How to get started building websites?

Hello all,

I am very interested in learning how to build websites. I have a very limited understanding on how they are built and am seeking the best sources of information on how to teach myself everything i need know to create a professional site. If anyone would recommend any books or information on how to get started and slowly integrate what im learning, it would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!
Oneness86

reply to post by oneness86


Good Tutorials

This is a good website for tutorials on all aspects of web design. Also, viewing the source of web sites will help you learn how they are coded and laid out.

If I might offer some advice to consider in just starting out. Perhaps I can help a bit in avoiding some of the pitfalls a little bit...

I'd suggest starting with something like Joomla if you want a working site to begin tearing apart to see how it worked within moments or a few hours for something with a bit of interactivity.

Personally, I've tried a variety and recently went to looking for a powerful and quick graphics based design program for websites. I tried Adobe Muse but found some major short comings a whole thread is proper for , and settled on Wysiwyg Web Builder which is what I'm using when I need to do something for anyone online. It's got the graphic control of Indesign with the graphic editor simplicity to make everything work. It also allows you to view all the coding for everything you're making by drag/drop.

All that, so you can feel good and stay interested while learning the steeper learning curve for software like Adobe Dreamweaver, in my opinion. That's where I'd say you'd ultimately want to be able to work comfortably and without many questions of how everything works. DW can be Mt Everest if it's the very first thing being attempted though... Just my thoughts.

Familiarize yourself with the basics; get a few good books; use google for everything else.It's amazing)I'm doing it ."Caveman style"( hand coding).
3 parts to a basic web page: the html markup (the "content"); The css (cascading style sheets) style sheet file ( the "layout" ); and _javascript the language that determines the(advanced)("behavior" of the site).

Currently html5 and css3 are the latest standards coming into use; html 5 brings some exciting new features but not every browser supports all of them yet.

forPC's hit "control U" to view the source code to any page displaying in your browser window.
the html markup has standard"tags"anything written between the opening ""and closing"" tags is information the browser needs to display the content. Nothing between the ""tags is visible on the displayed page. (I see I can't use html tags themselves without it affecting my post.please delete the asterisks *...( the machine only does what you tell it to do)..

All of the content lives between the opening" " and closing"" tags. This is what is layed out and displayed in the browser...

these guys are good and free :
www.w3schools.com...

but any google search for"html or css tutorial" can help.

I'm teaching myself also..

Have fun you can't break anything playing around with it.

You can use some good resources to get new ideas and inspiration for designing a website. Every other day, we see the launch of a new technology. This ascertains the fact that there are going to be people, who will attempt to visit your website through these new devices. If you want make an effective online presence then a good website is a must !

reply to post by oneness86


There's guys on fiverr.com who will build you a basic website for five bucks.

Freelancer.com there's people who will build you a site for well under 100 bucks.

Tumblr.com is a good blog building site.

wordpress is good but it's kinda restrictive.

If you want a social network, forum, classified ad site, youtube site, or any kind of site that's already out there, there is a off the shelf template for those. You just find them template and or have a developer find one for you and you'll be in business overnight rather than try building it from scratch.

Or just go on some torrent site, download an old copy of dreamweaver and the unlock code and you can use that to build basic html sites. As far as the layout goes you download a website template you like and then just fill it in with the content you want on the site.

There's endless and ever changing new ways to design emerging. So you'll never be able to keep on top of all the changes that happen, and you'll never be able to learn it all. My advice, learn to outsource. Like using fiverr using freelancer etc etc.

Good luck.

reply to post by r2d246


WordPress.com is restrictive....WordPress.org is the best there is. I know, I make a living from it!

You should definitely learn the basics though, instead of looking at tutorials online, and using fancy programs learn the basics, if your willing to spend a little money, go take a HTML, or Javascript calss at your community college.

What are the ideas for launching a law firm website?
Any suggestions highly appreciated!

originally posted by: olbond
What are the ideas for launching a law firm website?
Any suggestions highly appreciated!

Start by looking at other law firm websites and decide what you like and don't like, and what could be done better.

Something simple like the equivalent of a business card? Just your name, address and telephone number and what you deal in?

Something flashy with running video in the background, legions of marching lawyers doing a monkey drill in the background?

I used this to start learning about 3 years ago.

And it's a good thing you want to learn the web design. But I wouldn't recommend programming all websites that way. There are different CMS programs where you can design your own website easily or you can hire someone to design a website for your business.

a reply to: oneness86

You can easily build beautiful websites using CMSs like WordPress.

I think you can learn to build websites using WordPress in one week if you spend two hours a day.

If you are serious about web development, you should learn at least HTML and CSS.

There are several different approaches you can take. Perhaps the most crucial is whether to use OSS (Open Source Software, typically Linux) or proprietary.

You should also understand that website software can now be designed by website design software. Read that again: it's accurate but confusing, and worth explaining as regards the "professional" aspect.

A good site contains several elements, one of the most important being graphic design: "pretty pictures" to put it crudely. Those good at graphic design are seldom as good at coding, if only because it doesn't interest them as much. What typically happens in large design houses is that different teams with different skill-sets put together a set of pages using highly automated techniques: the "website design software" above. The result may be acceptable visually and content-wise, but typically contains masses of redundant or non-optimum code.

A final team skilled in raw HTML, Javascript etc then edits this, often rewriting large sections, to a final result that downloads and renders quickly and reliably on all platforms and browsers.

From this you can see that web design is not a single skill-set, but several in intimate combination. As a beginner you need to choose where and how to begin:

- If you want instant results, play around with high-level design tools and enjoy impressive output that you won't understand technically.

- This may encourage you in a different direction, probably graphic design in which you'll certainly need at least basic skills.

- Alternatively, start writing raw HTML and use CSS to control its appearance. This is the web equivalent of assembly language programming.

- A very good exercize is to download web pages you particularly like, then change them into things of your own creation.

Some experimenting along these lines will soon teach you where your strongest interests lie, and assist in further decisions.