The Foundation Of Designing Websites
Websites have become an integral part of everyone’s lives. People have personal websites that tell the world who they are. Businesses have websites that describe their services to their clients. It is no wonder that website design has become a popular career choice for many people. There always seems to be someone who needs a website built from scratch or redesigned. If you are interested in such a career, read this article to learn about some basics of web design.
Every website on the web has a unique Internet address. This is the website’s domain. This domain has to be registered at the domain name registrar to ensure that no one else can claim it. Registration can be from one year to several years, depending on the preference of the domain owner. At the end of contract, the domain name owner has the option to renew it.
A domain name has to be something that no one is currently using. It is advisable that you think of several variations of your desired domain name just in case it is taken already. An important thing to remember is that domain name registrations do expire. If the domain name owner fails to renew the domain on time, the name goes back into the pool and can be snatched up by someone else. Therefore, if you are managing domains for your clients, be sure to renew them in a timely manner.
If you want to design websites, you will need learn some HTML. This is coding language that marks up your content so that it displays properly in a browser. A lot websites are now built from templates. However, you still need some knowledge of HTML in order to customize your content. You can learn HTML from tutorials, books, or from attending classes. It is not difficult to learn. Once you have this foundation, you will have more understanding of how a web page is created.
There are web authoring tools that are specially designed for building websites efficiently. This does not replace your knowledge of HTML, but rather, it complements what you know. Web design tools streamlines the coding process by providing chunks of code for certain popular website features, like a table, form, or insertion of image tags. If you build up your skills on your favorite authoring tool, you can increase your productivity of your website business.
You can build websites on any computer that has multiple browsers installed. It does not matter if you use a PC or a Mac. Your computer should have your web authoring tool installed as well. If you are going to create websites using a content management system, you may need to install a web server onto your computer.
The other part of coding that makes up the foundation of web design knowledge is CSS, or cascading stylesheets. CSS is responsible for styling the content. How the website is displayed is determined by the website’s stylesheet. You should learn as much as you can about the CSS properties and how to use them to create the style that you want. The more you learn, the better able you are to design a website exactly the way you want.
These are the basics that you should know. You should continue to learn to improve your skills. As you gain more experience, you will attract more clients.