Congratulations on choosing Yahoo! SiteBuilder to create and update your web site! This brief guide will help you familiarize yourself with SiteBuilder before you get started. For more information, see our site building overview.

About SiteBuilder

Designed for beginners but with the features and flexibility that intermediate to advanced users want, Yahoo! SiteBuilder lets you control every element of your site. Like all of our site building tools, SiteBuilder requires no programming skills.

SiteBuilder is a free tool, so we recommend downloading it now and experimenting! If you don't like it, you can always switch to another tool later or even work with your own site building software. Please remember, however, that you'll need a Web Hosting or Merchant Solutions account to publish your site to the Web. Learn how to sign up.

Your Workspace

When you open SiteBuilder, you'll notice that your screen is divided into several distinct areas. Becoming familiar with these features will make building your site even easier.

Between each pane you'll find a small arrow you can use to customize your workspace. You can click the arrow once to minimize a pane you rarely use, then click it again to expand it again when you're ready to use those features.

Use arrows like this one to expand or minimize a SiteBuilder pane.

To move the borders of a pane, click the arrow and, holding down your mouse, drag the border to the location you prefer.

a. menu bar: Click the menus at the top of your screen contain to see all of the commands and tools you'll need to work with your site.

b. toolbar: Just below the menu bar, the toolbar contains small buttons that represent shortcuts to the most-used menu commands. Click any button to access that feature.

c. Help and Quick Links: Head to this pane when you need help using a SiteBuilder tool or feature. The Quick Links tab includes links to some popular help topics. Click the Help tab for a full index of SiteBuilder help topics.

d. design: In the center of your screen lies the page editing area, where you will update your web pages. You can open several pages at once and move from one to the next by clicking the tabs at the top of the pane.

e. Page Effects: All of the page effects associated with the current open page, such as backgrounds and page transitions, will appear in this area.

f. Site Contents: This pane shows the organization and all images, files, and folders associated with the open site.

g. Preview: Here you can view a small preview of the currently selected web page.

Don't worry about "losing" a control panel area: To expand every pane in the control panel, click the View menu, then choose Show All Panes.

How SiteBuilder Works

Unlike the browser-based PageBuilder, for example, SiteBuilder is an offline tool, which means you'll download and install the software on your own computer. Learn more.

Because SiteBuilder runs on your own computer, you can use it even when you're not connected to the Internet: You'll need to connect and sign in to your Yahoo! account only when you're ready to make your site public, or publish.

Just as you might open a word-processing program to write a letter, you'll open SiteBuilder whenever you want to update your site. And just as you might save copies of your letters and other documents in folders on your computer, you'll save your web site files (such as your pages and images) in a special SiteBuilder folder.

When you begin your site, we'll ask you to name and choose a location for the folder that will store your files (we recommend choosing the default suggestion). When you work on your site, you'll save drafts of your pages on your computer. Then, when you're ready to publish, we'll show you how to copy your work to your Web Hosting account, making your site available to visitors on the Web.

For additional help with this topic and more, please visit our dynamic SiteBuilder tutorials (the tutorials require Flash and an Internet connection).

Next Steps: Start Building!

SiteBuilder's Site Creation Wizard will get you started building your site. Launch the wizard anytime by clicking the "Create a New Site" link in the SiteBuilder Help pane.

We understand that building a site can seem intimidating, so we encourage you to have fun: Take some time to experiment with SiteBuilder's features, try out the Site Creation Wizard a few times, and explore SiteBuilder Help.

See an overview of the site building process or start creating your site now!