There is no reason why you can't do your own web design. If you are persistent and committed to teaching yourself how to design web pages, then you can do your own designs. One of the top benefits of teaching yourself web design is saving money. You just need to spend a little over the price of some books, you can learn everything you need to know about designing websites. Of course this is no match for an actual degree, but it will save you time and money.

There are about 6 steps to designing your own web site, they are:

Step 1: Creating a Text Document

You will need to create a text document containing the words that you want to appear on your Web page using the usual word processing programs. Give your document a name ending in .html (or .htm if you're working on a home computer or laptop) and save the document as "Text Only."

Step 2: Learn Basic HTML Tags

Then you will need to insert what is called formatting tags in your document(s). These will tell a browser (like Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer) how it is to arrange the words you wrote and the pictures you had chosen onto the screen. These formatting tags make up a language that is called Hyper Text Markup Language, or HTML.

You can learn more about this by checking out sites on the internet or by buying a book.

Step 3: View a Sample Web Page

You may feel a little confused after that list of formatting tags in Step #2. It's easier just to look at a real HTML document and then see how it gets translated into a Web page. You can view the "source document" behind any Web page by going to the "V
iew" menu (this is with Internet Explorer; other browsers may be different) and selecting "View Source." If you do this, you will see the document with HTML tags that creates the page currently in the window of your browser.

Step 4: Get Electronic Images

If you don't already have image files for your page, you can download some from other Web pages. Depending on what kind of computer and browser you're using, you'll have to use a slightly different procedure to download an image onto your hard drive.

Step 5: Insert HTML Tags

You are now ready to insert the formatting tags in your own document. Start your document with the tag of and to end it with . Then the "title" that you type between the two tags ... should appear at the very top of the browser window when your page is being viewed on the internet.

Step 6: View and Edit Your Page

Save your text document ( save as "Text Only," and the file name should end in .html or .htm) and go back to the browser. Under the File menu, select "Open File..." or "Open Local...". From there you should be able to find your document's name and click on "Open". Your document will appear in your window, looking like a real live Web page. It may look pretty awful at first because HTML formatting requires attention to even the tiniest of details.

If something looks bad, go back to your text document and try to fix it, then save and "reload." You can do this as many times as you like until your web page looks the way you want it. Remember that practice makes perfect and it is okay to make many mistakes. That is how you will learn.

Once you are confident enough about your designs, you can put your page up on a server and have your web site on the internet.