How to build a website

[RetiredFolk]

So I thought that if I Google the above subject line, I would find a decent place to learn how to build a website for free, sort of like an online "building websites for dummies".

I'm a bit lost and don't know where to start. If anyone knows of somewhere to learn - for free - how to build a website from scratch with zero knowledge, I'd appreciate your help.

Thanks!

G

[universal4]

Well, do you know html already?

If not, you might want to start with some html tutorials and learn the basics.

From there, you can then move on to learning Front Page or Dreamweaver, (many more will likely recommend DW... LOL)

If you already have the basics down, you could try getting a template and making changes to it.

Rick
Universal4

[Chips]

One of the best investments I made (aside from Dreamweaver) was the book HTML4 for Dummies.

[Chalkie]

Dreamweaver is without doubt a great tool and i would suggest the best.

Dependent of your existing skills i would suggest xara webstyle is a great place to start and this will work well with dreamweaver.

In Xara you can build a basic template and customise quite a bit of it, then use dreamweaver to update and continue to build.

[briscoe.reich]

I get tons of helpful result for build your own website start with this one http://www.thesitewizard.com/getting...twebsite.shtml

[sfjonathan]

I'd also recommend Dreamweaver. You can download a free trial from their site and try it out. It's pretty much like using Word. It's very user friendly.

As for building a website from scratch, I would take a step back and think through what your site will be presenting. I think that goes a long way in figuring out the content and design of the finished product.

My 2 cents.

[thepokerkeep]

This is a handy tool for learning/creating html.
This site also teaches basic html
Some basic SEO help can found here. Or here.

[Tristan]

You don't need to know HTML inside-out to make websites, that being said, you should definitely invest some time in learning how to do it by hand.

A WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor like dreamweaver will help you a lot, but you will inevitably need to fix something strange by hand, or just want to check your code to make sure everything is fine.

You'll also need to learn some CSS, which is the 'language' used to style pages.

I'd strongly suggest buying some books on the topic.
Learning this stuff may be hard and frustrating, but it's an essential skill.

RE: Books...
Go check out the local library, and also look in bookstores for old HTML and web design books on sale. HTML4 is still going to work for many many years, so the beginners books you find on sale won't be too out of date.


Some more books:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101978/
* this looks particularly good

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003821/
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596526870/

http://www.sitepoint.com/

Hope that helps

[LuckyLove8]

One of the best investments I made (aside from Dreamweaver) was the book HTML4 for Dummies.

totally agree with Chips ... on both Dreamweaver and HTML 4 Dummies!

if your looking for something quicker you can also get templates from other sites. just download them and load them in dreamweaver and then you can just play around with them and adjust to your needs. For beginners this tends to be easier than just building a page from total scratch

one site id recommend is http://www.gamblingtemplates.net/ but you'll need give them a few footer links...

um i know dreamweaver costs like $400 or something but it definitely worth it. Its alot alot better than alot of the free site builders out there. if thats a bit out of budget I hear rumours that could find it for free on pirate bay

[Ryan K]

Hi there,

If you need assistance in putting a site together, I may be able to help. Drop me a line and tell me what market and which products you were thinking of going after?

Ryan King
manager@earnunited.com

[RetiredFolk]

Gee, thanks guys for all this help.

I am now working on changing my wordpress' theme to something that looks more like a proper website and not just a blog. When I purchase enough html knowledge I will be able to make it look good enough. I 've been seeing some sites that use wordpress and actually look really nice, so perhaps I won't need the whole cms thing and run a "normal" site.

Problem is, I am trying to update my wordpress to the new version. Being my ignorant self, what does this mean: "Create a database for WordPress on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it. "

?

Thanks...

[Ixian]

If you are clueless on how to build a website I would say stay with Wordpress. There are many great themes out there that you can use to liven things up.

I think your rummy site looks great. Are you adding content on a regular basis?

Have you added the SEO and XML site map plugins. I would stay with Wordpress and use my time creating content.

Just my two cents worth.

[RetiredFolk]

Your sites are a great example. How can I make my site look like yours? LOL, not exactly like yours of course, but make it look a normal site with the top menu, left/right menu, banners wherever I want to put them, etc.?

I update content almost on a daily basis which is all unique. I know a lot about Rummy and play it as well, but I don't like the blog theme I currently have. I get pretty decent traffic but the bounce rate is high cause there is no real "call to action". So as high as my rankings will get higher, still people will run away once they see it's a blog. The ones that do click mostly convert to real players, but still the CTR is just ridiculous. I really need to make this a proper site ASAP.

[Ixian]

If you do want to learn how to create websites I would leave your rummy site as is for now and create another poker or casino affiliate site to practice on. It will take some practice to create a site as smooth as your current one. SEO and html can be tricky until you get the hang of it.

You say most of your clicks convert? That's great. I only get about a 5% conversion rate.

[Tristan]

[QUOTE=Ixian;526382]If you do want to learn how to create websites I would leave your rummy site as is for now and create another poker or casino affiliate site to practice on./QUOTE]

This is very good advice for any new affiliates.

You want to have as many sites as you possibly can.

Rather than spending time eternally updating one single site, you're better off spending that time making good new sites.

10x sites getting 100 hits /day = 1000 hits/day.

[mayan.sneh]

Hi All,

many important things were said here.
First if trying to build a site with some knowledge i would highly recommend to use Dreamweaver saves a huge amount of time. and makes works much funner and easier for webmasters.
If you are clueless i would recommend stick to what the others have said and stay with wordpress. if you insist that you want to learn to build a site using html, css, php, asp or many more. then a great place to gain knowledge and expereicne would be w3schools.com a great site with tons of free information allowing you to learn much more than just plain html. very good site really teachs you enough to start working.
However I would insist you get yourself a dreamweaver program if you plan to learn to program using codes such as html. even though using the dreamweaver you will barely use codes because it is more like front page used to be but much more sopisticated and user freindly. by the way the message you got from wordpress is for you to open a database in which to store inforamtion about your site, such as information to be displayed in different locations, user information, this is because wordpress is a sort of CMS. and the open a user is for you to be able to access the MySQL which is a code comunicate with the database used to access and retrive data from a database only admin account that has premission can retrive and update data in the database from system. users can leave comments and so on and this is another example for information that will be stored in a database for you. if i'm not mistaken you can't have a admin with no password either.

any how i hope this post helped any of you and if it did than i'm gald i could help.

[GamTrak]

Building a new site from scratch.

a) Plan website structure/purpose on paper (google 'site planner')
b) Research competitors
c) Sign up for newsletter for things you need/want to learn
d) Find niche - check your stats to see what users are typing to find you.
e) Utilize the following: Dreamweaver, MySQL, Photoshop, CSS (view videos on internet)
f) SEO tool (view videos on youtube)
- Word tracker has 7 free videos on SEO/Internet marketing
- Web CEO is helpful

g) Tutorials - SEO, HTML, PHP (find videos)
h) Use forms to collect data from users
i) Tools I use: OneNote, Filezilla
j) XML - (data source) use it to place content for users to search
k) Use the latest technology: Spry, AJAX, GEO targeting, etc.

Helpful site:
http://www.sitepoint.com/

If you need more tips or help them PM me as I'm finishing up my site this week.

[wagerprofits]

Guys

Awsome thread.

Its funny in the last couple of months it seems that a whole new breed of person wants to enter the gaming industry as an affiliate.

Some of the demands are unreal of course I am more than happy to assit but I think a lot of people would really benefit from this thread.

The other thing that I think would be huge on this site would like a weekly master class on affiliate marketing, i know the whole forum is like a huge master class but we had one thread that went over every topic from building a site to seo to google ad words ect ect.

Education is always good.

Shaun

[Renee]

Hey guys

Few comments:

First and foremost - a real coder uses notepad (sorry just had to add that in being a true nerd and all)

2:

I started teaching myself html when i was about 13/14 years old. the book i learnt from was called HTML4 (mentioned by someone earlier in the thread). It gives you running examples and explains everything pretty well.

3:

A website that I constantly refer to is www.w3schools.com
That site has EVERYTHING.
HTML, ASP, .NET, AJAX, CSS, etc etc. And it gives you examples that you can edit and test on their site. It's very handy.

4:

Although over the last few years I have found that, to make things quicker for myself, Dreamweaver can be my best friend, I would NOT recommend it for someone who doesn't know HTML, UNLESS you were planning on getting some pre-made templates and looking at the code to see how things are done, essentially learning from the template code.
And by the way, looking at code that has already been written is IMO the best way to learn.

Dreamweaver has lots of excellent functions, but I would not really suggest it to a beginner.

5:

If anyone needs any tips/help I am more than happy to offer my expertise. I was employed as a web designer before becoming an affiliate manager at Rewards Affiliates and as said above - started doing this stuff when i was 13/14 years old (and with notepad) so I know a lot.

Cheers

[GamTrak]

Dreamweaver has lots of excellent functions, but I would not really suggest it to a beginner.

I can vouch for that! I have 20 years of IT experience and it took me 6 months of trial/error and training in order to fully understand dreamweaver, brush on html and master CSS.

It's NOT easy at all. Especially if you built your site in Front Page.

Renee is an awesome help! She did some mySQL troubleshooting for me that saved my sanity! hehe