Designing your Web Pages

Once you have secured your domain name and signed up to a hosting service, the next step is to build the website it self. A Website is merely a collection of web pages brought together by a home page. This simple website could indeed consist of just one home page.

There are four ways to create a website.

• The first and easiest way is to use a web-based wizard. These wizards guide you through the process of creating your website, allowing you to build your site using a selection of templates. You can then tailor these templates choosing color themes and type styles. Once done, the wizard will publish your site to the web for you.
• The second way is to build your site is using a template - a third-party designed set of pages that can be changed to reflect your needs. Design templates are created by web designers who have a lot of experience designing sites. These templates look and feel professional and give you a big head-start over something you would produce as a beginner. Website design templates can be found in various formats. Some can be images for use in packages like Flash, others are HTML-based files editable with HTML editors like Dreamweaver, GoLive, FrontPage etc.
• The third way is to an HTML editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver.
HTML editors vary in features and how you build your site. Some how your site as it will look on the internet and some use a combination of code and images to produce y our site. Using an HTML editing package will give you greater flexibility than the previous methods so you can make your site look unique, however you have to be a good web designer to make it look good and make it usable.
• Finally, you can hand-code your HTML in a text editor like Notepad: here you type in the HTML code your self. Nobody really uses this method these days however this way of creating pages gives you the most control over your web pages. Design your home page first as the design decisions you make for your home page can be cascaded down to all the pages on your Website. Choosing logos, colors and layouts are important to the look and style of the website. However, never let looks overtake your mission or the functionally of your site. In a fight between design and usability, usability should always win. Unless you are building the site yourself, try to split design and programming. You will end up with better looking pages if you design the layouts of your web pages first and then use programming to implement designs rather than being constrained by we editor.

Before you go live with your site set up a beta site and test it again. When you do go live, avoid publishing your site on a Friday, as if any gremlins pop up then fixing them and getting tech support over the weekend can be a pain.