Hi, im slowly getting my site together! I designed the PSD so far and plan to code it with html/css today. Here is my design for anyone interseted: http://benmdavies.com/images/dwd/draft/v1.15.jpg Is it possible to get away with doing some web design for local business's without knowing any programming languages? If a client does want something quite complicated I could use wordpress and modify a theme...? Thanks, Ben.
Absolutely. There's no reason why you can't do a static HTML website if there any no requirements past basic usability. For anything more, you could use a CMS like Wordpress and modify it to suit your needs or use PHP directly.
you could always outsource the programming necessary to someone you know and trust. I do it all the time for the heavy duty backend stuff.
This is just my personal experience, and I am not sure where you are located market wise, but in smaller markets especially those markets where the average business owner is not web savvy then the basic site is usually the one that is most desired. Most business owners are not easily willing to jump into a multi $1,000 project on something they are not sure about...though there are exceptions luckily If you would like some more suggestions or help please feel free to let me know or contact me, businesses do much better when they work together instead of against one another I believe....at any rate if you have the basics of HTML/CSS then you have an excellent start and are in a good position to be able to offer the services of providing that know how to other businesses, as was suggested already, if you get in over your head or the project calls for more than you are capable of doing you always have two options...either learn that which you do not yet know, or as is the case most of the time, subcontract out to someone who specializes in that function i.e. PHP programming etc...find a fair price that is being charge and then add a little commission to it, don't get greedy and you will be fine, just make sure that you are charging enough for your services that you can afford to get help when you need it. Hope this helps....
For basic sites you really don't have to know how to program even though it could help. I used dreamweaver when I was first getting started which is good for beginners and intermediate developers. Once i got a pretty good handle of designing sites i switched to coding all of them from scratch. If you know basic HTML and a platform like wordpress, joomla, or your way around dreamweaver no need to know PHP/javascript/ASP/etc..
i am big on Joomla but i think your best bet really would be to get a basic understanding of wordpress and use templates, depending if your going to go for more complex jobs then also take a look at joomla - both have great support and great templates... personally i am very experienced with code in general and like the framework of joomla and have made some very large and complex sites for great $$$ but it does take time to learn that stuff... if you have your own designs and want to use them with a CMS checkout artisteer! hth
If you do not know a programming language that is no problem. There are many tools on the internet that will make the code for you. Dreamweaver and the likes are great tools for this. If you are looking to develop a lot of websites in a short time, try looking for templates and then sell static websites with them. If you have any other questions just let me know I will gladly chat with you about these types of things.