It seems there’s a website for everything these days. We live in a world that is surrounded by technology, so if we need any information about anything, we now effortlessly hit a search engine and get what we want. They don’t just appear out of inexistence, however. They are created, moulded and almost perfected by people just like you and me.
There are a bunch of reasons for creating a website; people may want to have a base and a marketing tool for their business; some may want a portfolio for their work; some may just want to create a website for fun and see how well they do.
There’s an art to this kind of thing, and it takes some work to get it right. You might strike it lucky and create a flawless group of webpages, but realistically it’ll take time. If you’re looking to create a site for yourself or a business you’re starting up, you’re going to need to have a fully functioning and sexy-looking one in order to get some success.
Technology isn’t the simplest stuff in the world, but fortunately, creating a website is something that everyone can do. If you want a few pointers before you get going, let’s go through some here.
Make A Written Plan First
Before heading onto your computer and getting everything loaded up, you should write out what you intend to do. Simply take a few pieces of paper and plot out whatever is going through your mind at the time. It’s best to do this as you don’t want to make everything up as you’re going along. Firstly, because you may change your mind and dislike what you’ve initially created. Secondly, because you may get things tangled up and have to redo the entire thing. With a pen and paper, you can list the pages that you want, design all of them, and create a little plan of how they’re going to be linked to each other.
Read And Watch Tutorials
As we said before, if you want to know about something, then you can pretty much guarantee there will be answers online somewhere. Web design absolutely falls into that category. There are hundreds upon hundreds of text-based instructions and video tutorials out there for all levels of ability. If you don’t have the faintest idea about how to create a website, then a few video tutorials will get you off the ground. You’ll by no means become an expert straight away, but they’re very helpful.
Choose A Theme And Stick To It
Now, into the actual work. You’ll need to have a design that runs through the entire site – all of the pages should pretty much mirror each other. The only difference should be the actual content. If you have a particular design and colour scheme for the homepage and then your contact page looks completely different, then it’s going to be much tackier and less professional. Fortunately, due to the way in which site-builders are formatted, you should have little issue in finding this consistency.
Make The Homepage Easy On The Eyes
The homepage is the first page people will see most of the time. First impressions count for a lot, so if they arrive at the homepage and don’t like what they see, then it doesn’t bode well for the next few seconds/minutes. The homepage should be nice and welcoming – it should make the user feel comfortable so that they’ll have no issue in continuing through the site. If they don’t understand where to go or if it just looks messy, then that’s a problem. Have you ever encountered a terrible looking website and immediately closed it? You probably have.
Don’t Overcomplicate
Perhaps you have a lot to say and a lot of content to lay down, but don’t do it all at once. Sure, you might think packing it with information would be a smart move, but people would most likely be overwhelmed by it all. Like a house, a desk or a garden, but don’t like having clutter in their lives. Make sure things are tidy and spaced out.
Make Sure It’s Easily Navigable
As we mentioned before, things need to be comfy for the user because they can be put off immediately if it’s not convenient for them. If they want to find a specific page for the information they need and are struggling to even locate it, then that’s not great. The user experience, or UX, is the most important thing, so if you get that right, then you won’t have to worry too much about the pretty design. There are companies out there that provide a UX testing platform for all kinds of things – with websites being among them. If you need expert analysis on how to provide the best user interface, then you could get in touch with a group like that.
Get Help From Web Design Professionals
There are people out there that create websites for a living. Their job day-in-day-out is to provide their clients with the best possible website based on their needs. If you’re struggling to come up with anything, then you could pay one to do it all for you. But if you want to save a little money or work on it yourself, then you could get in touch with them and ask for a few pointers. They’d be more than happy to share some words of wisdom.
Keep SEO In Mind
You’ll want your website to be seen by lots of people – that’s the whole point. There’s no point in creating this amazing piece of art if it’s going to be witnessed by you and you only. Search Engine Optimization is the practice of boosting your website’s chances of showing up on a search engine – simple, right? Things like appropriate links, quality content, and apt keywords boosts a website’s SEO score.
Don’t Let It Go Stale
This almost goes without saying, but if you leave it for a while, then it’s going to get old very quickly. Keep working on it and keep up to date so that any new visitors won’t think it’s a half-hearted attempt at a website.
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