Although designing a web site initially appears to be relatively easy, appearances can be deceiving! Before the first file is created, the designer must answer a series of questions, including:

  Supplied with the answer to these questions and others, a web site design can be developed. At this point other aspects such as color scheme, overall appearance, intuitiveness of use and internal structuring come into play. Decisions must be made on how and where to divide up the site information into various categories and/or web page sized parcels. Once all of this is accomplished, the developer can then move on to begin the real work of creating the actual files for the web site.
 

  The real work of developing the files that will bring the web site to life begin after the initial design phase is complete. As with the design stage of a web site project, there is more to this than initially meets the eyes. One of the many surprises that new "web masters" are in for, is when they find out that the HTML "standards" don't really exist in the real world. Not only do different browsers react differently (sometimes far differently) to perfectly "legal" HTML coding, the number of differences in the way such things as Java script, style sheets, and other (more proprietary) extensions are handled is simply stunning! To add insult to injury, many of the tools available for building web pages tend to output specific coding that is "optimized" for one particular browser or another. This coding sometimes produces surprising (and often undesired) effects when the page is viewed with another browser.

  Another area that requires its own level of expertise is image creation and manipulation. The sheer number of available tools, file type specifications, manipulation techniques and quality/file-size trade-off factors can be astounding. Suffice to say, this field is considered a career in and of itself!
 

  Finally, once the files are created, there are still several more steps to be taken before the site is "finished". A domain name and/or web host account must be set up which matches the needs of the site and all of the necessary files must be uploaded to the web server. Once this is accomplished, the web site becomes "live" to the rest of the world. The final steps include such things as registration with search engines, configuring email accounts, providing the customer a backup copy of all the files and any necessary training requested by the customer.