ArticlesReader.com Menu
Newest Articles
Most Viewed Articles
ArticlesReader.com RSS
Submit Article
Login
Signup
Search the articles

Articles Main Categories
Advice
Animals
Automobiles
Business
Career
Communications
Computer Programming
Computers
Entertainment
Environment
Family
Fashion
Finance
Food
Health & Medical
Home & Garden
Humor
Internet Business
Internet Marketing
Legal
Leisure & Recreation
Marketing
Other
Politics
Reference & Education
Religion
Self Improvement
Sports
Technology & Science
Travel
Writing
Subscribe
Receive alert message from us when new articles submitted to our site for free.

Enter your name

Enter your email

Syndicate

















Related Products
Home::Web Design

How To Design A Website If You're A Novice On The Internet

Author : Sydney Johnston
Most of my students are Internet novices and ask many apprehensive questions about how to design a website. They worry about their ability to design an attractive site and are anxiously seeking the quickest and best alternative.



After years on the Net, I believe you need to learn how to design your sites yourself, and here's why ...



The Internet is made up of two elements:



1. Text

2. Pictures



Yes, audio and video technologies are growing fast. But if you hope to sell on the Net, it's critical to appeal to your audience, those folks who are willing to pull out their credit cards and buy your products. A huge percentage of these are still on dialup and certainly aren't very sophisticated and fancy techniques will isolate you from many of them.



So what are your choices if you want to build a website?



1. Buy a template:



This can work sometimes. I've bought them myself and they do look great. But there are some real problems with templates:



* They can be expensive - especially if you want multiple websites. Good templates aren't cheap. The few I've bought are in the $60-$70 range.



* If you don't know what you're doing, you can waste your money on templates that won't work for you. For instance, you will often see templates with icons, pictures, company logos, "Buy Now" buttons and more. Yes, they look great. But when you download the images they are not editable because if they are in jpg or gif format, you can't make changes. The most common 'editable' images are in 'psd' format. If you own image editing software, like Photoshop (which usually sells for about $600), you can make the changes you wish. But if you don't own this kind of software then forget it - your images can't be changed.



* Editing templates isn't easy. You might unwittingly purchase a template that allows 8' of space - and your copy needs 10" of space. Now what? Cheaper templates require the purchaser to "slice" them. This is tedious and time consuming and requires editing knowledge that most people don't have. Higher quality templates allow the owner to edit them without slicing, but they are more expensive.



* Even if you can edit your new template, do you really think that you should allow a designer to dictate the placement of your sales copy? Beautiful design does not equal sales. Just because something looks good doesn't mean it's a good sales site. Many novices are impressed with the good looks of a template, but Madison Avenue beauty doesn't equal profits on the Net. Earning money comes from effective direct response marketing which means testing the elements on your sales page and changing them until you have a winner. If your design is forced on you you are limited in the changes you can make.



2. Pay a website designer to build a site for you:



* Hiring a professional can be expensive. I currently have a goal of building two websites each week for a year. Let's assume I pay someone $500 to build a website (which is quite a reasonable amount for a well done site - it often costs much more.) That means I will be paying $1,000/week, every week, for a year. My money is better spent on marketing than design.



* Every time you want to make a change on your site, you must wait on a designer to make the changes. This is expensive and can be time consuming if the designer is busy with multiple clients.



* Just like a purchased template, most web designers are focused on looks and appearance, rather than functionality or sales. All the best marketers acknowledge that plainer sites are more lucrative because the focus is on the copy, the words, rather than fancy graphics or beautiful colors. Take a look at the top money-making sites on the net. They rarely are flashy or dramatically impressive.



* Relying on a web designer creates dependency. Generally the motivation of entrepreneurs is freedom so waiting for another person to make even the smallest changes to your site isn't taking you in the direction you want to go.



3. Buy site-making software:



Every program I have seen involves a learning curve. One popular site builder, for example, has a 500 page manual, is expensive and a lot of the learning doesn't transfer to other site systems. I looked at another one recently with a 300 page manual. The time that you spend learning these methodologies could be spent learning an HTML editor that will make you fully capable of building your own sites, whenever you choose, for almost zero cost.



Spend the time and learn do it yourself websites. I personally spent two weeks in 'Dreamweaver Hell' several years ago. All reviews indicated that Dreamweaver is the best HTML editor, so I bought a book and determined to learn the software on my own. The first book wasn't long enough so I returned it for a second - and longer - book, which eventually was exchanged for an almost-1200 page manual. There were moments of frustration, tears, triumph, cursing and the thrill of success, and I emerged able to put together websites whenever I chose.



Saying "I want to be an Internet marketer" and not learning how to build websites for yourself is like wanting to be a dentist - and refusing to learn about teeth; like being a star athlete - and refusing to practice your sport. So what if your first sites won't win a design award? You'll get better. And you will be independent. Isn't that the entire point of working on the Internet?


Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com





Starting an eBay business is easier with mentoring from an eBay expert. Learn from our offers an 11 Day Course that teaches how to sell on ebay:
auction-genius-course.com/11days.shtml





Spam emails More free articles

Related articles


  1. The Top 8 Website Sins Part Two
  2. The Top 8 Website Sins Part One
  3. 10 seconds is all it takes… (How to grab the attention of your audience with your web site)
  4. So You’re Hiring a Web Designer—You Have the Right to Demand these 7 Perks
  5. 6 Design Flaws Newbie Web Designers Make: Fool Everyone Into Thinking You Know What You're Doing
  6. Excellently Constructed Websites
  7. Web Designers Beware!
  8. Quality Website Design At An Affordable Price
  9. Website Colors That Turn Off Your Customers
  10. What The Font? – Understanding Typefaces On The Web
  11. Freelancers Bite Back!
  12. Web Design: Should You Hire Someone or Do It Yourself?
  13. Branding Web Strategy Mistakes - Brand Identity Guru
  14. Web-Safe Fonts for Your Site
  15. Web Designing Tips
  16. Good Websites Stand Out From The Masses Of Boring, Hard To Travel Sites
  17. Testament To Testimonials
  18. Reach Out To Billions
  19. Every Website is a Human Being’s Attempt at Achieving a Goal or Obtaining Happiness
  20. Give People What They Want And Watch Your Profits Soar!
  21. You Too Can Have an Amazing Website
  22. The Seven Deadly Sins of Web Business Design
  23. 10 Nifty Ways to Prolong Your Visitors at Your Website
  24. Website Design: Redecorate Your Web Site To Increase Sales
  25. Service Professions: Does Your Website Follow These 5 Simple Rules For Getting More Clients?
More related feeds
Virtual Assistant Skills
Even a novice can succeed if they have the right skills and the drive to be a virtual assistant. PS If you’re interested in upgrading your internet skills and want to take some classes, check out the following website, they offer online ...

Choosing the Best Doctype for your Website
Nowadays, browser support for CSS is much better. The only reason for using Transitional is that you’re stuck in old habits and don’t yet have time to learn better ways of coding. If you’re learning web design from scratch, use Strict. ...

Getting Technical – Favicons and code boxes
is about ‘favicons’ or those little graphics that you’ll sometimes see up in the address bar of your Internet browser that coordinate with a website’s design or ‘look’. For example, mine’s currently a pink flower similar to the ones on ...

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) For The Novice
If you’re not sure if the website is respected, sometimes common sense can be your best friend. If the answer to ‘would you like to tell your friends and family to visit this wonderful website’ is a no, then that should be your answer. ...

200 Hacking Tutorials #DataVault, Irc Warez (Ty 4 Moving X).txt ...
A Web Standards Checklist, How to make a proper website.txt Accessing the bindery files directly.txt Accessing The Entire Internet On Your 3 Phone, U8110, E616 etc..txt Advanced Shellcoding Techniques.txt All about ftp must read.txt ...

Product Launch, Affiliate Management, Marketing Strategist ...
Looking for a Marketing Strategy Partner? Want to design a more effective and more lucrative Online Sales System? Would like general Internet Business Consulting (from a successful multiple niche 6-figure internet marketer)? ...

Web Design Made Simple — Great Tools to Get You Started
Of course, for a beginner, the Flash-based editor might be a little confusing, but it is definitely worth taking a look at if you’re into some of the more interesting aspects of web design. The only drawback is that you have to host ...

Interested in some tips for Digital Photography?
Another option besides the usual photo studio is the online web site that every good wedding photographer should have. Many times if a photographer is a novice to the internet, or designing websites a specialist can help design a unique ...

Linux is not Windows
So Linux interfaces are frequently a bit of a minefield for the novice: Despite its popularity, vi should never be considered by a new user who just wants to quickly make a few changes to a file. And if you’re using software early in ...

Traffic Exchanges - Cheap Advertising For The Novice Internet ...
A URL is a “Uniform Resource Locator” which is basically an internet address in the simplest of terms. When you join TE’s you should already have a URL if you have your own website. If you are a member of other TE’s that you are trying ...

 


 

© 2007 articlesreader.com - All Rights Reserved