Work Abroad

Go ahead! Give it a shot! http://www.flickr.com/photos/tifotter/

Websites are largely built using a programming language called html. Basically this is a way of making the content you’ve typed out on Microsoft Word look the same when it’s viewed through an internet browser – computers are still pretty dumb and they need to be told when there’s a paragraph, when something is in italics, when there’s a link and so on.

The good news is that there are only about 10 basic commands that you need to learn to start with and there are loads of free html tutorials online. You can check out the html of another site at any time by going to View in the menu bar at the top of an internet browser and clicking View Source – then you can copy and paste anything that’s too complicated for you to do by yourself!

Its important for all self respecting websites to have a nice logo

There are plenty of online resources to explain the nuts and bolts of building your own site and you might just choose a blog template and work with that.

Either way, you’ll probably want to get hold of an authoring tool like Dreamweaver which lets you play with the code and design simultaneously. Free alternatives are offered by people like www.firefox.org.

Essentially then you’ll be working on your own laptop and then uploading fresh content and changes at any internet café along the way. Also the age of Skype means you can talk to anyone anywhere for peanuts so distance becomes less and less a relevant factor in running your business.

Getting the design right for your site is a key factor and is the one area where you might want to think about spending some money. Getting a nice logo and a few attractive templates for your site can be a great investment.

The best design is all about simplicity. Yet that’s easier said than done. Studies show that surfers make up their minds about websites within the first half second so you’ll want to make sure people don’t leave before they’ve even taken in your content.

Don’t go in for anything flashy, animation or music. What looks or sounds cool the first time around tends to get quite irritating after the second or third reload.

Keep navigation as clear and easy as possible. Link everything well and make a cool menu bar so no one gets lost – there’s no point in having good content if no one can find it.

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