I have just bought a domain, because my forex blog is getting loads of traffic, people keep saying I need a real web page, not a blog. So, I just bought forexonlinelearning.com Just the domain though, no hosting. I have no idea what to do from here. I dont know where to start. I have ben learning HTML for a while, so I know I can build it, but what do I use to build it? Do i use notpad, and upload that??? Man I am lost Take it easy on my everyone. Take care, -K
You can go the notepad way, but I'd say investing in a decent tool like Dreamweaver will get you quite a bit further - since you can preview html pages before you upload them. There's a lot of great tools on the web as well, about how to use HTML effectively (and W3C compliantly!) I guess a big part depends if you really want to build the site from scratch, or maybe just find a good free, simple design template out there somewhere and build off of it - sometimes you can save yourself a lot of time if you can find a basic HTML template that's easy to work with. I'd say start off fairly simple - you can always complexify things as time goes along, but no sense in overdoing it from the start! For hosting, lots of places out there offer pretty good basic hosting, from 4$/month-ish or so on up, which will serve well until your site is popular enough to need (and pay for) dedicated hosting. But way to go on getting a lot of positive responses and traffic on your blog! Keep up the good work
Hey, I really appreciate the reply Ok, so if i get dreamweaver, I can just copy in a pre designed template, and build off it??? I think that is the way I should go. So, for web hosting: I just get a host, and I just upload my site (I built in dreamweaver) and its up. And to change things on my page I just change it in dreamweaver and update it? Again, thanks for the help. I am a total noob to this -Kastro
yep, Dreamweaver is very good for building and editing sites. Just make changes to pages on your computer then upload. It is a great programme. I first heard of it about 10 years ago when my ISP rang me up, demanded I visit them in person, took me into the back room, sat me down in front of a monitor, showed me the programme, and said. "This is Dreamweaver. USE IT." It also comes with a nifty graphics programme called firefox, as well as other programmes. Can be expensive, though. It is also very easy to design your own templates to use.
That is just about right - if you get dreamweaver, you should be able to use/modify a simple template pretty easily and extend/build off it. One thing you'd probably want to do is to define a site in dreamweaver- this allows you to pretty easily manage your pages and connect via FTP to your server so you don't have to use a 3rd party tool to always be transferring all the pages. Once you get your host and your FTP access set up, just go in and set up the site in dreamweaver with your FTP login details, and then you can just upload/download pages from there It's super easy and saves you a lot of time if you're really doing a lot of adding/modifying layout, design, and content!
The other route is to use a Content Management System (CMS). They can have a bit of a steep learning curve at first, and need some optimization for the search engines, but I just personally prefer the diversity and support using one provides considering the amount of people that use them. I use Joomla myself quite abit. If you're just putting up a few info pages it probably isn't worth the hassle if you know your html already though. If you're looking to start a userbase and have membership, maybe different features that aren't able to be created with straight html, the plug-ins you get with a CMS are great. It's like wordpress on steroids.
Hey Bigmack, I was curious how well Joomla works with adsense - not as far as integration ( I know there's lots of plugins/such for Joomla with adsense) but more as far as revenues go - do you see advantages (other than having the CMS automatic/flexible to work with) in terms of adsense revenue being better than with the same look and feel for adsense/content in a non-CMS site? Just curious..
The simple answer: not really The more complicated: kindof The biggest benefit would be that you have a really easy way to add content and customize pages on the fly, once you beat the learning curve The other benefit is the actual Joomla/Mambo Community itself. It's pretty huge. You can publicize your new site, maybe create a neat little module to help other joomla members out(inserting a link to your website in that module) etc etc.. Actually it's not really one of the areas I've tapped into myself, but I have seen others do it and have huge success from it. hmm, now you have me thinking Anyway, here's a nice site that you can see has made a huge success of helping with seo in joomla http://www.joomlaseo.net/
Wow, thanks for all the help!! Ok, I am going to get dreamweaver and start making up the page. Then get a host. Does anyone know any good sites for free templates? Thanks
That seems reasonable - I'm a little familiar with other CMS systems, having used PHP-Nuke and a few others... have you done a lot of customization yourself, personally, to your pages/sites?
Yeah, tons of customization actually. It's not that hard to do (i'm no coder yet I manage to figure things out ok). It just takes some digging, it's all layed out there for you, and more than likely a search on the different joomla/mambo related forums will pull up an answer to any problem you have.
Awesome, I'll definitely have to look into it... user forums and support is definitely nice , and it seems pretty straightforward otherwise.