I prefer to design my own but you can find many ready to use graphics on the internet. Design an easy to use interface for the site navigation or you can start with a template. If you chhose to use a pre made template you find many sources that already have the basic graphics and navigation set up for you. We have listed many sources of these here on our templates page for you. It is recommended that you use software tools in the beginning. Two packages I presently use and have found to be excellent for building web pages are Microsoft Front Page and Macromedia Flash. If you get more proficient you can easily modify most code from an editor as simple as notepad that is included with windows. What I do is create the meat of the project using tools then tweak my result using notepad. Using most of the tools available today on the market it allows you to plan and organize a web project. As a business site it will probaly require you to collect information from your customers. To do this you will need to run some server side scripts.

Organize Your site like you would a file drawer "I hope" If you organize the folders, for your site, before you begin creating your pages, then you will always be able to find your pages when you need them.

1. Create folders for different types of files. If you are adding pictures to your site, you should have a folder named something like "graphics" or "pictures. This is where you will always place your pictures. If you have some pages about you and others about your kids, create different folders to keep each in.
2. Name your pages and graphics in a way in which it will be easy to find them later. When you have groups of pages or graphics that are similar, give them similar names. For instance, if you have a group of pages with stories about your vacation, start the name of each file with "vac". The file names could be: vacday1, vacrainyday.

• Keep your graphics sizes small. Most graphic packages and photo editors allow you to save files in different quality. It is wonderful to see your photos in high quality but if it takes too long on the internet no one else will ever see them. When the pixel size of your graphics are too big, it takes too long for your page to load.
• Put large graphics on a separate page. Create a page especially for your large graphic. Link to it from your page and label the link with something telling your readers that it will take a long time to download. They will wait to see it if they are warned ahead of time. Use of a thumbnail is an option in place of a text link to your graphic page. A thumbnail is a smaller version of your graphic. You can create one with most graphic programs by just making the graphic smaller or using the "thumbnail" option, if the program has one. FrontPage has this built right in. You insert the graphic then choose the auto thumbnail icon. It creates a miniature of your picture automatically with a link to the larger version.
• Plan to Update your site regularly. When people come to your site, they are looking for information about you, or whatever your site is about. If they like your site, they will come back again. When they come back, they will be looking for more information. If you don't have something new for them to look at, they may not come back again. Give them what they want and add more information regularly.
• Keep text narrow. It is easier to read text that is kept in narrow columns. Did you ever wonder why newspapers keep their columns so narrow? It's to make it easier to read. It's even more important on the Internet because your readers are reading on their computer screen. If they can't read everything, without scrolling sideways, then they probably won't read it at all.
• Test your page with different browsers and browser settings. Your pages may look different to different computers depending on the browser they are using and the settings they have set. Finding out how your pages look to others will help you create better pages.
  1. Change the font size in your browser. Not everyone uses the default settings in their browser. Go into your browser's settings and change the font size to see how other's may view your pages.
  2. Check other browsers. There are online tools to help you view your site with other browsers without having to download the actual browser. Sometimes your site will look great to you, but to someone with another browser, your site looks awful. Test your site and make some changes, if necessary.

• Don't use too much white space. If you put too much white space on your page it will just look bad. Some is necessary because you don't want your page to look crowded, but too much will look, spacey.
• Color coordination is important. If you use colors you can make the page interesting sometimes without too many graphics.