I Want To Learn To Make Websites

I found that the best way to familiarize myself to being a webmaster was to go out and experience being one and learn for myself. You may want to start off with CMS (Content Management Systems) which are both free and easy to use. Popular ones include Wordpress which is a blogging tool and Joomla (which can be used effectively for e-Commerce).

Both of these will give you the experience of managing the basics such as databses, coding edits, configurations, working with web hosts / servers and the such.

Adam,

To answer your questions, there are a ton of free resources out there, Google is your best friend. You can gain the basics of HTML/Xhtml/CSS in a matter of hours and spend the better part of your life mastering it.
I highly recommend you take a look at the resources at
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
Learn HTML and CSS - Use our free tutorials - Build your own website | HTML.net
HTML Code Tutorial - Free Reference Guide for Help with HTML Tags Including Form, Frames, Tables, and more!
Stylesheets | CSS: cascading style sheets tutorials and style guide || HTMLSource ]

But most of all once you start learning a little bit, view the source of some sites you like and take a look at how they put them together.

Like most other thing the easiest way to lean is to jump in and start doing it.

If you really want to learn stay away from all of the CMS systems and WYSIWYG program, learn to hand code!

2 great free places to learn to build sites.
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials
Tutorials - Site Map - Pixel2Life

The technical aspect is actually not that hard. The best way to learn is start building a site from scratch. Learn how to do the CSS and design. Each thing that you need help with you can find on Google.

By looking and implementing the things you find out you will remember how to do them better and will learn the most useful skills first

Agreed. Even though my design skills have improved a lot
I made a lot of money sometimes early on with really retarded
looking sites with enthusiastic writing.

Adam, stop

XSP2 is certainly not wasted money. YES..it is buggy, i noticed that. However i think it is VERY good for an IMer starting out building sites.

I also started IMming basically with XSP (1)....you say you dont have big HTML skills, but i really think that XSP is the way to go since you will learn more by creating the sites. You dont need any special skills to start out with it.

In regards to to DW, i actually do prefer MS expression web.

XSP does use HTML, you can always look at the source. I sometimes do copy stuff from MS expression web and XSP, depending.

Just dont make the mistake and get some "idiot site builder" since it wont help you in the long run if you want to acquire some real HTML skills. My $0.02

Add: I myself am a little disappointed by XSP2, i havent palyed around with it MUCH, but at the first glance it doesn't offer too much over XSP1, although it has more templates. That said, its still great for IMers for sales-pages and low to low/medium-complex sites.

Adam,

Here's the one I started with:

First Website Builder

It will give you a great foundation to creating your own web pages.

Thanks,

John

Adam Kenzington,
I'd recommend SBI / Sitesell for you. This is the best program to learn about internet, website creation and internet marketing. I have learnt a lot from it. It's pricey in the beginning but the amount of knowledge you gather is simply amazing.
Hope this helps.

I found the easiest way to learn about these things is to find a small well designed site and then view the source code. Then pick out the details you like from the source code and then play about with it to see how different things change the whole layout of the page.

It won't take you long to pick up the basics and then you can move on to the more difficult things like CSS and DHTML

Hi Adam, I started my website html experience by getting a site built for me and then taking it to pieces through the source link and recreating it. Of course you need a host and domain to do it.

I also got Dreamweaver student version (can't use it commercially) to understand about proper construction and frames etc. It all helps. The worst thing is getting bogged down with too much technical stuff because in the end most of my sites are now built with Site Studio, which is an excellent program.

When you get a host make sure they have Site Studio or the equivalent available. Get a good host because that's where you should spend a bit of money rather than on other things. If you PM me I can put you onlo a good one which won't cost the earth and it has everything.

God bless

Thank you Aminc. Your references are very helpful. I had not heard of First Page 2000 but have now downloaded it to try it out.

God bless

Hello Fellow Warrior,

Alot depends on the type of web site you want. There are a few places that will build you a basic web site for free. Visit freewebs.com and check
them out before you start spending any money. They have built thousands of web sites for people all around the world. They even supply you with various templates so that you can customize your free site. Again, that web address is freewebs.com. Good luck!
Make a free website

• Professional or personal
• Simple, free, no coding required
• Photos, videos, web stores, domains and more

I recommend doing it the way I did, just wade in and get your feet wet.

Prepare yourself first by getting some of the reference works others have already recommended. Don't overload yourself: one good html reference and one good CSS guide will do.

A graphics program is almost indispensable. Photoshop is by far the best but it's expensive and if you don't yet have any experience with it you're faced with a long learning curve. GIMP is a free alternative and can do everything you will need but it's kind of a weird setup. Go for Photoshop if at all possible.

If nothing else, there are many free image utilities you can download that you can use to resize and compress images for the web. This will at least allow you to work with existing images.

Then I would recommend NVU as your html editor. I've tried just about every free program out there and NVU is by far the easiest to use and gives great results. I've also tried some of the advanced editors like Frontpage and Dreamweaver. I still prefer NVU. The advanced programs are too complicated to learn on.

Now you're ready for a project:

Find an existing website that you like and that will work well for a website you would like to build. Start with something fairly simple in structure, preferably a site that uses CSS extensively.

Simply download the website you want to use as a model (your template) and get to work with it. Use your reference works and tutorials so that it's not just trial and error (although trial and error is a great way to learn it can be slow going).

As you build your website you'll need to swap images, resize tables and/or CSS specs and styles. You should familiarize yourself with both table structure and full CSS sites. CSS is the much more efficient and modern way to go with site design so make sure you get into it straight away.

Of course, a formal course starting from the basics would be the best way to learn but if that's not available this form of do-it-yourself learning is a great way to do it. It's fun and you could learn to build a decent website from scratch in about six months.