Website Design Help

[Phantom]

Hey everyone,

So I have no background in computer programming or anything like that (other then statistical software's). I want to create a website. Would learning HTML be the best way to go about it? I don't want to hire a freelancer, because I don't really have the money plus learning this stuff could be useful in the future.

Is there any other programs you would recommend for a newbie?

Many thanks!

 

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[Milenko]

Do a search on the forums - there are a bunch of threads that address this exact topic.

To answer your question, if you're not looking to create a web application you're better off learning how to use a CMS like Wordpress or Drupal than spending time learning HTML from the ground up. HTML is a very low-value skill in today's world...

 

[Darkside]

You should learn HTML/XHTML first. It's a very easy language to learn. After that go with PHP, Javascript, CSS. Those four languages are really all you'll need for website creation. Having some MySQL and Apache skills will also come in handy but you'll tend to learn them as you learn PHP.

 

[Brootal]

I think it really depends upon what you want the site to do.

Is it really complex site with lots of custom features? Or can you get by using something like wordpress, which has tons of "plugins" that give it further functionality without the designer really needing to know any coding at all.

 

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[Milenko]

You should learn HTML/XHTML first. It's a very easy language to learn. After that go with PHP, Javascript, CSS. Those four languages are really all you'll need for website creation. Having some MySQL and Apache skills will also come in handy but you'll tend to learn them as you learn PHP.

Waste of time if you're not looking to be a web developer. Instead of teaching yourself skills that can be outsourced for less than US minimum wage use that time and energy to build a business.

 

[Darkside]

Waste of time if you're not looking to be a web developer. Instead of teaching yourself skills that can be outsourced for less than US minimum wage use that time and energy to build a business.

Those skills aren't just useful for web developers. If you want to run a site with lots of cool features, you'll need to learn them or else pay a bunch of money to freelancers and hope that they get it right. Also, if you need to add more features in the future any new freelancer will have trouble understanding the code of the previous freelancer. And, if your site gets hacked, you need to respond quickly.

 

[Phantom]

Well the purpose of the website I want to design is to provide free information. So its going to be a content based design. The point is to provide free content to the users and get paid through advertisement. So the whole website is actually going to be pretty simple in my opinion.

I'm thinking maybe I'll just use Weebly or Wordpress for this.

 

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[Darkside]

Well the purpose of the website I want to design is to provide free information. So its going to be a content based design. The point is to provide free content to the users and get paid through advertisement. So the whole website is actually going to be pretty simple in my opinion.

I'm thinking maybe I'll just use Weebly or Wordpress for this.

Go with Wordpress then. It has many more plugins than any other free CMS and a huge community to draw on for support related questions.

 

[VincentVega]

Check out Artisteer for putting up a decent design in 20 min for most CMS platforms

the code isn't great, but it will help you get started faster and ease the learning curve in Wordpress or whatever CMS you're using.