Web Design Tutorials for Beginners

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What You Need to Know About Designing a Website in 2013

1. WordPress is the preferred website builder. More than half of website creators now use it for their sites.

Why? Because it's simple to setup, very dynamic and can be used for blogs or traditional websites. Also, you don't have to be a designer to use the program. You just pick a theme, tweak it and you're live!

Learn more about creating a blog or website with WordPress here.

Read about the different website builders here.

2. Go clean. Forget the multi-colored websites with flashing buttons, banners and loud backgrounds. Simple is in.

If you're using WordPress to build your website, consider using the Genesis theme - one of the most popular WordPress frameworks with crisp, clean designs.

3. Use simple navigations. Don't overwhelm your visitors with 20 choices on your menu. Highlight the most important pages and use sub menus to keep your navigation clean.

4. Larger fonts and white space rules. To make your pages easier to read, it's important to use larger fonts (at least 14px and lots of white space).

5. Build a responsive site. This ensures your site displays optimally in all browsers. For example, I use the WordPress Prose theme on my blog and it automatically loads optimally on phones, tablets, etc.

More and more people are surfing the Web on their mobile devices so having a responsive site, or a design that works with all resolutions, is ideal.

Click here to learn more about mobile web design.

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HTML & CSS

Simple, Free HTML Templates for Static Websites
Need a very basic template to get going? Download these HTML templates that are free for your business or personal use.

Customizable, CSS Web Templates
Download my HTML / CSS web templates for static websites and learn to create the site you want.

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Don't think you need to learn HTML because you use a CMS like WordPress? Think again. Knowing the basics never hurts.

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