Designing a Website
Introduction and starting point for the complete webmaster's website design tutorial,
"How to Design a Website"
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The Webmasters Website Design Tutorial
 Making a website is easy. Making a good website is not so easy. There are many things you have to consider if you want to make a successful website, no matter if it is a commercial or personal site. Just using a stock website template is not enough. Superior website design entails many elements that are not neccessarily evident. You must consider everything from target audience to layout to execution.
If you are really serious about having a professional website you must take into account all of the elements that professional website designers do. This webmasters tutorial will cover those things and try to make the individual steps to success as basic as possible.
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(This is a simplified diagram of how a website connects to the World Wide Web)
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What is a website?
A website is an address (location/server) on the World Wide Web that contains your web pages and can be accessed by anyone on the internet. This is your home sweet home on the World Wide Web. |
| Basically, a website is your personal online communications connection to the rest of the world. It is here that you will sell a product, pass on information, express an opinion and/or tell the world who you are.
But, will anyone take your website seriously? Will the search engines find and list your site? What type of visitor will you attract? If you want to find out the answers to these questions and build a serious website it is important that you know how to design your website with your audience in mind.
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Media types
A website is totally different from any other type of publishing, advertising or communications media. When you create a brochure, magazine or book for publication, you determine content, print it and it is finished.
If you are advertising a product or service on radio or television, you emphasize the name, how to get the product and do it within 15 to 30 seconds...then run the ad over and over again. None of the above will work on the Internet and you must take this into account when you design a website. |
The Website Design Process
If someone would asked you what is the single most important thing on a website, I hope that you would say that it is information.
Designing for the web requires the relevant content of a brochure or magazine, the colorful look of high-quality print, and the attention-grabbing impact of television advertising. Plus it should offer a valuable product and/or information, be updated frequently and stay current with changing technology.
When you design your website you have to put yourself in your visitors shoes. A website is never done. You will be tweaking and modifying the design and content all the time. There will be new graphics to add, that new piece of code you just found and extra pages to put online. But, that is part of the fun of being your own webmaster.
Once you have decided to establish a website there are three steps to getting it ready to put online.
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(Click on the above graphic for further information) |
1 - Get a domain name
This is your personal/private address on the Web. An example would be; www.rocketface.com.
2 - Find a web hosting service
Here is where your website will reside. It is important that your service provider is reliable and up to the task.
3 - Design, build and upload
The process of website creation. This is where it all begins as you design, build and maintain your internet identity.
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