How To Design A Web Page
PUBLISHED: AUGUST 12, 2014 – ARTICLE: HOW TO DESIGN A WEB PAGE
At Easysite, we often get asked this question, how do I design a web page or how can I design a web page? We understand that the question is really how to make your own website. These sites are usually used for a small business or nonprofit organization. The reason that we get asked these questions is because that's exactly what we do every day, we help nontechnical people to design a web page. By nontechnical, we mean you know how to use a mouse, browse the Internet and you're able to send a receive emails. If you're a techie web-development programmer and you love to write computer code, then our website builder is really not the right fit for you. Our specialty is helping regular people to create a website. We know you're busy enough with your own life and possibly running your own business. That's why we do what we do; we love to make it easy to build a website. In this article we will talk about the different ways of thinking about how to design a web page layout. Please make sure your web page design is responsive, responsive website design ensures that websites created will look great on any size screen and work well on any device.
How do I design a web page
First off, there are lots of different ways to design a web page; possibly thousands. It's great that there are so many different ways to design a web page. Because there are so many options, tools, online website builders the process of learning how to create a web page design can seem overwhelming at first glance. Take heart, we're going to boil it down for you.
The Three Different Ways To Design A Web Page
When we break it down there are really three different ways to design a web page. You can write all the code yourself from scratch. You can use website builder software applications. Or you can use online website builders.
The first option of writing all the website code yourself is great. The biggest downside is the five year learning curve. This is not a very good option for normal people who don't have a PhD in computer information science. However, if you like to do things the hard way, you will need to learn how to write computer code, HTML pages, learn CSS, JavaScript language, SQL statements and server-side web server languages. Who really has time for all that? It's for the nerds. We're glad they exist, but let's face it; who wants to become a nerd web developer?
The 2nd option is using software website builders. This option is getting a little old, it is 2014 already. Going this route, you will purchase and install software to help you learn how to design a website. These programs or applications include like FrontPage, Dream Weaver, Photosoft, Expression Web, etc. You download or purchase a software application that runs on your desktop computer. Then you learn the application, design a web page, export the code, find a web host, upload the code and hope it works. This option is definitely less effort that learning entire computer languages and web development code. You will save time with this option, but really this is how people were developing web pages over 15 years ago. Besides that when it doesn't work, you will inevitably have to call their tech support line and ask how do I design a web page? Before you get frustrated and give up, please read through the rest of this article. (Clue, the 3rd option is the best one.)
The 3rd option is to use an online web site builder. This is really the best and easiest option to design a web page. When you use one of the many online website builders available today, you are going to design a web page in a very quick, easy and affordable manner. Using one of these services to design a web page can help you create a professional web page that will get you noticed on search engines like Google. You can also easily integrate social media like Facebook with an online page builder. You can even sell products when you use an ecommerce website builder. By ecommerce website builder, we simply mean a page that will let your visitors browse through and pick items that they would like to order from you. The page collects their order then collects the money and notifies you when you get an order. It's online shopping complete with shopping cart and check out.
When you think about it, the three options for how do you design a web page represent three generations of how to design a web page. The first generation was when you had to write everything yourself with low-level code and a lot of smarts. The second generation answered the question, how do I design a webpage by creating software derived from the first generation. This made it easier. The third generation was derived from the first and second generations. These combined everything learned from the first two options, but made it easier for just about anyone to create their own website. The third generation also made use of modern and powerful browsers which eliminated the dependency on custom software applications. Think about it this way, the more difficult the job is for the developers of an online website builder, the easier the web site builder will be to use. Thousands of hours of development went into the latest online site designers. Because of this, they are dead simple to use and create high-quality web pages.
Easysite Is One Of The Best Ways To Design A Website And Get Your Business Online
If you look up how do I design a web page on the Internet or even how do you design a web page, you will find many online services that you can use to design a website. These include Easysite (our favorite), Wix (free website builder), Weebly, Square Space, etc. All of these website builders help you design a web page but each does it a little differently. There are also some things that each of these web page designers do well and of course some things they don't do well at if at all. Pricewise, you can expect to pay around $20 per month for an online site builder that includes all the features needed to make a business website. You can pay less, but you end up with less. Again, when you add up the cost and compare the price levels to get all the features you need to have a professional site, $20 per month is a great deal and that's all you will pay using Easysite, even if you create an online store it's one set price. One feature that seems to be a distinguishing factor for a business page is the ability to include the ecommerce software (sell things online.) If you're selling item from your web page make sure that the level you pick has the ability to sell things online complete with shopping cart and checkout on your own ecommerce website.
How Do I Increase Sales For My Small Business?
Try a few of the online page designers then commit and learn all that you can about the one you select. Just be sure that the one you select has free technical phone support, does daily backups, offers top quality bandwidth and hosting as well as creates sites that look great and get results. Really, isn't that what it's all about? If your website is able to be found by potential customers and looks impressive, your new web page will help increase sales for your small business.
So now we're done answer the question, how do I design a website. The simple answer is to select an online page builder. It's easy, quick and inexpensive. Best of all, you can create a very professional website that will get your business noticed online with searching customers. Get started and design your own website using Easysite.
Think About How To Design A Web Page
Now about the actually pages and how do you design a webpage. Think about your current favorite websites that you visit often. Maybe visit a few of them right now. Most likely when you really think about it, the page design is often similar. There's a top heading that is always there. There's a way to navigate to the pages, usually in the form of a menu. There's a home page that acts as a dashboard that also calls out important specials or the latest announcements. There is a footer area. And of course there are the graphical elements of the site, colors, fonts, layout, etc.
The heading (or header) will usually include the name of the business, include a logo as well as contact information. A new and popular addition to headers is a set of social networking buttons. The buttons will link to the social networking pages that are associated with a business. The contact information in the header is usually in the form of a phone number, street address, email, etc. It's also important, especially to search engines that you include a description of exactly what you do in the header. This is important because you want it to be completely obvious to search engines as well as the rest of the world exactly what it is you do. For example if you're funny t-shirt business, you might say, "The best place to find funny t-shirts" as your subtitle.
The menu section most of the time is directly below the header. This section is always available. It easily identifies the pages that are available to the visitor of the site. Some page designs will list the menu on the left side of the page. When a web page design is "responsive" this means that the page will adapt to the amount of screen space available. The responsive nature of the design will change the layout dynamically. When a site is responsive you might see a menu button at the top of the page. This button is used to display and hide the list of pages available to the visitor. This makes sense to hide away the menu navigation on smaller devices such as a smart phone or tablet. When this is done it allows for extra screen space to be utilized for the information rather than taking up room for the site navigation elements.
Below the header and menu, many sites will have rotating banners. This area is also referred to as the "hero" space. This area of a page calls out to the visitor to get their attention and it does do a good job at that. In this space business owners will create graphics with text to announce a special sale, a new product or any other type of special announcement that they don't want the visitor to miss. Because the space rotates in and out banners you can reuse this space for lots of different announcements. You can also use the space to link out to the relevant pages that the different banners call out.
The Most Important Part Of Your Design
Below the header, menu and banner areas is the content body. This is the really meat of the page. A good website builder will make it easy to layout text, pictures and even videos in this space. The content here is the most important part of your page design. Don't overlook this. You can have a great looking site, but without quality, original content the page will most likely be overlooked by search engines and visitors alike. People searching for information want just that, good information. If you skimp on this, you're not offering people a compelling reason to visit your site. Beside this, if you never update the content of your site when you learn how to design a web page, visitors will have no reason to come back. Believe me, if you get people to your website give them a reason to come back. Tell them what is going to be on the page the time they visit. Tease them to make them check back. Most importantly, if you say you're going to post new content on a certain area of business, then do it. Don't break your promise to your visitors.
Below the body or content area is the footer. Footers can vary wildly in what they contain. Common elements include a physically address, copyright information, links to more obscure pages (terms, about, etc.) It's pretty much a free for all down there. Check out some of your favorite sites to see how they use the footer section.
Those elements are the basics to answer the question, how do I design a web page. There are lots of answers for how do I design a web page but we hoped that this tutorial has covered the basic elements of a web page design and what the purpose of each element is. If you create a website with our service, Easysite, you'll find all of the tools to help you design a web page. They are easy to use as well as fun. You can even start with a free website for 30 days to try the website builder and evaluate it for yourself. We think you'll agree that it's the easiest way to make a website ever.
This article on how do I design a web page is to give you a better understanding on the different ways you can design a web page. If you are using Easysite or thinking of creating a website and require any help to design your web pages please contact us.