Web Brandz - Web Design, Ppc Advertising, SEO, SEM, Internet Marketing, Email Marketing

I have seen many articles written about how to build a website or blog. For the most part I feel like they all leave beginners with many unanswered questions. Here I outline the fastest, simplest, and cheapest way to build your own website or blog from scratch without writing any HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) code. If you don’t know what the heck HTML code is, good, don’t worry about it.

Step 1.
Find a good web hosting company to host your website. This is how your website can exist and be found on the Internet. Without having your website hosted, there will be no way for anyone to gain access to it online. Web hosting can range anywhere from free to upwards of $200 a month. We will be focusing on hosting that will cost between $4 and $20 a month.

If you want the easiest way to build a website, you will be looking for a host that provides “site builder” software. Site builder software is a program that let’s you build your website by selecting pre made templates or themes and arranging the items on your webpages the way you want them to look. The only real trouble with something like this is you will be very limited on how much control you have over the final look of your pages. You will be working with pre made templates that only let you do so much with it. This is why most people (myself included) seem to outgrow this type of web hosting company in a hurry. Not to mention that these conveniences are what makes the price of hosting closer to the $20 range.

The type of hosting that I will recommend for someone starting out is a host that offers a site builder as well as open source software installation such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. This type of hosting is used by the majority of websites you see online. This type of hosting will run you between $4 and $10 a month. The open source software is free as well as being very popular and quite good. This type of software is often referred to as a content management system or CMS. A CMS will allow you many options for adding content to your website as well as choosing the layout and the look of your web pages. You will be able to add not only text, but photos, video, and audio as well. Out of the above choices for a CMS, WordPress is the one that I recommend and use due to it’s popularity and quick learning curve. Joomla and Drupal are very nice and powerful CMSs also, but they have a bit of a steeper learning curve.

Step 2.
The next step in building a website is choosing a domain name for your site. A domain name is the phone number for your website. It is the name people type in to their browser, such as (www.google.com).

Step 3.
Once you pick the right hosting, domain name, and CMS for your website, the next step is to install the CMS software to the “back end” of your website. The back end of your website is only available to you. The general public only sees the front end when they visit your site. Installing the CMS is done right from your control panel that you will receive from your hosting company after you sign up. The control panel is nothing more than a private page from your web hosting company that only you and the hosting company have access to. The software installation is really easy because most good hosting companies have it set up so you can add what ever CMS you want automatically. You just need to follow the onscreen instructions and set up your user name, password, and the name of your blog or website. It really is quite simple to do if you choose a reputable hosting company.

Step 4.
Now it’s time to choose a theme or a template for your website. A theme or template is similar to what I was talking about for a site builder. It is a pre designed look and layout for your web pages. The big difference between a site builder and a CMS is, with a CMS you have virtually limitless choices to pick from. WordPress has many free templates you can use for your website and they are getting better all the time.

Step 5.
The only thing left to do now is add all of your content to your website. Since you chose a good CMS, this part of the job is the most fun. There is nothing quite like seeing all of your web pages come together as a finished product.  Post source :- http://www.article-buzz.com/Article/How-to-build-a-website-in-5-simple-steps-/489822

A list of “Web site mistakes” could go on forever, actually. When it comes right down to it, it’s all “design” now, since we are talking about a (hopefully) cohesive unit, a well-crafted Web site. If it works well, you will do well. If not, you won’t. That’s simple, and keeping things simple really is the best kind of design.

Among these examples are tips for cosmetics, content and functionality. Even if you’ve already built your site, you can use this list as a means of “tweaking” and “refining” your approach.

Only if you have broken every conceivable rule of design and Web strategy would you need to dump your entire site and start from scratch. It is likely you could just start cleaning things up a bit, and work your way from 1 to 25 in no time-then find the list that takes you from 26 to 1,001, or perhaps a million. There are a lot of ways to commit faux pas in a virtual workplace!

1. Don’t create a Home page that actually just launches the “real” Home page. The fewer steps it takes the user to get to your content, the better.
2. If visitors don’t know what your site is all about in a few seconds, they’ll probably leave (at the speed of a mouse click). A site must communicate why people should spend time there, and immediately.
3. Everyone’s a speed-reader on the Internet. Use small text blocks, bullet points, lists, headers and subheaders-help readers “find and filter” your content.
4. Easy on the Flash: It increases the load time of the page, and gratuitous use annoys people. Use it sparingly, and for good reasons.
5. Everything counts, so no spelling or grammatical mistakes. If your language skills are poor, get help.
6. Do not use “wild ‘n’ crazy” or mismatched colors. Just “deliver a mood” (hopefully the right one) and allow users to focus on the content.
7. Do not use fancy fonts, five different type families or 4-point (that’s tiny) type. Sure, browsers have zoom tools, but if you make people use it, say, “Bye bye!”
8. Can the canned music. Do not use “auto play” and if you think you must, make sure the volume control is front and center.
9. Do not fill your Web site full of logos, certifications and badges. If they matter to you, put them on the About page.
10. Always include your contact details. This information is left out of many sites.
11. Do not play “silly text tricks” with blinking or scrolling.
12. Minimize or eliminate the “drop down” menus. Navigation options should be easily spotted and out in the open.
13. Text navigation is faster and more reliable, so use it.
14. Use simple navigation schemes (you know, “less is more”). You need a single, unambiguous navigation structure.
15. Don’t use FrontPage or other “beginner” or “point ‘n’ click” Web page “makers.” They seem to offer easier Web design, but you’ll get spotty code that may not be fully compatible with all browsers-and could have serious bugs.
16. Make sure your Web site works with all the most popular browsers.
17. Make sure to have anchor text on links to let visitors know where they’re going. There are also SEO benefits.
18. Do not “cloak” your links and prevent the user from seeing where the link is pointed (on the browser status bar). You and your site will lose credibility.
19. Skip the pop ups, of any kind. Even user-requested ones can be a bad idea with all of the “pop blockers” in all of the popular browsers.
20. Warn people if you link to PDF files. Some browsers, like Safari, will handle them well, and within the browser, while others force Adobe Reader or another application to open.
21. Do not require registration unless you absolutely must. People are hesitant to give up their email addresses unless what you have is so superb that they will hassle with it.
22. Never subscribe visitors or correspondents without consent. If they don’t ask for it, it’s spam.
23. Do not force new browser windows to open, or move or resize them. Leave control with the users, where it belongs.
24. Do not link to questionable or blacklisted sites. Google is becoming quite strict about this.
25. Make sure visitors can search your entire website. People want to find the information they are looking for, so make it easy for them!
Sure, there are plenty of others, and you may think you know some important ones that were left out of this list. You may just be right. Put that knowledge to good use and get your own sites up to snuff, and consider hiring out to help others do the same. There is a lot of clean-up work to be done to get today’s Internet whipped into shape. If you know how to do that, it could be lifelong job security for you! Post source:- http://www.article-buzz.com/Article/Top-25-Web-Design-Faux-Pas/491226