5 Things you need to know before designing your website

Hey guys its Chris again, today I'm going to explain 5 things you need to know before starting your website. The 5 things i will be explain will give a more understanding about websites, and what steps you need to take.

1.  The different types of websites.

Depending on what your website is base on you will have to decide on what type of website you will need. Usually when people are selling products they usually create a website to make it into a online store, this would be called a ecommerce website. If you are creating a website for service and your not selling anything a basic website would be great.

    2. Sitemap

Now that you have decided what type of websites yours fall under, the next step is to create your own sitemap. A sitemap is basically a map of your website. When you're on a site map you need to figure out how many pages are you going to have on your website, and which pages might have sub pages. Most websites consist of home, about, contact, portfolio maybe services or products and a shopping cart. When creating sub pages the best thing to do is create drop down menu this way it looks more organized and clean.

    3. Designing a layout

Once you have your sitemap, the next step is to design your own layout for your website. Most websites have the same structure, which is the header, body, and footer. The header area usually has the navigation menu and your logo, the body area is where you put your content at and footer area has copyright social icon, privacy and disclaimer links. When designing the look of your website most people use software’s like adobe Photoshop and illustrator, if anything there is a free software called gimp this will definitely help design the look of website. So when designing your Website each page will have the same designs and colors the only thing different is that the content in the body area will change per page.

    4. Coding or CMS

Now that you have created layout for your website, the next step is how do want the website develop. In web design you have different ways to create a website coding and CMS (content management system). If you choose to code your website you will need understand coding languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. When using a content management system like Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal you will be able to create a website by using theme template instead coding them. If don't understand how to code then your options would be to hire a web developer or use CMS.

   5. Hosting

Once you chosen how you’re going create your website the next step is to host it online. So first thing to do to host it is to find a hosting site like godaddy and hostgator sign up. Once you created your account the next thing to do is to create a domain name for your URL like (www.mysite.com). Now if you create your website using HTML you will use FTP (file transfer protocol), I use a software called filezilla this will allow you to upload your website. If you create your website using CMS then you will log into your control panel and install the one of applications like, WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. Once you installed it you will be capable of creating your website using their templates and plugins.

Thank you for viewing our blog check out Saturdays blog post on How to heat press from design to light color shirt. If you have any question comment below or email us at info@equalizedesignz.com.