Getting Started

Getting started in web design is not hard. There are 4 basic steps involved in getting a website onto the Internet:

  1. Build some web pages;
  2. Register a domain name (www.whatever.com);
  3. Buy some web hosting to host your web pages;
  4. Upload the web pages to the host server using file transfer protocol (FTP).

Steps 2, 3 and 4 are the easiest by far, while step 1 is certainly the one that will require the most time and attention. Again, this may seem daunting but there are 2 basic options here. You can:

  1. Hire a web designer (webmaster) to build your web pages;
  2. Build them yourself.

Option 5 can often be expensive, especially if you wish to continually update and improve your website, while option 6 may seem like black magic to those who've never dabbled in web design before. But yet again, more options are available for this. You can:

  1. Buy some WYSIWYG web design software (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get);
  2. Build from raw code using a free text editor.

Again, this last option may seem incredibly daunting at first and will take time to master but should, if you stick at it, pay the biggest rewards. I'll say it again: web pages can be built for FREE and everything required to do this is probably already sitting on your computer (Windows or Mac):

Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox Apple Safari Opera Netscape Navigator
  • A browser, the program this website is being viewed with, such as: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, Netscape Navigator (no longer supported).
  • A free text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad shown below, found in the start menu (All programs>Accessories) if using Windows (if you're not using Windows other editors are available, such as Pico for Linux or Simple Text for Mac).
Microsoft Notepad

There's no need to buy any software at this stage and don't be tempted by hosting packages that offer free web design software. Both of these options produce awkward, bulky code that won't help visitors find your website on the vast and ever growing Internet, and they will also limit how your website is presented. They may offer the quickest route onto the Net initially, but after that don't expect much in the way of visitor traffic or being able to customise your site. In addition, nothing beats the satisfaction of knowing you can create your own websites for free and to your own exact specifications (this entire website was built freely using simple Microsoft Notepad and nothing more).

A further option here is to use templates. Many sites including this one offer web templates that can be downloaded and tweaked to suit individual requirements. All that is required here is a limited grasp of two simple programming languages called HTML and CSS.