How would someone really go about making their own web site?

[Jakob]

[janzy]

If you find that you are totally unable to design a nice-looking website, no matter what you do,try this nice website design formula.

Choosing a background for your website -

White website background
(reputable, mainstream) A white website background should almost always be used on a company website, or a site that is trying to sell something. The "white" theme can also be done with a navy blue background, and white text.

Black website background
(cool, different) A black website background should be used for any website that's even slightly non-corporate - games websites, adult websites, personal websites. If your website is a bit different, use black.

Graphical website background
(natural, real) Making your website background graphical (e.g. by tiling), is dangerous, and rarely looks good. A very faint photo or a well-done watermark is okay. I had to tone down the background on my old website several times to get it right.

1 – Setting up the menu area
Your website should always start in Photoshop, not your web page editor.

Make a new 500x400 pixel image.

Zoom out and use the Freeform Pen tool to make an appropriate shape for a website menu. Remember to hold Ctrl whenever you want to move your points around, or drag their "arms". Make sure you have the "Paths" option at the top left of the screen selected. (You must zoom out or maximise the little window you're working in, otherwise you won't be able to drag your points into the grey area.)

Turn it into a selection. (Right click on it and choose "Make Selection".)

Make sure that your points make almost a complete circuit, as the first and last points will connect up when you turn the path into a selection.

2 – Designing the menu
Create a new layer.

Fill the selected area with a left-right gradient of a colour and a darker shade of that colour. (I used red and dark red.)

Right-click the layer in the layers list, and choose "Blending Options" (Adobe Photoshop 6.0 & 7.0) or "Effects" (Adobe Photoshop 5). Give the area a shadow, bevelling, contour, and a texture (I used Carpet here).


3 – The watermark
To create a watermark (lightened area), use the Wingdings font, and type in "jk". It should come out as two swirly symbols.

Press Ctrl+T to rotate them, then make them into a watermark by changing them to an Overlay layer.

If your watermark extends over the edge of your menu area, just right-click it in the Layers list, and Rasterize or Render it, to make it editable. Then Ctrl+Click on your red menu layer, click Select > Inverse, and press Delete, to delete the unwanted part.


4 – Making a logo
The bulbous area at the tip is where the website's logo goes.

Use Times New Roman font here, and put some appropriate text in.

The easiest way to put the horizontal line in is by just typing underscores. ( __ )

GRight-click each of these layers, and choose Blending Options (Photoshop 6.0 and 7.0) or Effects (Photoshop 5.)

Give each of these layers a 0.5 pixel black Stroke (outline), a Drop Shadow, and a Bevel.

If a black outline of one pixel is still too much, just make the outline 50% opacity, and it will look like it's half as thick.


5 – Making some buttons
Create a new layer.

Use the Shape Tool to put in a rounded rectangle. (Select the little square button at the top left that says "create new work path"). Create the shape, and then right-click it and convert it to a selection. (This step is Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and 7.0 only - just use a rectangle in Adobe Photoshop 5.0)

Put another light-to-dark gradient across the shape (I've used green), and then give them the usual bevel/contour, texture, stroke, and shadow.

Give the button some text (I've used bold Tahoma), of a new colour (I've used yellow), and give it the usual effects, but without the texture.


6 – Adding a picture
The final touch, which adds a nice effect, is to put a picture of something relevant in behind the menu. You can find stock photography easily on the web.

Use the Clone stamp tool to extend the top and bottom of the photo if it's not big enough.

While holding shift, run a white airbrush along the right side of the image.

Don't worry about the bottom of the image for now.

When you've finished doing any website design, always select any non-picture elements (e.g. the menu bar, header text, buttons, and button text) and press Ctrl+U to colour-shift them. Play around with the sliders until you like the colours. (I haven't done this here, because I already knew which colours would look best.

7 – Creating a "sliver"
A sliver is what I call a thin slice of an image that can be repeated indefinitely on your website, to fill up an area of any size.

Save your work here, and do not save it again from this point, as the image will be flattened, and you want to keep your layers for future work.

This step can also be done easily with the Slice Tool, but for simplici

[anblik]

You wont need to learn programming to get your own website. There are many such quality websites available where you can build your site easily. Build your own professional looking site quickly and easily with do-it-yourself website builder, Ad free hosting, Social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter integration, Add 3rd party content like Youtube, Myspace video, Google maps.

1. http://www.moonfruit.com?cc=407902

2. http://www.yola.com/

3. http://www.webs.com/

4. http://www.wetpaint.com/

[5 Dollar Foot Long]

The best way is to get a program like dreamweaver, it will have all the bells and whistles. Then practice until you are comfortable. This way your site will be unique to you, your friends with their templates will be jealous.

[Joe G]

As you may know a domain name is just a name, not a real website. If you are going to create your website: 1- Buy a domain name. A domain name is a name you want to call your website. To get a domain name, you have to pay an annual fee to a registrar for the right to use that name. 2- Buy a web hosting service to provide your online space and enable you to get your website online at your purchased domain name.

If you want to start your website I recommend purchase your domain and hosting together. In this way it is possible to get your domain for free. Some hosting services offer this gift today.

As an experienced webmaster I recommend BlueHost service which I’m sure it would work for you and fulfill all your requirements. They have a really great offer for hosting & I have used them for over 3 yrs now, and have never had a single problem with them.

They are a Multi-awarded Web Hosting which offer a Full-featured service only $6.95. You can see their Plan Details accompanied with reliable reviews regarding their service at:

http://www.threehosts.com/reviews/1st

Here I have copied and pasted its features from their website to view:

- Free Domain Forever
- Unlimited Space
- Unlimited Transfer
- Blog (wordpress)
- Forum (phpbb,bulletin)
- Host UNLIMITED Domains (Support All Domain Names)
- 2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
- SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
- CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
- Front Page Extensions
- Free Site Builder
- 24/7 Superb/Responsive Sales/Support
- Free Search Engine Submission

They also offer "Free Site Builder" that helps you build your web pages without difficulty if you are not skilled in using any website creating program. (WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get) You can use this service optionally.

******IMPORTANT********
* This service was awarded “The Best Web Host OF The Year”.
* If you sign up for this service you will have $75 credits to advertise your website with the google & yahoo search engines for free!
* You Can Register A Free Domain or Use Your Existing Domains. They Support All Domain Names.
**************************

Another useful link:
http://www.threehosts.com/build
There you can find a step-by-step guide to start your website.

And also a cheap, reliable service:
http://www.goldpuma.com

And the easiest way to create a website is reachable here (web host offering 4500 decent templates):
http://www.threehosts.com/tell-me-more/hg.html


Good Luck!