow, and one of the biggest turnoffs is a site with too many large images. If you have images that are worth displaying in a large size, put them on secondary pages and give the user the option to click into them - perhaps by use of a smaller "thumbnail" image.

Plagiarism tends to present itself as a greater temptation in online projects, because it's so easy to copy and paste. Teachers need to impress upon students the importance of carefully crediting every piece of information taken from another source and seeking permission where appropriate. Permission can usually be obtained quite easily via e-mail and crediting can be done by way of a hyperlink to the source site.

Finally, the Spin A Web judges were disappointed with some of the spelling, grammar and punctuation. Don't let the informal style that has pervaded electronic communication dilute these age-old principles!

More advice on site construction will be given in next week's Q&A section in reply to questions e-mailed to webworld@irish-times.ie.