Building your first website - complete newbie!

[Letsdoit]

Hi everyone

I hope this thread is in the correct section. Moderators, please move it if necessary.

I work in IT, mainly support so whilst my troubleshotting skills are strong, my knowledge of website design and creation is minimal.

At this point in time I don't have any great ideas or any particular direction with regards to making money online through a website. Instead, I want to focus on learning how to create a website from scratch. What tools I need, how much it would cost me and what options I have available. I have a few HTML books somewhere but have always struggled to get past the few few pages - purely due to boredom

I have a great interest in the sport of Squash. I play and coach it on a part time basis whilst reselling acessories such as grips and protective eye wear. I'd like to create a simple static website dedicated to my hobby and perhaps advertise my coaching and racquet stringing services whilst sharing tips and drills for the sport. Any money earn't will be purely a bonus. I just want to learn how to actually create it. Then hopefully a eureka moment will come along in the future and I'll be able to knock up another site quickly.

Forums and more complicated stuff can come along later - for now I'm after a basic website.

My questions:

1. Can anyone recommend some user friendly cheap/free software to build a website? If not, what should I consider using and what are the costs? I've heard of dream weaver but am told it's expensive and hard to use?! I don't think I'm up for creating a website using raw HTML!

2. Where is the best place to buy a domain from? What does it cost?

3. Hosting. I suppose hosting a website on a seperate computer on your home broadband is not a good idea or not even possible? What options are there for hosting and what does it cost?

4. Anything other tips or advice!

Thank you for reading my novice questions and I look forward to your replies!

Letsdoit!

[hooperman]

Good to hear that you're getting stuck in!

1. Can anyone recommend some user friendly cheap/free software to build a website? If not, what should I consider using and what are the costs? I've heard of dream weaver but am told it's expensive and hard to use?! I don't think I'm up for creating a website using raw HTML!

Raw html isn't that hard to learn (I learnt it!) but as you know, obviously there's a learning curve. But then there's a learning curve associated with learning Dreamweaver too. I use notepad++ to code my html.

Another option is to use a content management system like Wordpress. There's still a learning curve, but it's smaller and teh platform is pretty easy to use.

2. Where is the best place to buy a domain from? What does it cost?

I tend to get my new domain names from Godaddy/Site5 and the .coms come in at around $8.

3. Hosting. I suppose hosting a website on a seperate computer on your home broadband is not a good idea or not even possible? What options are there for hosting and what does it cost?

Hostgator are popular and cheap. I use Site5 and they do a deal offering "unlimited" webspace/bandwidth/domains for $5/month. That means you can host as many sites as you want and it still costs $5.

[Clinton]

my knowledge of website design and creation is minimal.

Join the club. I've had a copy of Dreamweaver on my PC for years and I still haven't figured out how to use it. I too find it complicated. I never moved up from using an old version of Frontpage.

I'll take your question #3 and let my friends here take a shot at the others.

You can host a site on your home PC if you have a DSL connection and a static IP. But it's not worth the hassle. Shared hosting is so cheap nowadays. There's also the free hosting option if you use blogger.com where you don't even need to buy a domain or learn any HTML.

Caveat: I don't recommend investing too much of time and money on a site at somewhere like blogger.com where you don't own the domain. Several disadvantages not least that you can't sell your site.

[Andy]

Hi Letsdoit,

Welcome to the forums. Congrats on your willingness to jump in and learn new things. You've got tons of options available to you. Before you get started, let's talk about goals. It's good you have an interest (often called a "niche" online) you want to pursue. You also expressed interest in learning about the mechanics. What is your ultimate goal? What do you really want? Do you REALLY want to learn to build websites from scratch?

There are lots of places you can learn about building websites, but that is only the tip of the iceberg these days. I always tell people new to computing, that many moons ago, someone who "knew computers" could tell you just about anything about them. How they were built, how to program them, you name it. Now we have experts who only know one or two aspects of computing. Some, like me, have a smattering of knowledge on several different subjects but go to experts when in-depth knowledge is needed.

My point is if you want to learn to build websites, fine. I'll even post some basics here, but this forum is really better suited to buying and selling websites. Building websites to sell is an option but I don't think it's one of the preferable ones. That said here are some basics...

Let's get your domain name and hosting out of the way. I won't go into choosing or buying (look to hooperman's posts for advice on this!) a domain, just the nuts and bolts.

First do NOT obtain a domain name from your hosting company. Some offer them at no charge when you sign up for hosting. If you want to use that for a personal site, that's okay but don't get too attached. If you change hosts, transferring the domain can be a problem. And sometimes you find you really need to change hosts.


2) Loyalty is overrated. Things change so what is great today maybe be so-so tomorrow. That said, I've used namecheap to buy domains. There are other registrars out there but they are fine.

Yes you can host your own website on your own computer and your own server. There are plenty of reasons NOT to do this. The main one is redundancy and stability. If one of your goals is to take profits, then you really need to focus on that. I have friends so into the geek scene that they could do this with one pocket protector tied behind their back, but THEY outsource this. It's that important. Besides good hosting is soooo cheap. For one account, I pay less than $60 a YEAR to host multiple accounts.

What I look for in a host Is "unlimited domains and subdomains", unlimited mysql databases, linx hosting with cpanel, fantastico (though I don't use it much anymore), and so forth. Start looking at a few "comparison" charts and you'll quickly figure out which is the better deal. One thing to look for is the number of inodes allowed - an inode is any file or folder on a computer. One of my hosting accounts that offered "unlimited" everything all of a sudden started to limit inodes. If they did this when I signed up, I never saw it. You may now see why I put "unlimited" in quotes. Read the fine print - there is no such thing as an all you can eat buffet.

3) Software - many options here. Some use NVU, but I never liked it. I use Trellian Web Page. Both are free to use to build standard web pages.

All that said, I'll add that there are a wide range of shortcuts available. One of the most popular is using WordPress. It's a free blog, now considered a content management system (cms) that installs quickly and has a lot of built-in seo and other features that can put you "in business" fast. A word of caution here... wordpress is NOT secure. It uses the php programming language (if that is the right term) and php seems to be one of the most popular and most easily breached languages around. (my html sites are rarely compromised)

No matter what, you should learn how to secure your site - and hardening wordpress is, in my book, a must.

Hope this helps.

Andy

P.S. Notice hooperman and Clinton beat be to the post. Notice how "unlimited" is used? :-) both added very valid points, as usual - and before they saw my post!

[Letsdoit]

Clinton, Hooperman and Andy

A huge thank you for your indepth and thought provoking responses.
I was a little worried about strating this thread given this forum is better suited for buyinga selling websites.
That said, you've jumped straight and given me lots to think about.

I'll need to go away and formulate an action plan.
Will keep you posted of any progress and additional questions which are most likley to occur!

Thanks very much!
Letsdoit.

[Letsdoit]

Good to hear that you're getting stuck in!

I use notepad++ to code my html.

Hi hooperman

Any advantages to using notepad++ instead of notepad?

Thanks
Letsdoit

[hooperman]

Hi hooperman

Any advantages to using notepad++ instead of notepad?

Thanks
Letsdoit

There's good colour coding so that you can read your code better, you can open and close containers like divs (don't know whether that makes much sense at this stage) so you can hide what you don't want to see. I'm sure there are more! You can also get notepad++ to search in multiple files for a text string, which is useful. There are probably many more advantages if the contents of the respective menu bars are anything to go by!

[Letsdoit]

Thanks hooperman

[Alastair]

If you want to go the Wordpress route and have a Windows PC this maybe useful. http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/xampp/ you can then play around with Wordpress tutorials (there are loads) on your desktop to enable you to get the hang of it before taking the plunge and creating a proper website.

[LukeMoulton]

One thing to identify first is: do you want to learn how to build websites, or do you want to quickly and cheaply launch a site. Based on the question, I'm going to assume it's the latter.

Here's a process for launching a website without spending much on software (and without having to know much about web development):

1. Register a Domain (Godaddy, Namecheap), approx $10
2. Purchase hosting (Hostgator, Dreamhost, Bluehost) - about $10 /mnth
3. Install Wordpress with Fantastico via cPanels through your hosting account. That probably sounds intimidating, but it's a push-button job.
4. Install a Wordpress theme - there are 1000's of free Wordpress themes or you can purchase a premium theme for around $70 which will give you some support.
5. Configure Wordpress. Add some plugins and tweaks to make sure Wordpress is SEO friendly
6. Brand your website. Most good Wordpress themes will let you add a logo and customize colors.
7. Add content. If you're passionate about the topic this should be easy.

If you want to learn how to us Wordpress before you launch a site, then go with Alastair's suggestion above.