Web Development
Planning
If you are interested in a web site the first step in planning is to define your organizational and/or personal goals you wish to achieve. This includes identifying who your audience is, what your message is, and how the audience will interact with your web site in a way that creates value. It is highly advisable that you take your ideas and organize them into categories (pages) and start collecting and creating the raw content (text and images) to build the pages. If you need help in planning your web site, The Girdwood Guru can help.
Layout & Design
This includes the actual process of assembling the raw content (text and images) into a structure and hierarchy of pages. Defining the color selections, font selections, navigation systems, and overall stylistic impression would be included as part of the layout and design. If you already have an idea of what you want your web site to look like, it is a good idea to sketch it out by hand.
Domain Registration & Hosting
The next step in publishing a web site once the design is finished is to purchase a domain name and hosting services. The costs associated with domain registration and hosting are ongoing, unlike design fees. The domain name is the address (example: girdwoodguru.com) from which your web site can be accessed. A web hosting provider hosts (provides the space) and serves the content of your web site to all computers on the Internet that access it. IVCHosting is an economical yet feature rich domain and web hosting provider.
Maintenance
Most sites need some sort of maintenance, from simple text changes to complete redesigns. Certain types of web maintenance (simple text changes) can often be managed by the user with the proper training and applications.
Content Management Systems
If you are interested in a web site that has advanced functionality yet can be managed by a non technical user you may be interested in a a database driven open source content management system, such as Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Wordpress, or CMS Made Simple.