How to Make a Really Good Website

A website needs good design and informative content.

Creating a website is fairly simple and doesn't cost much money. However, if you want to site to reach a wide audience, you will have to spend some time thinking about your readers and familiarizing yourself with search engine optimization techniques.

Instructions

1. Find a hosting company. Unless you already know how to set up self-hosting, it's easier to find a company that will host your website for you. Hosting can be cheap and many companies will offer bonus features, such as extra email addresses, too.

2. Choose a domain name. If the website is for a business, this could be the name of your company or something that describes the service you offer. Domain names should be as short and as catchy as possible so more people are likely to remember them.

3. Find a web editor. If you are inexperienced with web design and coding, you might want to try blog software like Wordpress and export it to your domain name. Otherwise, software like Dreamweaver will allow you to create and edit your own coding. Once you have found an editor, you can start creating the pages for your website.

4. Create a homepage and an 'about' page. The homepage will usually be the first page visitors see, so it should provide information about the site, as well as encourage them to click links to other pages. The about page will give more information about you or your company for business websites) and your background. Once you have these two pages, you can start adding others.

5. Ensure your content makes sense and proofread the text. The better quality your writing is, the more professional your website will seem. It is also important to create content that adds value and fulfils a certain need or answer that people might be looking for.

6. Focus on the design of the site. The color scheme, fonts and layout all contribute to how readable the site is. If you choose colors that are too garish or too boring, readers might be turned off, no matter how good the content is. Equally, if the font is highly stylised, it will be difficult to read.

7. Test your site. This includes loading the site in different browsers and checking to see that all links work. Try to imagine you are visiting it for the first time and look at how easy it is to find information, contact information for you or your organization.

Tips & Warnings

• Look at other websites you visit regularly and take note of what you like and dislike about their design and content.

• Add images to your website. This will help break up the text and make it more readable.

References

• The Site Wizard: How to Make Your Own Website
• Economic and Social Research Council: A Guide to Creating and Maintaining a Good Website (PDF)

Resources

• Wordpress
• Adobe Dreamweaver