Okay I'm trying to build my first website. my knowledge on HTML, CSS, etc.. is zero. I've registered the domain name and acquired webhosting. The domain name is pointing to the webhosting. Phase 1 complete. Now I'm trying to work out the best way to actually make a site. It's going to be a news and information type content website, with articles, etc. What is the best way about creating a website from scratch? WYSIWYG like Dreamweaver?, web templates, or actually learn some HTML and do it from scratch myself, or pay someone else to do it. I'm leaning away from the latter two options, because I'd rather do it cheaply if possible, and I would like to get it up sometime this decade, which may not happen if I'm trying to work it all out myself. I'd like it to look fairly professional, but it doesn't have to be a masterpiece either. Just something with a nice design, in a format that I can update easily regularly. Any suggestions on what the best way to start out would be?
I would be happy to look into getting a web designer. As long as the price isn't too high. I basically want something like this: poker.com, but on a much smaller scale, with no store and with less advertising. Just a homepage, a section for some articles and reviews, and a forum. The main part for me is that it would have to be easy for me to go in and edit pages and add articles.
If you need a service, you should make a thread in the Buy/Sell/Trade section ...... To prevent yourself from getting banned or infracted.
Hi, I've done alot of research on the cheapest way to get a site, that: Looks reasonably professional Has a content management system Has socail networking features such as a forum The cheapest way, if you are willing to do a lot of learning, is to use wordpress in tandem with a free forum such as the one you already have. Ideally the appearance should be seamleass but as long as the colour differences aren't jarring most people won't really care if the forum looks different from your blog . It's the quality of your content on your site/blog that really matters the appearance is just garnishing. In other words spend as little money as possible on design The more expensive alternative is to build a website using a paid hosted sitebuilder such as Squarespace, Weebly or Doodlekit to make your website. In about one hour you could have a reasonably profesional looking site up and running. Just pick a theme, add your header select the modules you want and your away. WARNING their forum modules aren't that good. Cheers Don
There are two possible option for you: a. If you are hosting this website for business purpose then you need to get it done professionally, so that the visitors stay more in your site and the site gets more traffic. b. If you want this to be a non commercial website and you are not making it for profit then you can try and learn some HTML (I will suggest W3 school - an online tutorial ) that will help you in learning. Nothing can beat the joy of creating your own stuffs. If you need any professional consulting or designing assistance (of course for a fee) then please feel free to touch base with me tanmoy.mukherjee@ovi.com
Do NOT go the WYSIWYG route to start, you will only develop bad habits you will have to unlearn later. Do yourself a huge favor and take the time to learn to do HTML/CSS properly in a flat text editor using what's called "semantic markup" - which is where you use tags, classes and ID's to say what things are NOT how they are going to appear. That goes hand in hand with "separation of presentation from content" - which is that anything that determines appearance goes in the CSS, not in your HTML. A good place for a complete beginner to start learning these techniques is the book "Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS" by Ian Lloyd, which you can get from sitepoint: http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html2/?historicredirect=html1 ... or you can pick it up at a local bookseller and 1st edition can even be found on many library shelves. In the book Ian skips right past a bunch of outdated/outmoded/outright wrong stuff that the majority of other books on the subject and educators still advocate... There's a lot of legacy cruft that if you are building new websites you SHOULDN'T EVEN BE LEARNING HOW TO USE. If a tutorial or book goes in depth on telling you how to use tags like FONT or CENTER, or tell you to use TABLE for columns, or teach learning to use attributes like ALIGN, BGCOLOR or TARGET, you are getting bad advice - said book and/or tutorial being at least six years out of date, and more likely a decade behind modern development techniques. Which is also why WYSIWYG's are made of /FAIL/ - since they don't know a paragraph from a heading or what tag is appropriate to use on what content, and often rely heavily on vague meaningless numbered classes "style1,style2" and presentational markup. Welcome to 1997.
If you want to learn HTML and CSS go to w3schools. Other than that you could get a template or use dreamweaver. Just keep in mind that if you want to do it yourself it's going to take some time to learn how to do it correctly.
When I make a website for someone I like to have some involvement in which type of hosting service to use. I write in the scripting language PHP and I use MySQL databases in most of the websites I design to help manage some of the content. This makes a "Dynamic" website. Not all web hosting services allow this type of programming. It is always better to talk with a web designer first, so they can advise you on which type of hosting service will best suit your needs. This way you don't under or over buy a web hosting solution. Also, most good hosting providers will allow you to register a domain name for free (or they mix it into the price of the hosting service). Either way, you don't have to transfer the domain name to a different registrar. If you just want a generic blog type website then you can use WordPress or B2Evolution. If you want it customized or styled to your specific needs you'll need to hire someone experienced to do it. These programs aren't toys... you could get hurt. Not from the program themselves, but from pounding your fists on the desk in frustration trying to customize them yourself. I write websites from scratch to fit my client's needs. Some designers will take a "boxed" program or template and then hack it to try and make it fit their client's needs. You'd do well to hire a politician to make your website in this case, as someone skilled in the art of compromise is definitely needed. I write my own programs. I've written a content management program, photo gallery, comment box, job board, classified ad, recipe, business directory program, etc. Being able to write programs enables my clients to get exactly what they want without all the bloat and features that makes other programs complicated, slow and difficult to use. Many web designers can't do this. You should also be leery of web designers who rely to heavily on graphics and non-essential features. More people still connect to the Internet through a dial-up modem. If you want everyone to be able to access your website then you should focus your attention (and theirs) on your content instead of on peripheral fluff. A good fast functioning website is far better than a slow fancy website that has been pulled through the features department. You aren't designing a website to sell your product or service to yourself, so make your website to be fast, easy and convenient for others to use. Everyone is getting into the instant website business today, Yahoo, Intuit, Google, etc. For just $1.98 - $4.95 a month you can get an instant website. This may be OK if you just want a simple website to tell the world hello. But if you're in business it would be better for you to save your money and have a website professionally designed specifically for you. In business you should always put your best foot forward. Many business people under estimate the value of a good website. No website is better than just a website.
Make life easy for yourself - I would create a WordPress blog. You don't need any experience at all with any coding - go to wordpress.org and set up account with your domain. There are plenty of turorials and free themes you can use in there. It is the way to go especially if you plan to do some Social Networking and use twitter, facebook, youtube etc. It is also preferable from a SEO point of view, they love the 2 way interaction between the writer and the reader. Let me know if you need any help. Christine