So, you learned HTML and now your ready to design your website. Well, as an experienced web designer let me share some tips.
1. Use CSS (cascading style sheets). If you do not know CSS, learn it. CSS allows you to keep the formatting of your site (e.g. the color or size of a piece of text) on a separate single page - a CSS document. Thus, with CSS you can change the formatting of a common-element by simply updating one piece of code on one page, rather then updating all the pages of your site. For example, if you want to change the back-ground color of your website, you could just change your one CSS sheet and your entire website's background color would change. Another great aspect of CSS is that you can use it to set the default properties of HTML tags. This can be used to counter browser compatibility problem - that different browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) use different default settings.
2. Test your website in all browsers. Just because your website displays a certain way in one browser, doesn't mean it will display that way in another browser. You should check that your website displays properly in all of the major following browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Netscape, and Opera.
3. Use open source software and freeware, if you want to create a dynamic website. Even if you know dynamic languages (such as JavaScript, PHP, and CGI) well enough to create your own software and features, you do not want to do that if you are a beginner. There's no reason to create your own dynamic scripts (e.g. shopping carts, chat-rooms, etc.), if you can find full-functioning customizable freeware. A great benefit of this method is that the customization options will separate the code that changes your website's look and feel from the functioning code. If you design the code yourself, you'll be tempted to mix the look and feel with the functioning aspects. So, if later you want to update the look and feel, you'll have to dig through the long software scripts. If you're going to be using freeware or any other code that you didn't design yourself, you should still be familiar with that language.
4. Don't use free or cheap web-hosting. Okay, this isn't necessarily a design tip. However, hosting is related to design. Free hosts may scatter your website with annoying ads. So, you won't be able to load your site as is. Also, free and cheap hosts often don't support dynamic websites. Unless you're website is supposed to be a joke, don't use a free host.
5. Don't write your email address on your website. If you have a phone number or mailing address that your customers can use to reach you or your business, publish that on your website. Website's with a phone number or mailing address appear much more reliable and honest than websites without contact information. However, don't publish your email address, because spammers will use web-crawlers will to pick it up. Instead, design a form on your website that customers can use to send messages or questions without giving your email address.
6. Take it slow. Unfortunately, the only way to become an expert designer is through experience, but your business can't afford sloppy pages. Don't attempt to design complex and dynamic websites without the ability. If you try to design a code, but find it hard and the code begins to come out sloppy, don't hesitate to just throw it out. It's better to have a simple, sleek, and functional website, than to have a complex, sloppy, dysfunctional website.
