I haven’t created a new web site in a couple of years. This is the third live web site that I have created for myself.
I am not a professional web page designer, but now I know what a professional web page designer goes through when they are hired to create a new web site for someone.
For this new website I wanted to come up with a new style and look. That is where the challenge for me began.
My first challenge was picking background and text colors. This took me about one to two hours to accomplish.
Next, I had to decide on how I wanted the content of my website aligned. At first I had the text left aligned. Since I wanted to come up with a new layout that was different from my previous sites I chose to center align the text for this new web site.
Rather than having the text go across the entire page I narrowed the width of the text area to make it easier for people to read.
I decided to place a border around the main text area to make my web site look a little bit more interesting. I also placed borders around the headings for the same reason. Since I created this entire web site using Notepad the only things that I can do to make the look of my web site pleasing to my site visitors is to use nice background and text colors and add a border.
Another challenge for me was to come up with a design that fills the screen of my visitors monitor no matter what resolution the visitor uses without anything overlapping. That was pretty easy to do.
Another decision that I had to make was choosing between a single column or a three column design. I made both the one and three column designs and I had a hard time trying to decide on what color background to use for the left and right columns of my site. To keep from using too many colors on my site I chose a single column design.
As I was playing around with the three column design I also had to figure out if I wanted a horizontal menu or a menu located on the left side of the page. I played around with both designs and they both looked good. I decided to go with the horizontal menu.
I wanted a menu that can expand or contract and not wrap regardless of the size of the window that a visitor uses to view my web site.
I looked at several horizontal menus that I found online and in one of my HTML books. They didn’t work because they became distorted when I shrank the size of the web page. I kept looking and I found one that works perfectly.
Altogether I spent around 30 hours to create my two page web site. My site went officially online on October 1, 2008.
In case anyone is interested in looking at my web site the URL is www.inexpensivewebsitecritiques.com
In case anyone is interested in building a website, the second page on my new web site tells you my recommendations for choosing a great domain name.
I created my new web site because I enjoy helping people and also because many people would like having an honest opinion about their web sites.
I have critiqued about 600 web sites. If you feel that you may benefit from having me critique your web site, please contact me by using the email link provided on my web site.
Jim Juris
