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More and more people from every walk of life are becoming comfortable with using the internet these days and “I want to make my own web page” rings out more often than ever before.

With the realisation that the internet isn’t that difficult to travel around and email isn’t black magic individuals that have said “I want to create my own web page” are starting to believe that they can actually do it.

The success of any website depends on how the visitor perceives it.  As web users become more web savvy and used to browsing the myriad of sites out there they will also become more critical of poorly designed or obviously template sites.  A well built, custom designed site will encourage return visits and low bounce rates.  If you want to create a professional online appearance and win the trust of prospective customers then when you say “I want to create my own web page” make sure you learn the steps to do it well.

The benefits of creating your own webpage include:

• You save money.  The alternative to creating your own website design is to either pay a designer or buy an existing template.  By doing it yourself you’re keeping that money in your pocket.
• You’re not bound in with the restrictions of an existing design.  You can incorporate your existing company colours and logo to strengthen an existing brand or if it’s a personal site you can run with your imagine and get any “look and feel” you want.
• You can keep up to date with current trends.  If you use an existing template then it’s been designed in the past.  Trends and fashions change incredibly quickly on the web and the template you’ve bought might already be out of date.
• You can copyright your design so when others say “I want to create my own web page” they can’t copy or use your design.
• No confusing communication of your ideas.  When you use a designer or web development company you have communicate your requirements clearly in a way that they understand.  There will always be some interpretation of your ideas which might mean the site doesn’t end up looking how you’d hoped.  Create your own web page and that’s not an issue.
• Your personality shines through.  If you learn web design and make your own website then it’s going to have some of your individuality and personality built right in to it.  Go with a development company and often the sites are impersonal and cold

Clearly when you shout “I want to create my own web page” then there are obvious benefits why this is a good thing to be doing.  Don’t just say “I want to create my own web page” but get out there and find the means to do it.  It’s really not difficult with the right help and with the explosion of the internet and information provision there is masses of help out there.

Anyone who has a computer can create their own website these days and many people do jsut that without bothering to first learn web design or even find out a few web design guidelines. The end result is that the web is full of really awful websites that never actually achieve what the owners hoped for when they built the site.

By taking the time to learn web design correctly and avoiding the following mistakes you can make sure that the website you create actually meets its purpose.

• Meet your visitors expectations – Many websites are built to satisfy the egos of the owners. The concern in the design phase is all about what the owner wants their website to look like, not what makes it work for the visitor. Think about what your visitor is coming to your site for and provide it in an easy to find manner.
• Provide easy navigation – The navigation on your site should be consistent throughout so that your visitor always knows where they are in the site and how to find their way back to the start or to other pages. All pages should be easily accessible from anywhere within the site and without more than one or two clicks. Any good course to learn web design should show you how to create first-class navigation.
• Use small, fast-loading images – Large images and media such as video or flash can take a long time to load in a browser which will slow down the load time for the whole page. Visitors will get tired of waiting and will jump away to the next site very quickly if you don’t learn web design that uses small, fast-loading images.
• Make sure your text is easy to read – All text should be very easy to read so there should be considerable difference between your background colour and your text colour. Best colours are dark text on a light background, i.e. black on white. Remember that if you’ve got a background image the amount of detail can make it difficult for the reader to see the text clearly.
• Think carefully about your content – Many people who want to learn web design focus purely on the aesthetics of their site and don’t think about the text content. Remember that the main purpose of your site is to provide information, looking pretty comes second. Make sure your message is clear and grammatically correct. It gives a really poor impression if there are mistakes throughout the content on your site.
• Don’t put the search engines before your visitor – Although anyone who has a website wants it to appear well within the search engines so that it gets lots of traffic always remember that the search engines aren’t your true visitors or customers. Make sure that you don’t satisfy the search engines at the expense of annoying your customers. The site has to make sense for your visitors or all the traffic in the world won’t help you.
• Be consistent – Some people who learn web design and want to put all the features they’ve learnt to good use and so try to fit it all in on one site. This means that each page can be different and for a visitor this can be really confusing. Keep your design consistent across all your pages so that there is a common look and feel. The visitor will feel more comfortable and find your site easier to use which means that they’re more likely to return in the future.

With cheap hosting costs and the availability of free tools that help develop websites for beginners it’s now incredibly easy for individuals to learn web design. Don’t be one of the many people who has won an award for a really bad website and don’t waste your valuable time building a site that doesn’t bring in traffic or brings traffic that leaves because your site is so bad. If you want a good website that looks professionally design then it’s crucial to follow these guidelines when you start to learn web design.

Do you want to make your own website? It’s becoming more and more common these days for individuals to use easily available software to create their own websites. Every PC that ships these days includes software that will enable you to build web pages. So bite the bullet and give it a go.

It doesn’t matter whether you want to make your own website for personal reasons or to support a business. The fundamental principles remain the same and once you discover the methods you’ll find it’s a lot easier than most people think.

Obviously if you choose to make your own website then you have ultimate control, you can choose exactly what it looks like and what content you have on it. It’s important not to let that kind of power go to your head though. There are “best practice” guidelines for building sites and it’s a good idea to follow these where you can. They became best practice for a reason after all.

There are a number of reasons why you might want to make your own website. These include:
• To promote a business, this could be an existing business or maybe a fledgling one that you’re about to set up and get going. Most businesses these days are expected to have a website and it can be costly if you don’t make your own website.
• To promote yourself. If you work freelance then it might really help your prospects to have your name and details out there for potential employers to see. Make your own website and get seen by the people who matter to you.
• To sell online. In this age of the internet revolution more and more people are managing to earn a substantial living via the web. Again the costs of using a web developer can put you off starting the project but if you make your own website that problem is no longer an issue.
• To expand and existing business. The web has no regional boundaries or restrictive opening hours so you can market your goods or services 24/7 and across the entire world if you want
• To create a community. If you have a hobby or interest that others share then you can create an online community making it easier for all of you to “get together” and share news and information. This is a great reason to make your own website.
• To keep family in touch. Nowadays family’s spread themselves throughout the world making it difficult sometimes to keep in touch. Creating a website means that news and pictures, announcements and gossip can be shared throughout the family with ease. You might just be the family member that’s needed to go ahead and make your own website.
• To support a club or group. Club news, meeting minutes, announcements etc. Can be posted for all members to see. The website could also be used to recruit new members.

There are obviously many more reasons why you might want to make your own website as well as the ones that I’ve mentioned above. Whatever your reason, jump in and give it a go.

As you think about the good design principles that I’ve talked about in other posts or that you’ve read about elsewhere on the web it’s also worth keeping in mind some basic web design mistakes that even experience web designers sometimes make.

Basic web design mistake no. 1 is clutter. Clutter makes a site uncomfortable for a visitor to browse and look at. It gives the impression that your site is unorganized and that information will be hard to find. Dump any material that isn’t completely necessary or move it deeper into your site where it’s not taking attention away from more important stuff.

Basic web design mistake no. 2 is making your site confusing. You have a matter of seconds to grab your visitors attention when they visit your site. If they can’t see very quickly what your site is about then they’ll hit the back key and move on to the next site. Put your most important message first and make sure key information is easy to find. Ensure that navigation is clear and easy to use.

Basic web design mistake no. 3 is overwhelming your site visitors with information. Don’t try and fit everything on your homepage. There needs to be enough to grab your site visitors interest but not too much that it seems a chore to look for information

Basic web design mistake no. 4 is to mix and match design ideas. Try to keep the style of your site consistent. An organised, logical layout will give your site a recognizable identity. Carefully select fonts, colours and images that work well together.

Basic web design mistake no. 5 is to be DULL! Although balance on your site is necessary complete symmetry can be incredibly boring to look at. Don’t place the focus of your page right in the centre but use the rule of thirds to find a good hotspot. Many basic web design courses should explain the rule of thirds to you.

Basic web design mistake no. 6 is forgetting about your visitor. Always make sure that you’re site works. There’s nothing more irritating to a visitor than navigation which includes pages that don’t exist. Broken links are a definite “no-no” so test your navigation again and again.

Basic web design mistake no. 7 is to neglect your site once it’s live. Don’t create a great looking website and then let it go stale. Remember to keep it up to date and interesting for return visitors. Make sure you keep your copyright up to date as this is one thing that will give away the fact a site’s being neglected.

When starting out with basic web design it’s as useful to know what to avoid as what you must focus on so hopefully these 7 points will help to ensure you don’t fall into the trap of bad design with your site.

Beginners Web Design – Don’t start until you’ve thought it all through

You may have searched before and found information or articles on complete beginner web design. You may even have made a start on your website and felt you were making progress until things started to get a little difficult.

Despite how it may seem beginners web design doesn’t have to be difficult. I want to try and give you some information here that will be genuinely helpful to you when considering the steps you need to cover to design a website from start to finish whether the site is for business or personal use, whether it’s an ecommerce site or a blog.

Beginners web design courses should follow some natural steps. This will save time and effort and possibly some frustrating mistakes in the long run.

Beginners web design – think and plan

The first thing for any prospective website owner to consider regardless whether they’re a complete beginner at web design or an experienced designer, is the main purpose of the site. This will enable you to decide on the type of design you want.

Beginners web design should focus on whether the site is a simple static site, a blog or an ecommerce enabled site. Does the site promote your business or your book club? Who are you visitors going to be? Are they computer savvy? Are they used to browsing websites and using navigation?

Beginners web design – focus on purpose

Think about your sites purpose when beginning web design. Any design you settle on must be representative of what you’re offering and have a clean, uncluttered feel with intuitive to use navigation. It’s always best to design your site for your most computer illiterate user. Visitors won’t be turned off if your site is simple and easy to use but they may be if they can’t see where to go next.

Beginners web design – slow down, don’t get ahead of yourself

A common problem for beginners web design is to go too fast and skip necessary steps. Thinking about what your site is for and who’s going to be using it is a crucial stage. When you have an idea of the purpose of your site and who you’re visitors are going to be then it’s a good idea to sit down with a rough piece of paper and a pencil and sketch out the basic layout. Just doodle a rough plan.

Beginners web design – Use the rule of thirds

The rule of thirds is a method used by everyone from sculptors to greetings card designers to award winning website designers. When a page is divided into thirds both horizontally and vertically and items are placed on the dividing lines the image becomes more attractive to the human eye.
Beginners web design – Background image positions

Using the rule of thirds with your background positioning will help. You may think that balance and therefore centering your background image is best but remember your site also has to be interesting.

Beginners web design – Don’t go for image overload

Images can be really important on a website. They add colour and interest and can draw the visitors eye to important content. However too many images can make a site look cluttered and can also slow down the page load time so try to make sure that you use images only where necessary and not just for the sake of it.

Beginners web design – 3 stages of maturity

It’s been commented that beginners web design goes through three distinct phases, a) just beginning so I’ll keep everything very simple, b) beginning to feel confident about web design, I’ll prove how good I am by putting on clever stuff, c) beginning to understand properly, I’ll keep it simple!

Remember that when you’re learning beginners web design you don’t have to finish your site completely. It can evolve over time. Bit by bit you can add everything you want to your website.

Anyone hoping to learn web design should be encouraged not to jump straight in to thinking about the aesthetics of their website. There is certainly much more to think about than just colours and how many columns you have.

Consider all aspects to learn web design

There’s clearly more than just layout to consider when you learn web design. Design and layout is obviously important but there are other key factors which can have an effect on whether your site will succeed or fail.

Key factors to consider when you learn web design

Any good course to learn web design should at least mention the following 8 points and encourage anyone following the course to consider them as a matter of importance. The following issues can have a major impact on whether your site looks good or just “misses the mark”.

• Avoid Clutter – Every additional item on your website will draw attention away from your key message so avoid clutter. Try to keep your site clean and well laid out with plenty of “white space” around important content.
• Avoid fancy, flashing or small fonts – Use fonts that are clear and easy to read. What appears a good font in printed material won’t always look good on a screen so always check what you’re type looks like in a browser. Use the rule of “less is more” and keep the number of fonts used to a minimum. It’s much better to be consistent across your site than to have many fancy fonts. When you learn web design you should be told what fonts work best.
• Break content blocks into cyber-bites – Online readers tend to scan material, picking out headlines, sub-headings and bullet lists so use these to breakup your text and highlight your important content. Keep sentences short and paragraphs concise. Good courses that help you to learn web design should include a section on writing for the web.
• Clearly and quickly communicate what your site is about – You have a matter of seconds to convince your visitor to stay on your site and not click away to the next one so they should be able to recognize what your sites about right away.
• Don’t include an introduction page – It may seem fancy to have a flash intro or some music but visitors have come to your site for information. Make sure they can get it as quickly as possible and don’t put an additional step in their way. I wouldn’t expect a course to learn web design to ever encourage using an intro page.
• Don’t include auto-playing music – It might seem like a nicety to you but it’s probably an irritation to your visitors. It doesn’t add to your message so it probably detracts from it. Again I wouldn’t expect a course to learn web design to suggest you use auto-play music.
• Use audio or video if appropriate – If it adds value to your site then use audio or video presentations. These are an ideal way to communicate your message using another medium and often grab and keep a visitors attention better than text. Make sure they don’t increases your page load times too much though.
• Limit scrolling – Many, if not most, web pages require some vertical scrolling but try to ensure that the important points from your message are visible above the fold. Some visitors may not bother to scroll down unless something has caught their eye and convinced them to browse further. Horizontal scrolling is a big “no-no” and should be avoided at all costs. A course to learn web design will discuss the best width size for a site.

Learn web design with good habits

Learn web design habits that ensure your site is well laid out and intuitive for your visitors to use. To create a professional looking site it’s really important that you learn web design in a way that will always use best practice guidelines.

Learn web design correctly

Obviously there are lots of issues to consider when choosing a design for your website but ensuring that you take the above points into consideration will help make sure your website is one of the better ones out there. Learn web design correctly to ensure that you follow these recommendations and that you’re able to build a well-thought and very usable website.