Neptune Web Hosting - Guide To Web Design
1) Introduction
How many times have
you heard writers say that all of us have a novel buried
somewhere inside? Nowadays, that could be reworded using
"website" instead of novel.
Every one of us has
a wealth of knowledge or experience we could actually
publish in a website. It's also a lot more achievable
than writing a novel. Too many people just put it off
- or never quite get round to it. They tend to believe
(mistakenly) that creating a website is too big a task
to undertake, or something that requires specialised knowledge
or skill. In the Web Design section of Neptune Web Hosting
we're going to show you just how easy it can be to make
an online presence. If you prefer to get someone else
to do it for you - we can even help with that too, thanks
to our in-house web design team.
We will begin with
registering a domain name and purchasing a hosting package
for your site - through to generating the pages and getting
your site listed with the search engines. That's the really
vital part if you want visitors to find your website in
the first place.
2)
Why Do You Want A Website?
There are a million
reasons for setting up a website. It could be to promote
your local club or an organisation, show off your family
photos, advertising a small business, selling your goods/services
- or just as a personal site to publish your own thoughts
and achievements, sort of like an online diary.
No matter how basic
your site is going to be it still needs planning and there
are decisions to be made.
Once everything is finished you will then need a way
to let your potential visitors know that the site exists.
When you look through this list of vital ingredients to
complete in the website process, you may think it will
be expensive and difficult to do. In fact building your
site is much easier and cheaper than you might expect.
With Neptune Web Hosting you can find an inexpensive
package that includes templates, a free website builder
software (free with all our packages) and an online file
manager to manage your site files. We will also register
the domain name you choose for your site. By going for
one of our packages with all of it's capabilities it will
keep your costs to a minimum. It also means you are dealing
with just one company rather than several. We are going
to assume in this section that you are going to set up
your website with Neptune Web Hosting (www.neptunewebhosting.com).
3) It's All In The Planning
Okay you have decided to create a web site with Neptune
Web Hosting. The next thing is to work out exactly what
the site is going to include. You will need to think carefully
about the contents of each page as well as the type of
pages that the site will be made up from. This will show
you the way to determine how the site will fit together
and how your visitors will navigate around it.
It's always a good idea to use an old-fashioned pen
and paper to sketch out your page layout ideas whether
your pages are going to be designed from scratch or from
ready-made templates. The pen and paper route will give
you a rough draft before you attempt to create on the
computer. The first stage might seem boring and not necessary
to you, but it will save you a lot of time in the long
run.
When you have a good idea of how a site is eventually
going to flesh out it will make the process of putting
the pages together far easier. It will also give you a
good idea of which of the Neptune Web Hosting packages
you need for the site. If you are going for a basic website
made up of text and images that don't need to be updated
very often - then the starter gold package is ideal. If
the site you are designing needs more advanced features
and looks likely to expand in the future then the business
gold or professional gold may be the right one for you.
4) Registering The Domain
When you have an idea of what is going to make up the
site and what it's going to be about, then it's time to
register the domain and buy the hosting package for it.
You don't have to buy your domain name through Neptune,
but if you don't then you will have to manually configure
the address to point to your Neptune web hosting package
or transfer the domain name over to us.
It makes life much easier to buy both from the same place
and will all be taken care of for you. The things to take
into account when you choose a domain name is whether
the name you want has already been taken by someone else.
You can find this out very easily using our domain name
checker at http://www.neptunewebhosting.com/whois be sure
to include the extension which can be .com, .co.uk .net
etc.,
