M2 – Explain the tools and techniques used in the creation of an interactive website. By Arturas Vitkovskij.

Web hosting. Before you actually start on designing the web site you have to get some web hosting space which can be done through one of two ways; one you get it yourself or two, you go and buy some from a website, which I advice because it’s much easier and less time consuming and this would get you one step closer to letting the world see your website. Also just to let you know your website originally comes with a free domain name such as http://48.websiteplan.cheese.com, which as you can see isn’t a very good one and wouldn't attract many customers. After you finished with finding a suitable web hosting spot for you, it would be then be uploaded to a secure server where you could access it through the internet.

Domain names. A “domain” in this instants is a website which is controlled by yourself or under the control of a particular organization or individual. A domain “name” is a part of a network address which identifies it’s belonging to a particular domain, which in your case is a website. So over all that’s what a (domain name) is. So for you to receive a lot of visitors and to get noticed on the internet, you would have to get a “custom” domain name because the original one you receive is almost like it’s designed to make sure you don’t get notices on the internet. Getting a custom domain name is extremely cheap. You can have your own domain name for as low as £1.29p. Also most web hosting service providers sell custom domain names directly on their websites, meaning your more then likely to be able to buy a custom domain name from your web hosting service provider.

Getting started on your website. Once you have taken care of your web hosting provider and your hopefully a custom domain name you are able to proceed to getting started on creating your website. So this will be done through various methods and it all depends on which web hosting provider you have chosen. For example you could have been provided with Dreamweaver Sc6 which is done on the internet, in which you would have to do most of the work but it would have explained to create a website to you clearly or you could have been provided with tools which do all the hard work for you such as www.weebly.com and all you would have to do is, pick a design, check the layout and add the content. Also over all you would be able to create a website you desire with most web hosting services you hired. Meaning your able to create a really cool website with zero any prier knowledge about programming languages such as HTML or PHP.

Style sheet for web development using CSS. A style sheet for web development is a form separating presentation and content from your website but what is CSS, it stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is the things which separates presentation for content. Why would you do that? Well because it allows separation which can improve content access, provide more flexibility and control in the section where you would present your content. Also enable multiple pages to share data and just overall reduce the complexity of doing it any other.

Using Meta tags. A Meta tag is a HTML tag which provides a selection of information about your website, which is displayed on search engines whenever someone searches for something that you may have on your website specifically or similar. Also writing meta tags which have a good description of your website for example 3 to4 sentences improve the chances of your website scoring high on the search engine results, which could result in you receiving more unique visitors and becoming more popular.

Web design languages. On the Internet there loads of languages, all of whom are used for different purposes and different reasons. The majority of languages are specially designed for their purpose for example CSS is a language who's main purpose is to design the style for a website, where as JavaScript is mainly designed to create the interactivity on a website. So what I am trying to say is you can get the exact website you want, it is crucial to get the right languages together.

www.weebly.com I designed my website using the easy option, which was “weebly” an American base web hosting service provider who specialize in “drag-and-drop” website building, which basically means instead of you writing the coding for the website and creating the design and the template. It’s already done but as a demonstration of what your own website may look like if you put in the effort . Resulting in you getting new ideas of how your website may look like, which you may have not considered before. Also “Weebly’s” tools for the website creator are powerful and free to use which saves you around £230 compared to Dreamweaver Sc6. Which include adding maps, gallery's, surveys etc.

Weeblys tools and features. As you can see Weeblys tools and features from the right. It is extremely easy to use, all you have to do is click on any of the 5 features above the word “BASIC” and then click and drag the tool you require on to the website designer.

Managing Weebly. As you can see from the picture below, Weebly allows you to modify your text color, boldness, size, hyperlink, alignment etc. Which are vital tools for creating an ideal website because without them everything would be the same color, size, boldness etc. Which over all wouldn't make it very interactive for the visitors.