Designing Your First Web Page

For those of you out there who are just getting started with trying to build websites, you’re probably looking for a beginner software for webpage design. This can be very difficult. There are so many products on the market that vary in complexity from extremely difficult to basic WYSIWYG-type software (i.e. What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get, meaning it’s more like drag-and-drop).

Newbies, as we’re called when we are just breaking into this game, usually don’t know much if any of the basic computer code called HTML, (or Hyper Text Markup Language). And just to be correct, HTML is really not a code at all, it’s a “markup language” and that’s as techie as I’m going to get today! Software for webpage design doesn’t have to be scary.

Learning HTML will seem very difficult to most people. It’s odd form makes no sense at first, but before long the logic of it all will begin to come clear. Learning just a few of the commands will help “break the code”, so to speak. A good instructor will introduce it slowly until it makes sense. Looking at a page of source code will begin to make sense in no time. Webpage design doesn’t have to be difficult if you’re given the basic tools to work with at the right time and in the right doses.

But what if you don’t want to learn HTML now? You can still go to a couple of websites that will teach you webpage design quickly and easily. They are called Squidoo.com and Weebly.com. Both use drag-and-drop editors that make website building fun and simple. Let’s take a look at Squidoo.

Instead of webpages, Squidoo calls them “lenses” and you as its creator are called a “lensmaster”. There are two basic steps to webpage design there. First you assemble a stack of “modules”, as they’re called on the right side of the blank page. Modules consist of text boxes, images, a combination of both and many other special applications. You click, drag and drop them from a list and order them on top of each other until you build what really is an outline of your future webpage. As the second step, you then start filling in the blank modules. It’s really a fast process once you get familiar with it. Did I mention it was free too?

Of the two sites, Weebly is preferred by many for the ability to build a more custom-looking website. It has many web templates from which to choose from with one click of the mouse. Squidoo sites almost always look alike. Web page design on Weebly just looks more professional. You can even add audio and YouTube videos if you like.

There are other WYSIWYG websites out there, but for pure ease of use starting out, I would stay away from trying to learn to use more difficult software for webpage design and go with one of these until you gain more confidence. Have some fun!