Some Dont's for beginning webmasters

Let me start you off with some things you definitely shouldn't do. Keep these in mind as you are building your website.

• Don't put a lot of large graphics and animations on your website. This may look good on your computer but it will take forever for your web visitors to download. Chances are they will just go somewhere else before your site finishes loading.
• Don't use a black background with stars in your website. I have seen this a thousand times and it is just way over used and a sure sign of a useless website.
• Don't experiment with all kinds of fonts and colors. Keep your design limited to a few colors. And look at your website. Is it easy to read and understand. Multiple colors make it hard to discern what you are saying. Ever try to read yellow text on a white background?
• Don't get overambitious at first. It is easy to bite off more than you can chew. Five interesting web pages are better than fifty boring ones. People don't browse through all the pages of your website one at a time. They pick and choose what interests them.
• Don't proclaim in the first line of your website that "This will be the webs best site on such-and-such a topic then pretty much leave the rest of the site bare. I have seen this way too many times. If you are going to proclaim your website to be awesome then put in the time and make it awesome.
• Don't overuse the term "Under Construction" Better yet don't use it at all. The web is littered with at least 10 million pages that have a title and an "Under Construction" sign and nothing more. Don't waste the websurfers time. Make a page only when you have content to put in it.
• Final Don't - Don't give up Web design is really rewarding. It is a medium that will enable to express yourself in words, pictures, music, art and many other ways. Keep at it. You will get better.

You have gained some basic skills with making a website and now you want to improve the way your website looks but you are having a hard time.

This is a common complaint and it is very understandable. Let me explain why.

When you first start making websites you are using some very specific computer related skills and you probably already have these skills. For example you have to download and upload programs and use functions that are menu driven. These are things you pretty much know how to do if you have been using a computer and surfing the internet for a while.

So learning how to build a website is not too much of a stretch for you.

But, now you want to design websites that look good and this is a whole new world. This enters the realm of graphic design as it is applied to the web. So unless you have graphic artist training you are stumbling through this aspect of web design.

So you need to refocus yourself and think about "Web Design". This web design for dummies book is a perfect place for beginners.

Be patient with this aspect of web development. It takes a certain amount of artistic skill and that takes time.