If you are looking to get started making your own website or just want to keep the ball rolling with giving it a refresh, we thought we’d give you a head start with some of our best web design links. It can be quite difficult knowing where to begin with such a vast topic. With that being said, we have compiled a list of useful resources and links for those looking to get started with creating a website and those looking to maintain their website.
Various tools and plugins can help with your web design project
Getting Started with Web Design
In recent times, the rise of CMS and easy drag and drop interfaces have exploded in popularity and versatility allowing users with little coding experience to get started right away with web design. Software that was once seen as essential web design software such as Dreamweaver have been pushed aside for online solutions and all-in-one solutions. With this modern approach to web design, we wanted to list some resources below to help you get started.
How to Choose the Best Web Design Software in 2019 (Compared)
80 Free Web Design Resources You Should Be Bookmarking
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
Useful Plugins & Tools
In addition to the standard feature set present in CMS and eCommerce platforms, you can also extend functionality via CMS modules / Plugins and browser plugins. These can not only add new features to your website but by using browser plugins, you can make the whole web design process easier and more efficient. Here are some that we found noteworthy.
20 Chrome Extensions for Web Design
Divi Page Builder (for WordPress)
Elementor – The World’s Leading WordPress Page Builder
Top 10 Chrome Extensions and Tools for Web Designers
24 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Business Websites in 2019
Site speed is a big factor when determining your position in search
Site Speed – Making Your New Website Load Quickly
This is closely related to web design as many people will get their hands dirty with making their website but run into problems with site-speed which can be detrimental to SEO in addition to the general user experience. Its all well and good having a great website but if it slows to a crawl its all for nothing which is why site speed should always be something you keep in mind while creating your website. Here are some tools and methods to make your site load quickly without having to sacrifice features.
5 Best WordPress Caching Plugins to Speed Up Your Website (2019)
20 WordPress Speed Optimisation Plugins to Make Your Website Run Blazing Fast
6 WordPress Plugins That Will Speed up Your Site
Find Site Problems with PageSpeed Insights from Google
Best FTP Software for Web Design
As you will be constantly uploading files from your desktop to your webspace, it is important to know which tools are best suited to get the job done for you. Luckily, there are many FTP clients that are free for you to use, and others that have a relatively small price tag but offer a lot. Here are a handful of our recommended FTP clients for webmasters and web designers to check out.
FileZilla – The free FTP solution
FlashFXP FTP, FTPS, SFTP client for Windows.
SmartFTP for Web Site Publishing and Maintenance
Best FREE FTP Clients for Mac and Windows in 2019
Finding the Right Host for Your New Website Project
Another relevant factor to consider while creating your website is how you are going to host it. Depending on the project, web space doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. If you are just getting your feet wet with a small website project, it can be as low as a few pounds a month. Here are a few suggestions that range from being recommended for budget small projects to main client / company website projects that need scalability.
One.com – Budget Hosting for Small Project (Ideal for a first project)
Heart Internet – Managed VPS, Reseller Hosting, Dedicated Servers
tsoHost – UK Based Web Hosting Services
Or us – we provide our own fully managed premium LiteSpeed hosting service
10 Best Web Hosting Services for Your Website
Other useful links
As well as our web design links, below, we have included links to various other pages and topics we think you might find useful:
Conclusion
We hope that you have found our list of web design links and resources useful. This should give you a great starting point if you are new to web design. Even if you are an experienced web designer, we think there will be a few things mentioned above that will help improve your projects.
Please remember, if you need assistance with your web design project, be sure to get in touch via phone at 0121 222 5757, or by filling out the contact form on our website.
Image credits: Lee Campbell on Unsplash and Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
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