How to Build a Website at Home

Decide what you want your website to be about. Is it just going to be a personal blog page? Is it going to be more extensive? Is it something you want to use to sell items? Is it something in which you want to incorporate graphics, movies and animations? Making this decision will help you pick a software package to make your website at the appropriate level. There's no reason to pick a high-end software package like Adobe Dreamweaver if you just want a simple blog. Conversely, if you want the website to do a lot, Dreamweaver may be the only way to go.

Start with graphics and text outside the website environment. If you generally write in Microsoft Word or Pages, do your writing there. If you use Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for photos, that's the best place to tone and size your photos and other artwork. Think of a website like a canvas and the other software as a palette. You need to make the right combination on the palette before you move on to the canvas.

Write, edit and proofread your blog or other material in the word processor. If you are using Pages and iWeb on the Mac, you can even format font, text size, effects and color in Pages and it will copy seamlessly to iWeb. Size photos in Photoshop, remembering they should be 72 dots per inch. This is all the quality level needed for images on a website. If you make them bigger, the website will load slowly.

Create signature heads, titles and logos in a program like Photoshop or Illustrator for an individual look. In Photoshop, it is quite easy to format text using the Styles popup. You can integrate them with graphics for a logo. Use one set font and style throughout the website for a distinctive look.

Open your website maker. Simple programs such as iWeb are good to start with because they use templates. This can give you an idea of what you want, but you also can start with blank pages or manipulate the templates for your own look. With iWeb, it's as simple as dragging and dropping images and copying and pasting text. Once you have your elements in the program, you can move things around, resize text and graphics, and add special effects such as shadows, glows, lines and more.

Use Adobe Contribute for easy website changes. Even if you design an elaborate website using Dreamweaver, you can much more easily manipulate and change it later with Contribute.

Look for pre-made website designs and companies that allow you to build websites right on their servers. Homestead and Yahoo both have good systems for this along with step-by-step instructions.