There’s a widely-held misconception about what it takes to create a website, even accounting for differences across class, gender and educational levels. It is generally thought that a degree in computer design or programming is necessary for web design, or, at least a lot of hands-on experience with computers. Having done web design and coding for eight years for many clients with widely-differring needs, I know that the opposite is true. Designing and creating a website is not only enjoyable but is not as difficult as the general public seems to think.

If you have a design in mind before you begin to create a web site, it can really help to speed the process along. Although not essential, especially for a very basic site, graphic software can be helpful. However, if you don’t have the software available, there are numerous free sites that will help you to do something as basic as resizing an image, or more advanced, such as animating your graphics or changing a color photo to black and white.

When you are looking to create a website, there are several services available online that provide web hosting for free as well as for pay. For those who are new to website creation, free hosting may be a good place to start to build up your skill levels to create ever better sites. The biggest benefit to many of these free hosting sites is that they offer free HTML editors

”What You See Is What You Get” or WYSISYG HTML editors are the most practical and effective programs for newcomers to website design. This approach allows you to display all aspects of your page on the screen and preview how it will look after it is published. For those just starting out who are not yet well versed in the terminology, this is much easier that completely coding a website by hand in a .txt file.

You may want to consider using different editing program other than WYSIWYG editor for creating your site when you are more comfortable with designing and coding. Editors are available that use a combination of WYSIWYG and code viewing to create a site. Once you have become fore familiar with complex coding, this may be a preferable option to what a straight WYSIWYG editor can provide.

At any rate, mastering the abilities needed to create a website can be an enjoyable and mind-expanding way to spend some time. When you have gained some practice, you might even want to advertise and make money helping others to develop their sites too. That was how I got into the field of web design when I was a student in secondary school. Nowadays, I am a professional at it. Although you have to be patient and willing to experiment, anyone can become proficient given enough time and hands-on experience.

As someone who has done web design and web coding for the last 8 years for a wide variety of clients, I have come across a wide variety of clientele who have the assumption that to create a website, one must have a degree in design or programming and far more experience than they have or hope to possess. Quite the opposite is actually true. One can learn to create a web site in a short amount of time. The process can not only be fun, but much easier than you think. Indeed, anyone can master the basics quite rapidly.

- Tem Balanco