So You Want To Design Your Own Web Site? As appealing as this may sound in terms of how much money you will save. You need to consider a few things before getting started. 1. You must, at the very least, be able to write simple HTML. Then under the above heading here are just a few of the most important things you will have to consider. A. Your page must validate properly, according to W3C, standards at: http://validator.w3.org/ (Read about what the W3C is: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/) If your page doesn't pass this validation, then you must learn how to make it do so, by following their guidelines for each error. Many people pooh, pooh this as not important. But trust me, this is the most important step. Because it assures all visitors, no matter what type of operating system, browser, level of computer system, etc. they are using, will be able to see and use your site as you intended. I didn't always know this and so am having to do a lot of back tracking on my site to fix things. It would be much easier just to do it as you create the site. Trust me on that one. :)B. Your site must be uniform in looks and working ability across at least the most common browsers. I challenge anyone that has designed or attempted to design their own website to compare what it looks like in both an I.E. Browser and a mozilla type Browser such as FireFox. You will not only be amazed at the differences but also unfortunately will be very frustrated before you are through trying to figure out how to get one thing to work in one that won't in the other and visa versa! These are the two most common type browsers and the only two I compare my sites in, because quite frankly I would go stark raving mad if I tried any others! :) Luckily these two types of browsers are the ones most others are based on. So if you can get your site working in both you should not run onto any problems with any others out there. If you do then just do a search for the problem and you should find trouble shooting help for your particular problem. C. Another area, of making your site uniform, is the different size monitors and resolutions used. This can be reached fairly, satisfactory by changing the resolution on your own computer and comparing your web site pages. D. Then you must also consider page speed, when down loading it over the Internet, as well. Ensuring you take all steps to optimize both the amount of text on the pages and the size of the images. So that the majority of people with various connection speeds can download your site's pages in a reasonable amount of time. 2. If you want your site to have at least simple interaction, such as contacting you via a form or filling out a survey, etc., you will need to learn how to create forms. These are fairly simple and can be learned on the resources listed in the next paragraph about learning basic HTML. As you advance, in your learning process, you can even delve into other more complicated options for making your site interactive, such as Java Script, CGI and Perl, PHP and more...I am not saying designing your own web site cannot be done. With the right determination and a little learning just about any one can do it. That is exactly what I had to do as a beginner and continue to do today, eight years later. Most of us cannot afford to hire a designer who's going rate is between $45.00-$100.00 or more an hour. Just be prepared to do your home work and learn what you don't already know. There are many fabulous sites for learning HTML. Starting with the W3C's own documentation on HyperText Markup Language (HTML): http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ and one of the most popular sites for HTML help: http://www.htmlgoodies.com/ |
