Planning to build your own website you must learn the basics of its construction first and think over its design and presentation. The main thing to begin with implies the layouts of the page which can be of two different types - layouts with fixed width and liquid layouts. In order for you to choose the most appropriate solution lets identify the main peculiarities of each layout type.

Fixed width layouts

Fixed layouts are those ones which entire page width is of a specific size set by the developer. No matter which is the size of the web browser the webmaster will use to view your website your layout will have the same width you have determined while creating it. So we can pick up the following benefits fixed width layouts possess:

- you can control the way your web page will look more directly

- you are allowed to make all necessary adjustments to the layout quickly having them remained the same regardless of the web browsers the website viewers will use

- images used within fixed width layouts will not influence the text in case the user opens your web page on the small monitor

- scan length won’t have an impact on large text sections no matter of which width is the browser

Apart from the advantages fixed width layouts maintain there are several aspects you may consider as drawbacks:

- web pages with fixed width viewed in smaller windows of the web browser may possess horizontal scrolling which is not always appreciated by the web users

- viewed on larger monitors fixed width web pages may cause too much whitespaces which in its turn means a lot of unused space and longer vertical scrolling

- layouts with fixed width may cause a problem if you increase the size of the font significantly

Liquid layouts

Layouts with flexible page width which depends on the width of the web browser are called liquid layouts. The width of liquid layouts adjusts to the size of the web browser even if the user changes it while viewing the web pages. Among the advantages liquid layouts possess are the following:

- they use the space of the web browser or screen resolution efficiently

- you are allowed to place a lot of information in little space which will be viewed properly in any web browser

- with liquid layouts web pages respond dynamically to different limitations such as font size increase

But as well as fixed width layouts liquid ones possess specific features which may not fit your requirements somehow.

- liquid layouts do not provide much control over the width of different page elements

- there may appear problems if the page contains some elements with a fixed width placed within elements with a flexible width. In this case the web page structure may be damaged.

- liquid layouts may result in too wide text columns in larger browsers or may not allow to see the text clearly in smaller ones.

Before you choose one of the layout types described above you need to determine your website goals and define in which way you want to control your web pages. Solving these basic issues you will be able to get the most success out of your website design.