As we are evolving, numerous areas of skill development are also increasing. Students, graduates, and employees are always exploring areas to learn something new. Learning to design a website is really a helpful tech skill to possess to strive in this modern tech-dominated world. And by doing so, you get a lot of new opportunities in the IT Industry.
As we talk today, something that we cannot keep ourselves away from is the Internet. It is something that keeps us going in this world. It connects us with the world from anywhere. And learning a new skill that relies upon the Internet is life-changing.
In this article, we will talk about how a beginner can learn Web Development. It’s the process of designing a website from scratch. For a beginner, this might seem a tough challenge. But, breaking down the whole process into smaller chunks, you will not find this challenging by the time you finish reading this.
So, how to design a website? Let’s have a look at the different stages of designing a website.
Table of Contents
1. Know your Requirements
It’s important to know the requirements of your website. It should not be designed for the sake of designing. Know the subject of your website. If it’s based on e-commerce, the functionalities will be different. If it’s a Portfolio, its designs will be different.
Do proper research about the type of website you are trying to build. Do some research, read articles, see how similar websites are designed. The website should convey the main goal of the product when you open it.
For example, when you open Amazon, it is quite visible that they sell products online. Likewise, your website must convey what you are selling or showing to your audience.
2. Design the Outline
To design a website, you must know the outline of the whole website. It includes the aspect of content planning. The structure of the website, planning of the pages, buttons, navigation bar, footer, and different features. This is a part of UI/UX design. Having a low-fidelity design of the whole website reduces much of the hassle while designing the actual website.
The low-fidelity design includes elements like icons, color palettes, images, buttons, etc. It is a visual representation of the website and is important for the development process later.
3. Choose your Medium
You can build your website using different tools. As a beginner, it is important to choose the right tool while starting the development process. There are several online tools that you can use to design a website. Here are a few:
Some offline software where you can build your website:
- Notepad
- Adobe Dreamweaver
- Notepad++
4. Buy the Domain
This is the most important part of the process. Suppose the website you are building in your house. You have the resources to make it, decorate it, and use it. But without an address, no one will ever know that it is your house. No one will visit your house if they do not have the address.
In the same way, the domain name is the main address of your website. By typing the domain name in the address bar, traffic will arrive on your website. It is the name you type after “www.” in your address bar. For example, Youtube, Facebook, Gmail, Codevidhya, are all domain names of their respective websites.
To buy a domain name, you can register to the above-listed online tools. You need to type in the domain name, check the availability of the name, that is, whether the name is already registered or not, and pay a fee to make it yours.
While buying a domain, keep these points in mind that will help with the SEO and let your website grow:
- Keep the domain name small so that the visitors don’t misspell it.
- Avoid numbers and special characters.
- Try to use it with ”.com”.
- Make it readable.
5. Planning the Content
Now you have the structure of your website, you have the domain name, you know where to design your website. It’s time to start adding content to your website. It includes the content of different types.
The main part includes the Written Copy for the website. It determines the purpose of the website in written form. The copy describes the function of the website, the business models, blogs. Writing the content for each page on the website will be different.
While writing the copy, here are few things to keep in mind:
- Know your audience, validate the tone of your copy accordingly.
- What the audience wants to read.
- Do not add irrelevant content to your website.
- Keep your sentences small and readable.
- Be clear about your offerings.
- Use proper formatting. Use your Headings, Paragraphs, and Lists properly.
Graphic Content plays a vital role to convey the message to the audience. Illustrations, colors, icons, buttons, etc, all bring your website to life. It also includes multimedia like videos and animations present on the website.
Other graphical representations on the website include diagrams, infographics, data charts, etc, which are very important to make the readers understand something that cannot be understood just by written content.
6. Keep Adding Pages
A website does not contain a single page. Several pages make a website complete. When you type the address, you only see the landing page. Apart from that, if your page showcases your business, it will have a Products and Services page, Contact Information, About Us page, Blogs, and more.
Adding these pages needs proper navigation. Keep the navigation very pointy, so that a visitor can navigate to any page he or she wants to visit within 3 clicks. Prioritize User Experience. Enhance the website’s accessibility and usability. Make an impression to the users so that they stay on the website, browse different pages, and come back in the future.
7. Do the SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
After you are done with the designing part, adding all the pages, adding content, It’s time to optimize your website so that it ranks higher on the search engines like Google and Bing. Better SEO makes the website more visible. That is, it will attract more traffic to your website and increase the chances of converting visitors into customers.
When someone searches a query in the search engine, the search engine sends back the best-related results to the user. And it’s human nature that the user will click on the top result. So, to keep your website on the top, you need to improve your SEO and make it the best page in terms of content and user-experience
The SEO depends on various factors that are listed by Google. Some of the top factors that improve the SEO are as follows:
- Keywords
- Content
- Secure Website
- Mobile-friendliness
- Loading Time
- Backlinks
- Domain Age
- User Experience
8. Mobile-Friendliness
Data shows that people are using mobile devices more than desktops while surfing the internet and it’s not likely to change anytime soon.
That’s why, while designing a website, always keep in mind that it should be easy to surf the same website on mobile too.
A mobile-friendly website is highly prioritized by search engines and it improves the website’s overall SEO rank. It attracts more users as mobiles are more portable than desktops. Users can see the contents from anywhere. They do not need to have their desktop or laptop with them when they need a piece of information.
9. Publish and Improve
Finally, after all the hard work and investment spent on the website, it’s time to publish the website.
Once your website is live, some improvements can be done over time. Check out some helpful practices to improve your website:
- Use Analytics to track traffic and performance.
- Ask for Feedbacks.
- Keep improving the SEO.
- Incorporate Social Media.
- Use Newsletters.
- Introduce Blogs.
- Engage with your audience.
Conclusion
Having the skill to design a website is very crucial in 2021. If you want to become a freelancer, a web developer, or a business owner in the future, this skill will definitely help you out to get ahead in the race.
Building a website needs months of practice for a beginner. It requires a sense of design along with knowledge of Coding. Staying up-to-date with the current technologies, updating the website with the latest trends, and learning more skills related to this domain will always help you to master the art of designing websites.
Are you a parent? Want to teach your children Web Development? Check out our Web and App Development Course.
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