Learn About Website Creation and Development Tools
Whether you run a business or just want to create your own online portfolio, having a strong online presence can be a strategic necessity. A well-designed website can leave a lasting positive impression on potential customers that improves your brand image and helps you to stand out from the crowd. But to create a good website, you need to start with a thorough understanding of the basics.
Website Design and Setup
Before you start building a website, you’ll need to think about how you want it to look, what purpose it will serve, and the tools you might use to create it. Plenty of people use popular website-building tools like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace to create their sites, which can make it easier to set up your own website if you’ve never done it before by giving you templates to start with. You can also opt to build your site by hand from scratch for a more customized look and feel.
- Website Builder vs. Web Designer: Which Should You Choose? Explore the pros and cons of each option to decide whether you want to build your site from scratch or not.
- How to Start Creating a Website: This is a comprehensive guide to help you build a website from scratch, starting with a simple text editor.
- Ten Best Website Builders: If you design to use a website builder to create your site, you have plenty to choose from.
- How to Code a Website: A Step-by-Step Guide: Learn a basic overview of everything you’ll need to know to create your own website.
- Designing a Website or Blog in WordPress: Find out the basics of how a WordPress website is organized and how to set one up on this page.
- How to Make a Website: This resource offers tutorials and guides on creating a website from scratch, starting with planning out how you want each page to look.
- How to Build a Website Using Wix: Learn tips and strategies for creating a successful website using the Wix platform, including design best practices.
- A Complete Checklist of Important Web Design Principles: This checklist outlines essential things to consider when creating a website, including accessibility and visual appeal.
Web Hosting and Domains
Every website needs a place where its files can be stored and found. Web hosting is a service that gives you a place to store the data for your website. You’ll also need to register a domain name, which is the address of your website, where people using the Web can find your site. When people visit your domain, the Web host delivers the necessary files to their browser.
- What Is a Domain? Gain an understanding of domains and how they work using this easy-to-follow guide.
- What Is Web Hosting? In a few minutes, you’ll learn everything about web hosting through this page.
- How to Register Your Domain Name: Discover the steps and considerations involved in registering a domain name for your website.
- What Are the Different Types of Web Hosting? Smaller websites should be fine with shared hosting, which places your site’s files on a server that’s shared with other sites. But if you need more space or want more control over the performance of your site, cloud or dedicated hosting might be best.
- Choosing the Right Web Host Company: Learn how to select a host for your website, considering factors such as reliability and performance.
- Hosting Considerations for Your Website: This article discusses bandwidth, storage space, and other things you should think about when shopping for Web hosting.
- 13 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Domain Name: Your domain name will be the name that your website is known by, so it’s important to think carefully about your choice.
- How to Register Your Own Domain Name: Part of choosing a domain name is finding one that’s not already taken. Once you settle on your choice, you’ll need to register it to claim it as your own.
HTML and Programming
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the coding language upon which all websites are built. Even the most complex and interactive sites are built on a foundation of HTML, though much of what you see might be created with other types of code, like CSS or JavaScript. HTML is used to define the essential elements of a page, giving your browser instructions on what text and images to display and how they should look.
- Getting to Know HTML: Embark on your coding journey by learning the basic building blocks of HTML.
- HTML Basics: If you know absolutely nothing about HTML, this resource is a good place to start.
- Creating Tables in HTML: Creating tables in HTML can be a little tricky, but this page gives a simple explanation.
- Adding Graphics to a Website: Explore the code you’ll need to place images on a page properly.
- HTML Tags: Find a quick reference on different types of HTML tags here.
- What Is CSS? CSS is a different type of code that can be used to create stylesheets, which make it easier to design a website with a consistent look.
- Introduction to JavaScript: The exercises on this page are meant to help you get familiar with some basic JavaScript concepts.
Web Graphics
HTML can be used to create and format text, but you’ll also want to use images to create an appealing website. A custom logo can help you to build a strong brand for yourself or your business, and photos and illustrations can help readers to learn more about you and your products or services. Good Web graphics can also add visual appeal, making your site more attractive and interesting to look at.
- How to Create a Logo: Here, you’ll discover the best practices and steps for creating a logo that effectively represents your brand.
- Trends in Logo Design: Stay up-to-date with the latest design trends to ensure that your brand image remains relevant and impactful.
- Finding Free Vector Art: Discover websites and repositories offering free illustrations, icons, and graphics that you can use for your site.
- Vector and Bitmap Graphics: Web graphics can come in two different formats, each of which has its advantages.
- Guidelines for Effective Use of Web Graphics: The visuals on your site should be purposefully used and help the reader to better understand your message.
- Factors to Consider When Preparing Graphics for Web Pages: Visuals can add a lot to your site, but they can also greatly increase its load time if you’re not careful.
Website Usability and Accessibility
It’s important to remember that you’re not really creating a website for yourself: You’re creating it for your readers. That means that you need to make sure that the site is easy for your readers to navigate and interact with. The site should be well-structured so people can find what they want, and it should also have a responsive design that works on any platform or screen size. Additionally, following best practices for website accessibility will ensure that everyone, including people with disabilities, can use your site successfully.
- Introduction to Web Accessibility: Learn about the importance of accessibility and how you can ensure that everyone can use your site.
- Checklist for Making Your Website More Accessible: Go through this list to make sure that your website is easy to use.
- Tool for Testing Responsiveness of Your Website Design: Plug in your URL and this page will show you how your page looks on a variety of screen sizes.
- Accessible Design Checklist: To ensure accessibility, Web designers need to think about the color combinations they use, the size of the text on each page, and how they use images, videos, and audio files.
- Tools for Online Accessibility Testing: Checking the accessibility of your site includes looking at its text and considering whether different accessibility devices, like screen readers, will work with your design.
- What Is Load Testing, and Why Is it Important? Creating a great website doesn’t matter if people can’t access it when they need to. Find out about how load testing can help you make sure that your site can handle incoming traffic without crashing.
- Introduction to Usability: If your page is hard to navigate or understand, people will leave, which is why usability is so important to consider.
- Nine Web Design Tips to Improve Usability: Remember that function is always more important than fashion, including when you’re designing a website.
- Find the Best Load-Testing Tools: Test whether your website is resilient enough to meet user’s demands with one of these utilities.