The whole world has moved from the printed page to a page suspended in cyberspace. Websites are the rage in every sphere of life.

For the creation of a website, you have two options: you can either recruit a professional to design the site or you could gather up courage and add a dash of personal creativity to design your own site.

To execute a Website design, one would need basic tools like a computer, an internet connection, web page construction tools such as HTML editor, and a host on the World Wide Web to publish your page.

There are three keys to a website: clear goals, design, and content. The website must serve its purpose and aid personal development, or fulfill business, social, cultural, humanitarian, or business objectives.

Define clearly what the purpose of the website is, how many pages the site will have, what kind of content will it provide, how many pictures and advertisements it will include, and will it have e-commerce of any kind? What kind of investment will it involve? Is the site for personal satisfaction or does it have a business angle?

While designing a website you need to keep in mind a few simple ground rules. Ensure that the resolutions of the web pages are either 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768, the lowest being 640 x 480. Keep in mind the convenience of the user. The page size should not require horizontal scrolling or page down for more than three screens. In fact, modern design demands that each page should be within one screen, as anything more means you lose viewers unless, the content grips attention.

The layout must be user-friendly and have spaces, no crowding, easily readable type, and images that are not fussy, garish, or blinking. To prevent delays in page loading, a page must not exceed 50K. A balance between text and images must be maintained, and no image should be too heavy. Even if flash is in vogue, you must also use HTML so that non-techies can make use of the site.

Choose a reliable web host, ensure that the specifications of the web server can support the bandwidth you need, and use an operating system that is universally used. Test the pages to see that they open in Windows as well as Mac.

At all costs, avoid blinking text, animated GIF s, or loud sound, anything that is fussy and distracting. Think about users with slow internet connections or old computers. To be successful and invite visitors time and again a website must be interesting, useful, and user-friendly.