You Want to Build Your First Website?
Posted December 27, 2008 10:28 am in Web Info by admin Comments OffBefore you start to build your first website, you need a website logo, tagline, a few graphics, headlines, and text to work with. To start, you need something to put into the website. What is difficult about the first website is your ideas may not be well formulated yet. Personally, I feel “breaking ground” is the most difficult part. As you can see, the heart of the problem could stem from lack of content and lack of direction. Unless you have a specific agenda in mind, developing an appropriate color scheme and design is near impossible.
For example, if you want to design a website, you are going to want to match your brochures and business cards to it too. Web designers do not ignore any aspect of a person’s business; and sometimes, web designers have to create whole business identities and create a whole look for their clientele (which is extremely time-consuming). This is one reason why it is so difficult to price web services.
Web designing involves more than graphics and knowledge of editors (i.e. Dreamweaver) or html code. Web designers not only need to understand how to design websites for aesthetic appeal, but they need to create websites with easy navigation systems. Web designers need to design websites for search engines and key in the title, description, and keywords into each webpage (within the html code). The way websites are designed and how they are optimized play a huge part in how search engines rank sites.
Typography and website content are the single most important aspect of design. Ultimately, typography is the driving force and the best means to deliver a message in the written form. Normally, the graphics support the written message and not the other way around. Therefore, typography should receive the most attention when designing a web site. Sans serif fonts, sized 9, 10, 11, or 12 are the preferred size of fonts for reading online. Readability is the key factor for all written communication.
The cost of websites depends upon how much design work needs to be done. The price will expectantly have huge price tags if a person requires a large eCommerce site with tons of graphics! You should thoroughly discuss what you want with your web designer; and hopefully together, you we can find a solution that fits into your budget.
To conclude, for your first website, be modest in your approach. Less is more! Then, as you become more computer savvy, you can slowly increase the size of it. (Revised 2/15/2006)
Debbie Jensen, Graphic Designer and Photographer http://www.debjensendesigns.com