| Who
am I? Artist/Writer/Designer |
Create
a Site: Where to Start |
Small
Site Big Presence |
Web
Site Promotion Essential-Ongoing |
| Create a Site: Where to Start | |||||
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| Develop & Design: Plan your site carefully before you start. Take the audience you are targeting, and the product or services you are offering, into full consideration. Creating the appropriate mood is important to the overall success of your site. The layout of your page, the color scheme, the graphics and the text formatting should be chosen to instill your viewer with comfort and confidence. Navigating your pages should be intuitive. Identify with the viewer you are trying to attract, envision what it is that would make them feel at home and and relaxed. They must trust and respect you before they will take what you have to say seriously Choose your tools. Do you know how to code? Do you want to learn as you go? Or would you rather avoid it altogether? There are many different ways to go. Although you could possibly avoid coding by using a WYSIWYG Web site designing software such programs are very limited and it can be difficult to get the results you aim for. For good consistent, yet flexible design understanding your code is essential. HTML is not difficult to learn even for the computer newbie. It just looks intimidating. My suggestion is to hire a designer if you want a professional looking site yet don't want to tackle HTML. Learning as you go is fun if you have the time. There are tons of tutorials, many free, available on the Internet. Start with a very basic beginner's HTML class, open up the text editor that comes with your operating system, (Microsoft® Notepad comes with Windows and BBEdit Lite 6.1 is a free text editor for the Macintosh), and dig in. You can have a simple page completed within a couple of hours. Go to Amazon.com and order a book or two for reference and learning: there are several very good ones written for the learn-as-you-design designer. [Here are some beginning HTML and Web Design books offered by Amazon]. With each task you want to handle: build a table, create a list, optimize a GIF, or insert a form - find a tutorial online [go HERE for a variety of Web Development Tutorials offered by Beginners.CO.UK], read the chapter in the book and experiment. Check out the Webmasters' Resources page at Web Presence 101 for both links to tutorials and recommended books. As you start to get comfortable with the concept of displaying a page on the Internet and feel you have a grasp of HTML you may want to upgrade your tools. You should have a fair idea by then to what extent you want to carry this designing thing. There are many choices in HTML editing software, FTP clients and image optimizing programs running from almost free to top dollar. You will find reviews and pricing for many in the Webmasters' Resources page at WebPresence101. |
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