Build a web page is easy, almost anyone can do it and after a bit of reading it will work. Building a good web page is a completely different exercise. It takes a combined knowledge of graphic design, html, CSS and image design to construct a satisfactory web page, especially if this page is for your business. Web design for industries should always be carried out by professionals to maximise you conversion and internet branding, speak to Soula Graphic Design for more information or carry on reading if you making a private website.

Should I Use A Template?

The first question you should ask yourself is how do actually want to go about this project. Do you want to start from scratch or look for a template. I'll be honest here, unless you are very low on time or have seen a really, really nice one, you should not consider using a template There are several reasons for this. Firstly if it is a popular template that similar website or even competition are using your site will look stolen or like a sister site. This is only ever bad news and it will not generate a positive impression in customer's minds. If by some miracle these effects will not apply to you the secondary effects of using templates are inescapable. The very fact that these designs are templates means you have instant restrictions on what you can place in terms of content where. This may not seem like such a big deal but later in a sites life you will find yourself wanting to move the design around and without flexibility you're going to have to start from scratch. Templates also have a negative search engine optimisation effect as they are technically duplicate content.

In short, no, you should not use a template.

What Should I Use to Edit My Document?

This question is a bit more difficult to answer. It all depends on your ability. The bottom of the line statement is that you should, if you are competent enough, use a no frills text editor like notepad. This will give you 100% control over your work and will also enable you to become more experienced in using tags and code.

The reality is that this is extremely time consuming and vulnerable to human errors causing mistakes that can take hours to find. It's much, much easier to use a specially designed editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver. There are two commonly associated downsides to these programs.

1) The insert code different to what you would actually hand type due to the fact that they automate the process.

2) You become reliant on the automated process and thus unable to do the coding without the editor

Many argue these are negligible and certainly, they are for a beginner. I personally recommend you use Dreamweaver but please do Adobe the service of purchasing this product. I do not condone piracy, ever.

Dreamweaver will give you the flexibility of code or design view editing as well as spell checks, code checks and a whole host of professional features. It also supports pretty much every file type you can imagine for web design.

What Are Tags?

Tags are the basics of HTML and web design. They are essentially specific commands that browsers use to format and construct pages. Tags are (nearly) almost formed by a start and end usually in the format of "<x></x>" with the content you wish formatted in between. You can think of the tags as on and off switched "<x>" turns an effect on and "</x>" turns it off again. The skill in using HTML stems from combining tags and effects to achieve a design

Some tags must be included in every web page, no matter what you should include the HTML, HEAD, TITLE, and BODY tags. Other commonly used tags include strong "<strong>" which makes text bold, italic "<i>" and hyperlink "<a href="url"> to link to another page on the net.

If you would like more information on tags do a google search, many websites now have a full list of every tag, its parameters and function.

I hope this initial guide has been of use to you and I wish you all the best in designing your own web page.

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