Webupon

The problem with creating your own web design is that you need to make a lot of decisions in a short space of time and some of them can be hard to back track on. Here is a simple 7 step plan to ensure your web design starts right and is a success from the beginning.

1. You’ll need website hosting so learn about paid-for and free web hosting and then decide which one you want. Do some research on suitable web hosts so that you can pick one that fulfils your requirements both now and in the future.
2. It’s important to know what sort of website design you want to create. Is it a home page with just personal information or perhaps several pages with more detailed and varied content. Look at some personal websites and find a design you like and then write down how it’s constructed. Use this as a template, then add and discard pages and areas until you have just what you want. This is hard work but it will save you a lot of frustration and false starts later and help you get the design right.
3. Look around the web at colours and layouts and decide what you would like to incorporate in your web design. If you’re creating from scratch using your own software you can have almost any layout and colour you like but if you are using the tools provided by your web host, then you might have to settle for a template and modify that. Be sure you know what is on offer and try to make a definite decision. Again, it is far better to have a design plan even if you have to change it later.
4. Experience has taught that it is always better to create at least some of the graphics that you intend to use in your design at this stage. Preparing graphics involves selecting them, cropping to size, correcting for colour and contrast and optimizing as well as adopting a naming policy that you will later understand even when you can only see the file name of the graphic.
5. If you intend to create the site to make money then you must choose either the affiliate program you will use or what adverts you will show. If you choose to use affiliates you may need to register beforehand at the website or at the site of their agents. With adverts this it is not so crucial but you will need to work the space for them into the design and spent time sorting out the best colours and layout. You should also learn what size adverts produce the best result and finally ensure that the design looks right with dummy adverts in place.
6. If you will create your own articles or similar writing on your site then decide how much you will write yourself and how much you will use from other sources. If you intend to use other people’s writing make sure you can get the articles you want without copyright problems. If you are writing your own, prepare them in a word processor, spell check and, wherever they come from, spend time extracting keywords.
7. Finally, and before you make a start on the web design, think about how you will popularise your site and what steps you will take to promote it. Assuming you are not paying for promotion, you will want to checkout forums, newsgroups, similar sites and register the site with various search engines.

Once you have done all this you have a good, solid structure, in fact a complete blueprint for a good web design. Now the job that you thought was hard – that of actually building it – will seem comparatively easy since all the pieces have been created and only require slotting into place.