General Questions about Web Design

Can I create my own site?

Absolutely. You can also do your own taxes and fix your own car. But doing any of these things may not be in your best interest. Just like fixing your own car, building your own web site can be quite a simple matter once you know what's involved. But there are many aspects to creating a web site and it will take a significant amount of time to gain the knowledge in all the necessary technologies you will require. In addition to that, you'll need the experience and practice to know when and how to correctly apply that new knowledge.

While some people will look on this as a challenge, for many people the time required to reach this level can be much better spent doing other things.

Will my site look the same on every computer?

Unfortunately it won't. The problem is that every web browser interprets the code behind your web site slightly differently. For example, Internet Explorer will interpret some of the aspects of a commonly used div tag slightly differently than Mozilla Firefox would interpret the same line of code. Beyond that, the Times font on a Macintosh computer is slightly different than the Times found on a common Windows based computer, which is different again than what you would find on a Linux based computer. And than there are differences in personal setup. For example, a user with vision problems may use a larger font size than the ordinary user. And there is sure to be a user visit your site with a different size monitor than yours, which will again change the way they view your site. While most of these differences are minor, when combined together in an entire web site, they can make a drastic change to how your site will look.

There is hope however. A talented web designer will be able to create code that takes these differences into account and minimizes their impact on the layout of your site. An important factor here is to make sure that the person you hire to create your web site is familiar with, and follows the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium.

What is a domain name and host?

There are three aspects to even the most simple web design projects. The web designer is the most obvious part of the puzzle. But the web designers efforts are worthless without a domain name and web host.

A web host is the company that actually makes your site available on the internet. Your web site must be installed onto the host's computer, or server, in order to make it available for the world to see. In addition to making your site viewable to the world, the server will often handle your email addresses and keep track of visitors to your site.

A domain name is the name of your site as it is typed in by people wanting to visit your site. When someone types your domain name into their web browser, that domain name is looked up in a master database that tells the visitors computer where to find the web server in order to find your web site.

Some web designers also handle web hosting and domain name registration, saving you from having to deal with three different people.

How is my site tested?

There are two primary types of testing your site should undergo before being launched. The first step is to make sure that people can understand how to get around the site and find the information they need. It doesn't matter how good or important the information on your web site is if no one can get to it. A good designer will make sure that this aspect of testing is taken care of by a wide range of users of varying skill levels.

The second important portion of testing involves looking at the site in several different browser and computer platforms. Your site will appear differently in each browser and it's up to the designer to go over these differences and make them as small as possible. This should include testing on several different platforms, at the very least involving the most common browsers on both Macintosh and Windows computers.

Depending on the nature of your site, other testing may be necessary to ensure that your site is secure and operates correctly.

How do I get into the search engine listings?

Getting a good spot in the search engine rankings is a rather imprecise and ever evolving science. The basics involve making sure that your site has a proper set of 'meta keywords' and interesting, frequently updated content that people will want to read in a format that the search engines can reach, then simply submit your site to the search engine to be 'crawled.' The search engines themselves take care of the rest by crawling your site, or looking through your site and indexing the parts that they consider to be important. This information then gets placed in a database that is used to generate the search engine rankings.

This is a very basic overview of search engine optimization, but if your web designer doesn't look after at least this much of the process, you may want to go looking for a new designer.

At The Artstract Co. we work closely with our clients to build a site that suits them precisely. Whether you're looking for a simple base from which to build your own site, or someone to do the complete development, we have a solution for you. Through the use of the latest XHTML and CSS technologies and testing on multiple computer platforms, we build a site that works consistently world wide now and in the future. All our sites are built using text based, accessible content that allows both a usable site for disabled users and great content for search engine rankings. And to save you the hassle of dealing with several different suppliers, The Artstract Co. can register your domain name and host your site in addition to our design and development services. We are your one stop solution for all your web needs.