Website design for beginners is a not a very big deal. Though the subject may be new to you, you can master the trade with some training, practice and patience. It is needless to say that today’s world is governed by the Internet. Internet is the biggest repository of information and entertainment that reaches you through websites. The number of websites today is endless. Each website is designed for a specific purpose - it may contain corporate information, may be programmed for online trading or even may house an entire dictionary. You need three things to create a new website. First, you must have knowledge about HTML, second, you need to register for a domain name, and third, you need to find a web hosting service.
Let’s first understand what a domain name is. Like each one of us, every website must have a name (called domain name) by which it is identified. Domain name is nothing but the site’s address by which it is identified in the Internet. For example, www.microsoft.com is the domain name of Microsoft. You should give your site a name that is easy to remember, and somewhat identifiable with the nature of content of your site. Your domain name should not have too many characters, words and any combination of weird characters. You cannot buy domain names, but can have them on lease for a period, say two years. There had been a mad war for domain names and almost all popular domains ending in ‘.com’ and ‘.net’ have been exhausted.
After you have booked your domain name, the next big thing is to create the structure of your website. People see websites in web browsers and the browsers can only interpret websites written in HTML (Hypertext Markup language). You can create websites by taking the help of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors, or, you can hand-code your site’s content by learning HTML language itself. Although it is very easy to work with WYSIWYG editors and come up with visually appealing websites without much effort, it is always better to learn HTML and code your site’s content at least in the beginning stage. According to experts, website design for beginners can take off well if people are ready to invest some time in HTML. All we require is will. Moreover, it has been experienced that sites directly hand-coded in HTML tend to be error free and versatile. By writing your own code, you are in a much better position to understand the inner workings of your site and that will boost up your confidence immensely. If you are ready to spend a few hours each day over an elementary book or tutorial on HTML, you will become ready to take the plunge soon.
Once you have completed coding, you need to host the html pages on another bigger computer (known as host) so that your website can freely be available on the Internet. You will need to use a File Transfer Program (FTP) to transfer your site to the host computer. Let us now have some idea on hosting. The host is a computer that stores your website for viewing by visitors. Whenever you type a web address in your browser and click “Go” or hit Return key, you will be connected to the site’s host computer and access the site from there. Professional website hosting is a booming business and you might need to spend anywhere from $10 to hundreds dollars per month. The price depends on the amount of memory your site requires, the speed with which you want your visitors to access the site and the amount of traffic you generate. Though you might get some free hosting services, there might be strings attached to it.
This gives you some idea about the creation and hosting of websites. Books, tutorials, references of hosting companies from Internet and above all the will to see your site on the Net will see you through. Remember one thing - visual appeal of your site is as important as your content. Put in quality content (preferably periodically changing content) into your website. This will make your visitors come again and again.