When it comes to technology geeks…we’ve got gamers, hardware geeks and software geeks. At some point or another, however, there comes a time when everyone with a bit of geek inside them wants to build a website. Whether this is for themselves or for a business, it’s bound to come at some point. When it does, however, what are the first steps to take? As such, we thought we’d put together a quick guide alongside one of the leading companies offering web design in Essex; Yellow Duck Web Design, to highlight how to get into it and what the best resources are.
First of all; you need to ensure you have a basic understanding of HTML. Whilst it helps to have an understanding of design and photoshop as well, it’s really HTML you need to know the basics of. Whatever platform or system you end up using, it’ll be based around HTML in one way or another. In order to learn HTML, or at least the basics of, we’d suggest heading over to W3 Schools and following through a number of their tutorials. Whilst you’re there, it’s well worth taking a look into PHP as well.
From then on, you need to undertake a few basic projects of your own. First of all, we’d suggest building a very basic site from scratch using either an editor such as Dreamweaver or just going and using a basic text editor such as notepad. Building a basic site from scratch will really test your understanding and allow you to learn as you go. You will, of course, need some web hosting in order to view the site online whilst you’re learning but our suggestion on that would be someone such as HostGator.
After you’re confident in building basic sites; have a go at customising a theme in WordPress. This is most likely the CMS you’ll be using as you continue your path down a web developers road and it’s well worth developing an understanding on it as quickly as possible.
More than anything; simply learn by doing! It’s the best way to gain an understanding on web development and it really is the case that you can learn from your own mistakes better than anything else.
