So, the time has come for you to put together your first website. Have you given any thought to how you’ll cultivate your web design skills? You could throw yourself straight into the action, but that would take a lot of time. You’d also run the risk of developing bad design habits. Reading this article will give you some handy pointers for starting off your web design experience the right way.
Before you sit down at your computer, your first job is to think about what you want your website to do. You should develop a goal that you want your site to achieve. It does not have to be ambitious; the purpose of this exercise is to provide greater focus for your work. This will encourage you to make more effective use of your time. This is also an excellent point to build up an idea of your ideal reader. Knowing who you’re designing for can really simplify the choices you make as you put your site together.
The best place to start building your website is, believe it or not, on paper. You’ll find that it’s easier to draft a basic layout and make general decisions about your site’s structure with a pen in your hand rather than a mouse. Think about the site elements you know that you’ll need (navigation menus, links, archives, and so forth) and sketch out where you want them to sit in relation to each other. This kind of preparation will also save you time.
Once you have a goal in mind and rough outline of your website’s structure, it’s finally time to sit down and start creating it on the screen. If you’re a novice at web design, you’ll want to use a friendly design program with a WYSIWYG interface. Web design pros spend a lot of time mucking around with their raw HTML, but you can save that for later, once you have a better understanding of the process. You can put your site together however you like, but remember to keep your reader in mind. Your layout choices should make it easy for them to read your site. Stick with clear fonts and legible colors, for example.
It’s a good idea to look into web hosting at this point. Your site doesn’t need to be finished in order for you to start comparing the many different hosting deals available to you. Having the design process underway will help, though, because you’ll have a rough idea of the overall size of your site. This will tell you how much storage space you need to look for in a hosting package. Be very wary of free hosting deals; buying a basic package from a professional hosting company is extremely affordable, and the service and reliability you get are far superior to free hosting.
Web design is a complex field, but getting started is pretty straightforward. Experience is definitely the best teacher, and if you follow this article’s advice your first web design experience should be a good one. After your site is up and running, you can continue to educate yourself and improve on your web design skills. You may discover that you have a real knack for building websites!