Follow up questions to my Web Page question?

Question

1. What's the best way to learn how to build a website step by step and appx. how long does it take?
2. If you're a complete beginner should you just hire someone to do it for you? What's a ball park cost to hire someone?
3. What are the top 10 sites on the net right now?

Answer 1

one of your simplist versions would be www.freewebs.com and create one there and have them host it. it is a great beginers place i have used it a few times until i learned html now i can create one and have them host it. But they host it with there name so you cant have it be www.urchoice.com it would be www.freewebs.com\urchoice.

hope you found this useful.

Answer 2

Depends. If you have some time to kill, take it upon yourself to learn web development. HTML isn't that hard. Hiring someone would cost you at the minimum $20 to $25 an hour and figure on them spending at least 10 hours on a site.

You have to learn HTML first. You can build a simple webpage in a matter of an hour or two. I would also take the time to learn CSS as well.

Once you're comfortable with building simple static HTML sites, move on to learning PHP and MySQL for advanced dynamic web sites.

check out www.w3schools.com for easy and quick tutorials and just get a book or do a search for other tutorials. Thats how I was taught.

Answer 3

There are many ways to learn to build a website, so the best approach will depend upon you. Some people, like myself, learn well by using online tutorials and playing around with it. Others learn by following a book, and still others learn best when someone is looking over their shoulder walking them through it step by step.

How much you have to learn depends upon how complicated you want your websites to be. If you want something really fancy and as dynamic as Yahoo or a major store site - hire someone and expect to pay for it.

If you just want something quick and easy for your family, you might be able to get by with a content management system like a Wiki (see http://wikkawiki.org as an example) - and sometimes your webhost provides really simple tools to install those types of systems.

Look to your town or city to see if they have any free or lowcost web page design classes if you are interested in learning that way. Many communities do.

Answer 4

1) Just mess with it; you can't break anything with HTML. Go to http://www.w3schools.com/ and play with all their tutorials. Then start messing with it on your own. If all you are doing is html you can do it on your own machine and look at it in a browser.

2) It depends on how complicated you want your site to be. If you just want to talk about random things and make it static (to start), Do it yourself. I recommend doing it this way. If you want to, right from the start, make a really complex site, with all sorts of dynamic content and javascript. Get someone.

Answer 5

★★ Learn HTML/XHTML/CSS ★★

◙ Here are examples that you can experiment right on the web site. Even though you can experiment here you cannot save the results to your computer unless you copy and paste the code into windows notepad and save it that way.

◙ HTML Examples
☞ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_examples.asp

◙ Cascading Style Sheets Examples
☞ http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_examples.asp

◙ These pages will help you understand what HTML tags(commands) and their attributes you can use in your pages.
☞ http://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp

◙ These pages will help you understand what Cascading Style Sheets Rules and their attributes you can use in your pages.
☞ http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_reference.asp

◙ Don't be surprised if you don't learn HTML/CSS very fast. Most of us took years to learn to use it proficiently. Even now after 10 years I still don't know it all since it keeps changing all the time.

◙ After you have experimented some on that site then do the following.

==============================================

◙ Learn HTML/XHTML & CSS - Learn to write your own pages by hand it's easy.

◙ FREE! HTML/XHTML/CSS Editor:
☞ http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

◙ FREE! Online Courses:
A) Webonkey HTML Tutorial http://www.webmonkey.com/
B) W3schools http://www.w3schools.com/
C) Watch it done in a flash movie http://visualtutorials.com/
D) Free Web Site Courses http://certification.about.com/cs/testingresources/a/tutorials.htm

◙ Reference:
A) The best HTML/XHTML reference http://www.w3schools.com/tags/
B) The best Style Sheet Reference http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_reference.asp
C) HTML Dom http://www.w3schools.com/htmldom/dom_reference.asp'

◙ Links:
A) HTML Links http://www.websitetips.com/html/
B) Style Sheet Links http://www.websitetips.com/css/

◙ ALWAYS CHECK THE REFERENCE PAGES TO MAKE CERTAIN YOU ARE WRITING YOUR SOURCE CODE THE CORRECT WAY! JUST BECAUSE YOU SAW SOME SOURCE CODE WRITTEN A PARTICULAR WAY IN SOMEONE ELSE'S PAGE DOESN'T MEAN THEY WROTE IT CORRECTLY. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT YOU'LL FIND THAT THEY DIDN'T WRITE IT CORRECTLY. BUT LOOKING AT OTHER PEOPLE'S SOURCE CODE IS STILL A GOOD WAY TO LEARN. IF SOURCE CODE ISN'T WRITTEN THE CORRECT WAY IT CAN CAUSE OBJECTS TO BE DISPLAYED IN PLACES YOU DON"T WANT THEM IN OR EVEN CRASH SOMEONE'S BROWSER. NETSCAPOE 4.X USERS ARE THE MOST VULNERABLE TO CRASHING. MOST OF THE TIME BROWSERS A VERY FORGIVING WHEN IT COMES TO BAD SOURCE CODE. BUT WHY TAKE CHANCES. THE MORE CORRECTLY YOU WRITE YOUR PAGES THE MOER BROWSERS THEY WILL WORK WITH.

◙ Paid Online Courses:
☞ http://www.hwg.org/

◙ FREE! HTML/XHTML Editor:
☞ http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

◙ FREE! FTP Clients (applications):
☞ http://www.trustmeher.net/freeware/cute.htm



◙ You'll find hundreds of free online web tools here http://dwight.clickthesky.com/webtools/ Use them to generate HTML/CSS/JavaScript source code for you then simply paste it into your pages. There are also Banner makers, site maintenance utilities and many many more.

◙ NOTE: Free web-based FTP for people that aren't using their own computer or don't want to install a ftp client on their computer. I use this wonderful utility nearly everyday. You can do everything with this client that you can do with an installed one. There are two modes, secure server and non-secure server. I prefer the secure server. This is a Java Applet so you'll need Java installed on your computer to use it. Most PCs come with it pre-installed.

☞ Unlimited FTP https://www.unlimitedftp.ca/myftp/

◙ When FTPing files from your computer to your online account send text files, HTML/XHTML files, CSS files in the ascii mode. Send image files, movie files, music files in the binary mode. There is an automatic mode that is supposed to detect the type of file you are sending. But it isn't always reliable.

*** HERE IS HOW I LEARNED HTML/XHTML/CSS ***

◙ When you come to a page on the web click "VIEW" at the top of your browser and click on "SOURCE". If you are using Internet Explorer browser the HTML source code will open up in Windows Notepad. In Notepad click on "FILE/SAVE AS" to save the page's source code to your hard drive. In Internet Explorer click on "FILE/OPEN" to open the source code in the browser. Go back to notepad and remove some of the code and click "SAVE". Then in Internet Explorer hold down the "SHIFT" key and click on the "REFRESH" button on the browser's toolbar to see what effect the removed source code had on the page. You will learn a hundred times faster this way.

◙ Something to think about later is.......After you have gotten a little experience with HTML try DOCTYPE, XHTML, and CSS. Then try to validate your pages. Validating checks your source code for coding errors. validating will not work unless you are using the correct doctype and the correct document encoding. Validating is not something a newcomer should bother with. Being new you will make lots of mistakes and won't know how to fix them yet. http://validator.w3.org/

◙ Many libraries world-wide have books related to the Internet, Web and computers in general. They also have CDs and DVDs. Go to your local public library and get the username and password for http://www.firstsearch.org/ You have to get them at your library because that is where you will pick up and return the books after reading them. You can look up the book yourself but they will have to order it for you. Sometimes this can take awhile if the book is checked out by someone else. After reading the books and making copies of certain pages with a photo copier simply return it to them.

◙ By using Firstsearch you can search for any book in the world. Some libraries might charge a small fee but most are free. Even if they charge a fee it will be less than the cost of the book or other item you are ordering. Every Web Design book I have read was acquired in this fashion. :)