Designing a simple website is a project you can handle on your own,
if you follow a few basic web design steps.
The first thing
you will need to do to get started with your web design is learn HTML (search). It's a term you've probably seen before and it stands
for Hypertext Markup Language. It is a simple formatting language that tells a browser
how to set out a web page. Do not be intimidated. HTML is not a programming language.
Understanding how HTML works will help you design a clean and fast-loading page, essential to any web design.
You can code the HTML in any text editor and save your file as an ".htm" or ".html"
extension. When you're ready to see what you have built, simply open your file in a browser.
When it comes to designing your web page a good place to start is by looking at other
sites you think look good. What is it about those sites web design that you like? Are they
easy to navigate? Is the layout clean? Drawing out your own web design on paper and
then using a flow chart or diagram of your various pages can be a useful approach to take.
Remember that the graphics that you use on you website will influence the quality
of your site. If your graphics look poor the site will be unattractive to visitors.
The size of your graphics will matter too. The download time of your site will be
directly impacted by the size of graphics you use. A good web design will keep pages under 20Kb.
There are many online resources
that can help you master how to create effective website graphics.
Once you have completed designing your page it will be time to launch your site.
To do this you will need to select a hosting company.
Of course if designing your website is not a project you want to undertake yourself, spend some time researching the multitude of web design companies that are out there who will gladly handle the task for you.
