Morrison-Enterprise

So you want to build a web page?

First off, let me say that I am not an expert. There are experts out there, probably a lot of them, but for every expert there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people like you and me. Relative novices, who want to build a web page for the challenge, enjoyment and to make a statement, not because it's their job. This page is NOT a tutorial on how to write code, be it HTML, PHP, MySQL, or any other scripting language, there are many pages on the web, and books, that have been written by people with a much deeper knowlege of the subject than I. Bear in mind however, that a web page is largely visual media, and like all visual media, different people have different views on what 'looks good'.

So where do you start? Well the three most important steps are right at the beginning and they are: Plan It, Plan It and Plan It. These three steps can, and should be, done before you even open a program, or start writing the tiniest bit of code, as, if you do these three step correctly, the amount of time and effort that you will save yourself is immeasurable. Believe me, I may not be an expert, but this is the voice of experience on this one!

Plan: CONTENT

Plan WHAT you want to put on your web page. Now, that may sound a little silly but, I have been asked before to build a web page for someone, and when I asked them what they wanted on their web page they said "I don't know, what do you think?"!

Deciding on the content will have a very large bearing on the next step, so it's vitally important that you get it right. For instance, when you plan what you want to present, you may find that you don't need a web page at all. You may realise that what you really want is a 'blog' where you can have a good rant about whatever is bugging you today, or an on-line photo album where you can post, for the world to see, your holiday snaps. There are lots of free blog hosts and photo hosting sites out there that can be used very easily. Even if you have your own domain name and host, there are free code scripts for blogging and photo albums that you can install on your own site so that you can have everything that you want, without the baggage of advertisements and 'pop-ups' that invariable come as part and parcel of the free hosted ones. Is this taking the easy way out? Yes, it probably is, but there is no point in re-inventing the wheel. Unless, of course, you want to learn how to do these sort of things, in which case you're either a little over ambitious, or you already know and understand what I'm saying here!

Plan: PRESENTATION

Plan HOW you want it to look. Have a very clear idea of how you want your page(s) to look BEFORE you start writing any code. Take a peice of paper and sketch out what you want the screen layout to be. Spending even an hour doing this will save you hours of work, re-work and frustration later. The better and more compete you plan is when you start, the less time it will take you when you come to write the code

Plan: AUDIENCE

Plan WHO you want to visit your page. This may also relate back to your Content and Pesentation, for example lots of dry text is likely to scare off younger viewers.

The Future

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