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BUILDING YOUR WEBSITE
If you are laying out your site all by yourself, you will need website editing programs like Dream weaver from Adobe. , Microsoft frontpage or simply search the web for 'free web editing tools' if you aren't looking to invest in any.
Getting Started –
There are loads of sites out there offering free webspace and website building tools, but this may mean allowing third party pop ups on your site. For a truly professional looking site, you will need to find and pay for a webhost e.g 123-reg.co.uk, 1and1.co.uk , yahoo.com.lycos.com,godaddy.com etc. Many of these sites hae free site creator tools with your package and can be used by those of you without any web development skills.
Your site needs to be clean, simple, and well-structured. People use the Net to find information. The best Web site design includes informative content, simple layout, easy navigation and fast loading graphics. It allows users to search for and locate the information they desire in the quickest and most convenient manner possible.
On the other hand, your Web site design is a reflection of your business, the quality of your product. Web surfers looking for some information not only want the right info, they want it from the right source. So make sure that your site doesn't look like it was designed by a novice.
Now that you know what you want to accomplish, it's time to start building your website. Depending on how many pages you're going to create and how serious you are about building a profitable Web business, I offer you the three most time-and-money efficient options I've been able to locate.
They are online website builders which anyone can use to build professional looking websites and have them hosted instantly. No software to buy, no code to learn, all you need is to be a little Internet savvy and know how to click your mouse.
These tools are the current leaders in their fields and differ in their capabilities and prices...
1) 1&1
If all you need is a 1-5 page site to establish an online presence, buy a domain name at 1&1 ($6.99/yr). Each domain comes with free Starter WebsiteBuilder - a convenient, easy-to-use tool that lets you create a 5-page website. The simple wizard guides you through the building process from start to publish, with easy-to-follow instructions and simple point-and-click prompts.
You can choose your template, customize it with fonts, colors, graphics, and then add your content using the built-in text editor. No technical expertise or knowledge of HTML code is necessary. Each domain also includes 1 personalized email address (2 GB mailbox space, 200 aliases, auto-responder, forwarding).
2) Site Studio It's a popular website building software from Positive Software Corporation. Many hosting providers have installed it on their servers to help users build professionally looking websites without knowing anything about FTP, HTML, or imaging software.
This is a good deal for you if you plan to learn HTML, JavaScript and other techie stuff needed to create a website. Site Studio is just an option. You can use it if you are new to the technical side of Web design or simply haven't enough time. You can always switch to traditional building tools and use all the power of your host - CGI, Perl, PHP, MySQL and the like.
Key features of Site Studio:
Many hosts offer Site Studio for an additional fee. However, here is a reliable and inexpensive hosting service which provides members with Site Studio for free...
This is the most comprehensive and well established product among other tools for creating websites. You won't find any other website builder that can show results like this . It's most suitable for those who are serious about making money on the Internet and want to focus on building their business instead of managing their website.
Of course, Site Build It ( SBI ) is more costly than the previous options, but it takes care of ALL the technology and complexity of building and marketing a website (domain name, hosting, graphic design, search engine submission and optimization, traffic analysis, e-zine publishing, etc.) and allows you to jump straight to the money making side of your Web business.
SBI is focused on minimizing your time and maximizing your results. For example, its Brainstorming and Researching tool reduces hours of that tedious manual work of finding profitable keywords to mere clicks. All you have to do is type in a keyword and this tool will give you dozens of profitable keywords - ones with high demand and low supply.
The following general website design tips will help make your site more professional... TipsAvoid using too many images and if you use any, use low resolution or optimised ones. You can optimize images in programs like photoshop which helps shrink the filesize. Large images will use up your resoueces and also increase your pages loading time. This also puts peole off, no one willsit around waiting for your page to load. Internet users are the least patient people in the world, and if your site is slow, they know they can get the information, products, or services they desire at another site.
You can decrease the loading time of your Web site by using common images on your pages, because the images which have already appeared on a previous page will be loaded from browser caches, rather than from the server itself.
ConsistencyA consistent Web site not only lets users know where they are, but can also help build a "brand" so your site is recognizable. Users feel better knowing that they are still on the same site they visited so try to keep the same theme and colours on eery page.
NavigationRegardless of the best Web site design or highly informative content, if your site isn't easily navigable, all your hard development work will be worthless. Keep navigation simple, and make sure it's consistent from page to page. No matter where you place your menu bar, always include a small text menu at the bottom of every page.
FontsIf your site is straying from the standard fonts that everyone has installed on their computers (such as Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman) the viewer won't see your fonts as intended. Your users' computers will display your site in their default fonts. So stick to standards.
ResolutionMost of professional Web site designers have better systems than their audience has. The norm these days seems to be 1024x768 although there are still a small number of people using 640x480 or 800x600, mostly because they don't realize they have the ability to switch into a higher resolution.
If your page exceeds either of those numbers, the browser will display a scrollbar. If your page is more than the browser's width, a horizontal scrollbar will be displayed. If your page is more than the browser's height, a vertical scrollbar will be displayed.
People usually assume that most pages will have a vertical scrollbar, and are using it to scroll down pages. But many despise the horizontal scroll, and will often complain if they are forced to use it.
It's a good idea to design your entire page for 800x600, but keep the width of text within 640 pixels. People with older computers will still be able to read your content, even if some parts of the page require scrolling.
Learn from othersOne way to the best Web site design is looking around the Web and learning from what you see. That doesn't mean copying, but instead, studying what others have done and understanding what works and what doesn't.
Now that you know how to build a site now its time to get people to your site. Learn How. PREVIOUS <<< .....>>>NEXT CHAPTER |
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| Proceed to your next Lesson -> Getting Started > Attracting Visitors | |||||||||
