Do You Have What it Takes to Design Your Own Web Site?
Many people are asking themselves 'How can I create my own web site?' Sure you can create your own web page for very little money, it is not terribly difficult. But can you create a web page that will sell? That is considerably harder to do.
Creating a web site will take learning skills in design, html, marketing, writing, and much more. Most of the design can be done using free editors to create your own web site. When you make your own web site you have full control over when and how, information is published.
Asking your self 'How can I create my own web site?' is the very start but next comes the technical implementation and this is where many people begin to feel frustrated. The reality of web design is, you'll have to take many things besides designing into consideration, like do you have patience for the learning curve? and do you have the time to spend learning about web design? How soon do you need a web site? Find out in the rest of this article below if you have what it takes to design your own web page.
Types of skills you'll need
The first thing you must decide is if you have the necessary skills to pull this off. Are you going to design the entire web site by yourself or are you going to have others contribute some of the material?
If you are going to design it by yourself there are some basic skills that you need to have in order to get this mission accomplished.
Read more about the designing process before you start to design your page
You won’t need to be really good at any of the above in order to develop a great looking web site. It would just help you get this done in a timely fashion if you are not learning on the job… so to speak. If you are pressed for time and you do not have a good grasp of the skills listed above you might want to hire someone or use one of these web design services. That way you can have your professionally designed web site in no time. Designing with templates can make your job easier but even that requires some skill with html or html editors.
Before you start designing your web site in any application you should first layout your web site on paper. I always recommend to all of my clients that they lay out the web site on paper as they expect it to look and act on the web.
Most web sites only need a few pages to be complete. Start with your home page and build on other pages as needed, here are the basic pages you’ll find on most web sites.
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‘home’ |
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‘contact us’ |
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‘about us’ |
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‘services/products’ |
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‘make money or affiliate program page’ |
Organize your web site on paper, create a simple design flow chart that lays out each page and how they will connect to each other. Then do a simple design of each page with all of the sections of information you want to appear on it.
Basic web designing skills that every one needs;
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Inserting text |
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Inserting graphics |
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Creating tables |
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Creating links |
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Creating linking images |
If you already know how to do the above you can design your own web page with out much problem. If you are anxious to get started check out my web design tutorial. Learning the above 5 html tasks is crucial to page design, with just that bit of knowledge you can create a professional looking web page.
The main page of your web site should let your visitors know exactly what you're offering. If your potential customer can't figure out what you are selling or what business you are in, they probably will not buy your product or service. Web surfers have notoriously short attention spans, they definitely won't waste time looking around your site if they feel confused or overwhelmed. They're visiting your site for a very specific purpose. Give it to them right up front.
When designing, keep in mind all pages should look alike for continuity. I recommend that you create or use a template to do this. If you are designing your own web page you should create one page and save it as template.htm then use this page as your basic page each time you need to design or add a new page to your web site.
You would open the page template.htm and rename it index.htm, contact.htm, aboutus.htm …etc. This way you do not have to recreate each page of your web site from scratch.
To design your own web site, not only do you need certain design skills, writing, skills and more but you also need specific software to create certain effects and manage your web business.
Types of Web Design tools and software you will need;
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You are going to need FTP software some programs like Dreamweaver and Frontpage have FTP software built right in for easy upload |
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An HTML editor to write your code or design your site visually. If you are building and advanced database driven web site you must use an advanced application like Dreamweaver. Free editors won't cut it. |
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Graphic editors like Photoshop, PaintshopPro, Fireworks etc |
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Email manager account like Outlook or Eudora |
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Hosting account |
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Domain name |
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Merchant account or credit card payment options |
Other Necessary Web Design Talents;
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Graphic design- You might need Graphics for you web site. Graphics make your web page look more appealing than a page of all text. To create headers, bullets and or backgrounds you will need a moderate level of graphic skill. To create software and e-book covers you will need great skill. |
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Copy writing- If you want to sell you have to prove your worthiness by providing content on your web site. Articles, white papers, news, reports, sales letters, ecourses etc all of these involve some writing skills. Writing to sell is not as easy as it seems but it is very important. |
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Marketing- You need a good understanding of the internet and how others use it. This will make marketing very easy for you. You also need to understand search engines and how they work so that you can efficiently optimize your pages to rank high with them. Without high rankings in the search engines you will need to pay for traffic to your web site. |
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Understand your buyers Psychology- understanding your buyer is very important to your success. Who is your ideal customer? what do they want? Where are they looking for it? What motivates people to buy? What makes people feel insecure? How do you overcome those objections with your web site? |
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Research skills- You should continually add new content to your site in order to do this you are going to need to keep finding out what your visitors want and give it to them. New information gives your visitors a reason to keep coming back. |
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Patience- Things almost never go as planned with web design. when I started doing this web site I thought I could have it done in 2 weeks it took a lot longer than that and I am still adding to it and fixing things everyday. |
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Time- Designing a web site and building an online business is done over a lot of long, late nights and cold dinners at the computer desk. If you are pressed for time you should consider using a template, hiring a designer or using an all in one service. The learning curve for web design is steep. You will not get it right the first time and many aspects of design will frustrate you as you learn to master them. |
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A love of computers- If you hate sitting in front of a computer or using software this might not be for you. I have never done a project in the requested amount of time. there is always more to be done, the work never ends especially if you design a web site that needs constant updating. |
So now that you know what it takes, do you think you have what it takes to do this by yourself? It is very rewarding to design your own website. At the same time it can be extremely frustrating. Take your time in making the right decision about which method of web site design is right for you.
Web design resources recommendations
Other web designing options;
Web design services
Web Designers
Web Design software
Web Templates
Learn HTML
Next: Does your web site sell?
