Posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2019 | 289 views
There is no one way to start a website’s first blog post than with a top ten list on how to develop websites. So that’s what I’m going to do.
Let’s get to it.
I’m sorry but you cannot optimize a website, and not even build one unless you learn and know HTML.
Learning HTML does not take years. You can become pretty good at it within a few months.
Learning HTML allows you to more easily edit an existing website, especially one that belongs to a client you plan on working for.
This is an awesome website to learn the basics of HTML and it also lets you practice coding too.
While you’re learning HTML, you’ll also want to learn how to use FTP. FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol.
FTP does exactly what its name implies – transfers files.
Which files? All files you will see on a website, including CSS, javascript, image, PDF, and HTML files just to name a few.
A popular FTP program for windows users is FileZilla.
For Apple computers, you can use Coda 2.
So if you have images you want to add to your website, unless you’re using WordPress which uploads files for you, you’ll use FTP software to upload those images to your server so you can use them in your HTML documents.
The same goes for HTML files you create or edit. Once you’re done, you simply use the FTP software to upload the files to your server.
Here’s an example of how it works.
You’ll have your HTML file in front of you. You edit it by say adding a new title, and an opening paragraph.
Once you’ve saved it, you want internet users to see your changes right? Well this is where you would upload it to your server, and you would do so via FTP – or an FTP program.
For FTP to work, you’ll see your server name, username and password. This will give you access to all the files in the backend of your website.
Your HTML documents are going to have styles – nice styles. Your font will be different colours – bold or italicized.
Your tables will have padding and margins.
Your headings are going to be bigger and bolded.
Whatever styling options you want to add to your HTML documents, you’ll want to do so through your CSS file – your cascading style sheet.
CSS files are usually names style.css (for the most part). You can name them whatever you want.
Once again I’m going to link to the best tutorial site when it comes to web design. That would be here.
Take your time; read it carefully, and figure it out because using stylesheets is one of the most important parts of developing websites. 99.999% of websites use stylesheets.
I’d be quite surprised if you can show me one that doesn’t.
The long and short of stylesheets (CSS) is this: they are used to make the elements in your HTML document look nice, organized and structured properly.
Once you’ve created your web page’s stylesheet, you’ll be using your FTP software to upload it to your server.
No, I don’t want you to become a graphic designer too but in order to be an efficient web designer, you’ll definitely need to learn to create or edit basic graphics.
This is so important for so many reasons. One is so your customers don’t have to hire a separate graphic designer to put together little website graphics.
Another is the case when clients need you to edit graphics or pictures. Say they want you to scrub a big pimple from a picture of them that’s on the website.
You’ll find hundreds of use-cases where minor graphic design skills but you’ll need software.
If you have a Mac, you can buy and easily learn Pixelmator, and if you’re on a PC, use Adobe Photoshop. You can also find cheaper graphics software if you do your research.
Learn to write and edit content. If you have the courage to write content, or if you know how to do basic research, write it yourself – or write it a lot of the time.
You’ll use your content writing skills to:
If you can write the content for your customers you won’t need to ask them if you can make certain changes.
This becomes especially important if you’re an SEO. A major part of doing SEO involved editing/adding page titles and page descriptions.
It’s a total drag to have to wait 6 hours or six days later to hear from your client with their approval of your copywriting.
It’s much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and chances are they won’t even notice unless you get something totally wrong.
Stay generic.
Bit by bit you’re going to have to learn a little Javascript in order to be an efficient web designer or developer – you’re just going to have to – there’s no escaping it and if you try to escape it, you’ll never get anywhere.
You don’t technically have to “learn javascript” but you’ll need to learn how to search for certain scripts based on what you need them for or what your customer needs them for.
You must learn to use WordPress if you’re going to be an efficient web designer. Why?
Just because. WordPress has so many features which can be implemented quite quickly through the use of plugins. WordPress plugins let you do millions of technical things without having to code, and they help make a client’s site look and work beautifully without having to custom code things yourself.
The one thing you’ll definitely want to learn about WordPress is how to set up a custom theme. This means you can design your side outside of WordPress; make it work and look pretty, and then turn it into a WordPress theme which will allow you to use all the features the platform provides.
While you’re learning to do web design, there’s no reason to start learning SEO.
SEO will help your client’s website get more traffic and more business which will increase your value to your customers.
Once your customers start seeing their website is bringing them traffic and revenue, you can get your client on a monthly retainer which will keep the cashflow coming in.
While the money keeps coming in, you can learn more tasks related to the web in general and web design in particular – tasks like video creation.
Videos are really easy to create, especially if you have a mac. If you don’t have a Mac, you can use a sweet online service called Canva.
Canva lets you import pictures to make collage videos or lets you use their free stock videos. Their service is initially free but after 30 days you can still use it for $15.00 a month. What a deal!
If you have a Mac all you need to do is open iMovie and import your videos there. From there you can start making videos to promote your web design business or your clients’ businesses.
If you don’t have footage, just use pictures and create a collage video with an interesting message, or to show case pictures of your client’s business.
If you have a good relationship with your customers, you can ask them if they have videos that you can use and spicen up.
Once you’ve got your videos created, make sure to post them on Youtube and Facebook which will help promote your customers’ business.
Doing this will also increase your personal value to your customers and keep you in business.
Virtually every question about web design, video creation, HTML, graphic design and SEO can be answered by searching through search engines. Google is the best for providing answers to questions.
Learning to get answers from Google will streamline your learning curve and thus help you become more efficient, and more industrious as you’ll be able to solve all types of problems related to a website, and provide services that your local competitors cannot.
Leave your comments below and let other readers know some of the important tips people need to learn in order to become a good web designer.