Web designers and web developers are two of the most sought-after professions these days. It is not as hard as it may seem to become one.
With some free time, a keen interest, and a lot of practice and patience, you could find yourself making world-class websites and earning a nice income by doing so.
It is something you can as a career or side career and the following steps will help you achieve it.
Learn from other great web designers and programmers.
Take a look at other well-designed websites, and note how a menu or content area is laid out and then use that knowledge in your designs.
Get the right tools.
Start by getting a good vector graphics editor such as Adobe illustrator. Making images using vector graphics is the easiest way to grasp graphics design, so spending some money on something like illustrator or fireworks will be a great help. Inkscape is a nice free and open-source alternative for beginners.
Learn the skills you’ll need
You need to learn the skills that will help and these skills include:
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- PHP
- SQL
- Bootstrap
There are many tutorials on the Web where you can learn these languages. But the best place for learning is (if you search on Google) W3Schools.
The six languages listed above are enough for a start. However there is no end of learning, especially in a Web Developer’s life. The main purposes of these languages are:
- HTML: For the main content of the webpage,
- CSS: For the page style,
- JavaScript: For dynamic content,
- jQuery: For easy JavaScript scripting,
- PHP: For server side scripting,
- SQL: For database management.
- BootStrap: Rapid development for websites that is mobile ready first.
Create dynamic websites using PHP and MySQL
These technologies will enable you to create a website that does not require you to make individual HTML pages but allow you to use templates to display multiple pages within the same design.
Consider using a dynamic web service to improve the user experience (UX) Create a web site that uses AJAX so you can utilise the server-side power of PHP without having to refresh the page thus saving bandwidth and enabling you to create ‘interactive’ web applications.
Set up your computer as a productive website development environment.
Install a web server on your Computer so that you can work on scripts locally without an Internet connection
Practice using coding examples
Get yourself some script examples to “tinker” with: Finding a script to dissect is the best way to learn. Try CMS’s like Drupal and Joomla
Be bold by starting a project when you have idea and some time.
The best time to start making websites is as soon as possible, for two reasons; they can take a lot of time to complete, and you learn a lot just by making them. Don’t worry too much about making it perfect the first time; one of the best things about websites is that they can always be improved at any time!
