How to become a Web Designer

By MarlaineMarie, eHow Member

Best Starting Book!

User-Submitted Article

Ever wonder how to get started making your own website? It seems everyone has a website, but few can go beyond the pre-set templates. Here's how to do it yourself and RIGHT!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You'll Need:

A computer
A plain text editor (notepad)
Access to study books on HTML and the internet

The Very First Thing Is To Learn HTML! A lot of places will try and sell you either on templates (Choose one of 3 lovely colors!) or a visual editor, such as Dreamweaver (which makes such a mess, even professional coders have trouble reading the code, let alone editing it). HTML is really a very simple coding language that once learned is very versatile and easy to incorporate.

Please, don't be afraid of HTML! It really isn't as intimidating as you'd think. At it's most basic, it's simple plain text files with a set of characters that have a special meaning. Try starting with Elizabeth Castro's book, "HTML, XHTML & CSS. If you can't find it at your local library or just want a copy to keep, visit Duelin' Deals Emporium using the link below.
Find a good online tutoring site on HTML and/or pick up books at the library. There are plenty of great tutorial sites around but probably the best is W3 Schools - check out the link below. They offer - "Web Building Tutorials - All Free" and they are easy to use. I am a regular visitor to the library and the librarians laughingly call for the book cart when they see me walk in so I can cart my requested items to the car - but it's probably not worth buying a book on HTML since it's a rather simple technology. Once you've learned the basics, there are a lot of great references online to remind you of whatever crucial piece of HTML code you might need. You can also save specifics to a cd such as color chart codes, etc. W3 Schools have full reference libraries for any coding types. There are tons of sources though - so go explore!
Set up a practice website. Pick a subject you love and play with it! Seeing a site develop while you are actually learning how to make it
can be incredibly motivating and enjoyable! Have fun! Pick something you never get tired of and you may end up with a site that everyone goes to check out!
Once you have a site that you wish people to see, you'll want to put it up for display on the Big Wild Web. For this, you'll need to upload your web files to a Webserver. There are plenty of free web hosts around - check the links below for two of the best. Just sign up with one of these great hosts. They have incredibly easy guides to help you get your files uploaded and your website up & running fast & easy! If you have any problems, they are easy to contact via their ticket systems and they get back to you within 24 hours. There is very little downtime on either one of these hosting services, too, so you can depend on your site getting up and staying up. If your site is a viable business, you should register a domain name for it and pay for a hosting service that offers a lot more services like bigger files sizes, more bandwidth, and a method for payment of any goods you may want to sell.
At this point you may wish to extend you knowledge to improve the look and feel of your page design. Learn CSS - Cascading Style Sheets - which is an addition to HTML, and coded in exactly the same way. W3 schools have some great tutorials on CSS but a good reference book on the subject might be worth investing in. Request tutorial books from your local library first to see if this is an aspect of coding that you want to learn more about.
Next, start incorporating web scripting into your pages. There are 2 great scripting technologies to work with - JavaScript and PHP. Both are excellent programming tools and totally free to use. Added note: Thanks to my husband, Brad, for encouraging me to learn HTML and Happy Anniversary!