The fastest growing segment of Web pages is not created by large, multi-million dollar corporations, but by small "Mom and Pop" stores, small businesses and even individuals and families.  Businesses usually create a Web page to advertise or sell their products or services or to create a general public relations presence. Individuals and families seek to create autobiographical displays or self-interested collections for the world to see.

Very small business and individuals often want or need to create their own Web pages. Most recognize that a self-created Web site will fall short of the high-dollar professional sites, but are still interested in getting something nice to see. The Yale C/AIM Web Style Guide is an excellent step-by-step resource for planning and implementing such a Web site.

The Philosophy section helps you create realistic goals, identify your target audience and determine your intended message for the Web site. Similar to any good presentation or advertisement, you have to know your goal of the presentation, to whom you are communicating it and what you want them to know, think or do once the message has been communicated.

The Interface Design section explains how to make a "user-centered" site with easy-to-understand navigation. Good navigation is critical to a site because a visitor needs to be able to quickly figure out what the site has to offer and how to get to the information they want.

If you are looking for an explanation of how a site should be structured, the Site Design section gives you all the details you need. For example, a site is too shallow when a "main menu becomes a massive 'laundry list' of  unrelated topics." When it is too deep "menus are numerous and too thin. Users are driven through an endless series of nested menus." Also included in the section is a discussion of "site covers," also known as a Web site's "front page"  and good intranet-specific (internal company network) site layout

Once you have the goals, navigation and overall site design, only then can you begin to concentrate on the individual Web pages. The Page Design section exhaustively covers individual elements of a particular Web page. You are first taken through an understanding of the Web page medium as it relates to layout and emphasis on a page. You are then taken through a series of other subsections related to creating balanced, visually appealing pages. Emphasis is given to typefaces (or fonts), typography (layout of the type), tables and "frames." Also highlighted is the differences between the Microsoft Windows and  Macintosh operating systems as they relate to the display of Web pages.

If you have long wanted to know the differences between graphic files that end in GIF and JPG or what "interlaced" or "transparent" images are, the Web Graphics section will answer it for you. Learning how to optimize the size of graphics is very important to a Web site. If a picture's file size is large, it can take much longer to be displayed on a Web page. Web pages that are too slow are often skipped by visitors in lieu of  ones that quickly load and show them what they want.

The last major section (except appendices and other listings) is entitled Web Multimedia. This section covers audio, video and animations on the Internet with an overall discussion of how to introduce these Web page elements to your audience.

Another site which may be of interest to inexperienced Web creators is Creating a Nifty Personal Web Site, which discusses Hypertext Markup Language (the formatting language of Web pages usually just called HTML) and some overall Web page layout.

For examples of how not to build a site, see Web Pages That Suck. This humorous site looks at how to "learn good design by looking at bad design" and takes you through some bizarre and boring pages.

Finally, Webreference is a one-stop reference library of Web design-related topics with links to a variety of other resources. Make sure you visit this one.

Whether you are creating a site for fun or profit, you don't need to settle with boring, empty Web pages that go no where. Instead, you can use the tools here and create an informative site with pizzazz.