Designing your Web Pages
Once you have settled your domain name and web host, the next step is to design the web site itself. In this article, I will assume that you will be doing this yourself. If you are hiring a web designer to do it for you, you can probably skip this step, since that person will handle this step.
* Although there are many considerations in web design, as a beginner, your first step is to actually get something out onto the web. The fine-tuning can come after you’ve figured out how to get a basic web page onto your site. One way is to use a WYSIWYG (”What You See Is What You Get”) web editor to do it. Such editors allow you to design your site visually, without having to muck around with the technical details. They work just like a normal wordprocessor.
There are many commercial and free web editors around. For those who don’t mind spending money on a good commercial web editor, one of the most highly-regarded WYSIWYG web editors is Dreamweaver. If you are planning to use this editor, thesitewizard.com has an online tutorial on How to Create a Website with Dreamweaver CS4 (Dreamweaver Tutorial). The tutorial takes you through all the steps of creating a fully-functional website with multiple pages and a feedback form, and provides you with the theoretical and practical foundation that will help you create and maintain your site.
If you prefer to use free software, you can find a complete tutorial on using KompoZer, a free WYSIWYG web editor, in the article How to Design and Publish Your Website with KompoZer. Like my Dreamweaver tutorial, this one also guides you through the process of creating a website that has a home page, an about page, a site map, a links page and a feedback form. It also shows you some of the main features of the KompoZer software so that you can go on improving and updating your website on your own.
There are many other web design software around. If you prefer not to use either of the above, you can find some others listed on thefreecountry.com’s Free HTML Editors and WYSIWYG Web Editors page
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After you have followed my tutorial, and are on the way to designing your website, you might want to read the article Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design as well. The article takes a brief look at some of the real world issues that every web designer must deal with.
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An integral part of web design is search engine readiness. Search engine promotion does not start after the web site is made. It starts at the web design stage. The article 6 Tips on How to Create a Search Engine Friendly Website is a must-read. My article on How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google is also important for the simple reason that Google is the most popular search engine around, at least at the time this article was written.
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There are many other issues regarding the design of web pages. The above will get you started. However, if you have the time after you get something out onto the web, you may want to read my other articles on Web Design and Website Promotion and Search Engine Ranking.

