How To Design Website

Free step by step instructions to a Website Design process

There are many books are written on “How to design website”.  Free step by step introduction into website design process is provided by us. However, in the scope of this article we are unable to get into every detail of the process, but you can definitely use this information as a comprehensive guideline and checklist for each step of the process.

 

How to PLAN a website

 Your very first step in designing your website is planning your site. Outline the purpose of your website, goals, targeted audience, content of the pages and the overall style. Also, pick your hosting service and choose a domain name. Steps to plan your website:

1. Define the purpose of your future website

2. Identify your targeted visitors (their interests, intentions, needs)

3. Decide how many pages you are going to have on your website, what they going to be, the purpose they serve.

4. Create a draft for each Web page (text, pictures)

5. Set your desired start date

6. Select a web hosting provider.

7. Choose domain name for your website (URL – your website name – example: www.google.com we have additional helpful articles you might want to investigate: what is domain name and how to choose domain name)

 

 

How to DESIGN a website

Next step in developing your website is designing. Visual appearance is the first thing the audience will see when they visit your website. The correct use of colors, consistency of the pages, well written content, graphics, logical navigation and web style all work together toward creating a successful site. Steps to take in designing your website:

1.   Choose color of the pages, background color, text and links color

2.   Choose fonts for the text, for the headers, fonts colors and size

3.   Prepare images you are going to use for each page of your website

4.   Prepare images, text, and information you are going to display in the page header

5.   Choose a website layout

6.   Write good meaningful keyword rich content for each page. We have additional articles you might want to read: How to write for websites, How to write website content, and How to optimize website.

7.   Choose which website tools you are going to use

8.   Select icons, bullets, bars to personalize your website look

9.   Choose which navigation system you are going to use:  simple text links, a navigation bar, an image map. Your navigation system should be simple and intuitive to use for your guests.

You might want to do some homework before you design your website. Visit other websites that do similar things, conduct similar business. Determine what you like about their design, what you dislike and why. This can help you in determining which styles, elements will work for you and which turn you off; it also can give you an idea or an inspiration.

 

How to CODE Your Site

We have learned how to plan a website, how to design a website. Next step is coding your website. HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language is the 'Code' used to specify text, multimedia documents (graphics, video, animation, and sound). You don't really have to have an HTML editor to create your code; you can use the Windows text editor – Notepad.  There are a few ways you can create a webpage:  You can use a pre-made HTML template; use an HTML editor; or use a text editor such as Notepad and write your own HTML code.

 

1.   Web Templates. If you do not know how to use HTML code or do not have time to learn it you can use HTML templates. You can purchase them inexpensive or even free.

2.   HTML Editors. To create your website you can use one of the WYSIWYG HTML editors (WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get). Many of these editors do not require any knowledge of the programming languages generated by the software.

3.   Manual HTML. If you know how to program in HTML code, you can use simple text editor such as Notepad to create your website.

 

How UPLOAD your files

Once you created your website you need to upload it to your host computer. But before doing that you need to obtain your username, FTP address and password from your hosting company. Then select, download and install your FTP software. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. The protocol used on the Internet for exchanging files. FTP is used to download/upload files from/to a server (host) using the Internet. Learn to FTP a few test files and then, upload your website files to your host computer.

 

How to TEST your website

Testing your Website should include testing each Web page for: HTML validation, loading time, browser compatibility, bad links and spelling errors.  Make sure that:

1.   Character encoding is added to each page

2.   Each page of your website is validated by W3C

3.   All pages of your site are spell checked

4.   All links are verified and valid

5.   Determine your download times for each page

6.   Test your site using different browsers

7.   Get  other people comment on your website

8.   Make a backup copy of all your files.

 

How to PROMOTE your website

This is a very important step. Your website will not be very effective if people are not able to find it. There a lot of ways to market your website. Many books are written on this subject. It is very time consuming process. We, however, can only briefly give a few guidelines in the scope of this article. You need to ensure that each page of your website has proper Title and Meta tags: meta description, meta keywords. Make sure that each of these tags have a proper meaningful description of your site’s content and include appropriate keywords. You need to submit your URL to the top search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing. Make sure that the content of each web page is keyword rich (please refer to our articles How To Write For Website , How To Write Website Content and How To Optimize a Website). These are some necessary steps you need to make to promote your website. It would be beneficial to submit your website to Open Directories, also as many local listings as possible (if this is applicable to your site), portals. Promote your site as often as possible. Have other websites link to your site to improve your website ranking. There is a lot of information available on how the search engines work and Internet promotion.

 

MAINTAIN your website

For your Website to be a success you need to maintain it. If you expect visitors to return, you have to provide them with new information, correct errors and keep your website up to date. In addition, you should monitor your search engine ranking, continue to promote your website and find out who is linking to your site.

 

We hope that you found this article on “How to design website. Free beginners guide” very helpful. If you need further help with designing your website, Houston Website Design will be glad to assist you with any of your website needs. Call Houston Website Design today for a free quote.