People ask me all the time, “How do you build web sites? How do I learn?”
There are thousands of sites that teach you specific skills and tricks of the trade but only a handful actually walk you through the steps and show you what you need to know to become a web site developer. I’ve written a series of six articles here to help you learn those basic skills. If you’re eager, you can easily be up and running with with your own site in a matter of days.
Building your own web site is rewarding, fun, and easy. If you’re an absolute beginner and you want to learn how to build web sites, this is the guide for you. You don’t need a lot of money to start writing websites. You don’t need to learn computer programming. All you need is a desire to learn.
These articles won’t teach you how to write or design your site; they’re designed to point you in the right direction so that you can learn for yourself. Just follow the steps and explore the links I’ve given, and you’ll be well on your way.
What We’re Going To Learn
Day One - Tools Required for Website Development
Day Two - Skills Required for Website Development
Day Three - The Most Powerful Learning Secret for Website Development
Day Four - Beyond Basics - Tools That Take Your Site To the Next Level
Day Five - Beyond Basics - Skills That Take Your Website to the Next Level
Day Six - Wrap-Up - Summary of Tools, Skills, Books, and Tutorials for Website Development
Day One - Tools Required for Website Development
I know you’re probably in a hurry to learn as much as you can about building websites right away. Great! The first thing you need to do is gather together all the tools you need to get started. Follow my suggestions one step at a time, and tomorrow, I’ll point you toward the skills you need to learn.
Step One - Get a Better Browser
I assume you already have a computer with an internet connection. The first step is to install a decent web browser. A browser is a piece of software on your computer that allows you to view web pages over the internet. Windows computers come pre-installed with Internet Explorer - IE, for short. Apple computers ships with the Safari browser. They both allow you to view web sites but other third-party browsers are faster and more functional. Most people don’t realize they can install a different browser on their computer. You can, and you should. Firefox or Opera are both great browsers. I lean towards Firefox but don’t take my word for it - download and install them both. Play with them for a while to figure out which one you prefer.
If you have a long list of websites already bookmarked on IE or Safari it’s very simple to import them into Firefox or Opera. Here’s how:
Importing Bookmarks into Firefox
Importing Bookmarks into Opera
Step Two - Use a Simple, Built-In Text Editor
You don’t need to spend a dime to begin writing a web site. All you need to start, already comes with your computer - a simple text editor. On Windows, you can use “Notepad”; for Mac users, there’s “TextEdit.” There are other dozens of other programs that are designed to assist you in writing web pages. Programs like Dreamweaver are excellent but, as a beginner, they will stifle your learning. For now, stick with Notepad or TextEdit. Later on, when you’re comfortable writing web pages, you can explore some of those tools. I’ll talk about them in day four’s article.
Windows users - to open Notepad, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Notepad.
Mac users - to open TextEdit, click Applications, and then click TextEdit.
Create a shortcut for either application on your desktop; you’ll be using it a lot in the days ahead.
Step Three- Download an FTP Client
An FTP client is a program that takes the web pages you write on your own computer and uploads them to a web server so that you can view it on the internet. If you have a Windows computer, download SmartFTP - it’s free and it works well. If you’re on a Mac, the best free FTP client is Cyberduck. I use Transmit, for Mac, because I like the feature-set, but it will set you back $29.95.
SmartFTP (Windows, free)
Cyberduck (Mac, free)
Transmit (Mac)
For now, just install the FTP software and forget about it. I’ll cover uploading files to your web server in tomorrow’s article.
Step Four - Choose a Domain Name and a Host
Before your pages can be viewed on the internet, you need to choose a domain name for your site and someone to host it for you on a web server. Choosing a name for your site can be difficult. Take your time to think of a memorable name. It will pay off in the long run.
Here are a few tips:
- Try to keep the name short, simple, and relevant to your web site content. If your site is about gardening, www.homegardening.com is much more memorable than www.allthethingsiloveaboutgardening.com
- Domain names are restricted to letters, numbers, and dashes. No spaces or special characters, like “@#$%^&*” are allowed. Avoid dashes if you can.
- Sometimes a play on words or made up words can be very memorable to your audience. Some good examples of domains like this are www.flickr.com and www.squidoo.com.
- Ever notice how every domain name ends in .com, .net, .org? Those are called domain name suffixes. When you buy a domain name, you also choose the suffix attached to it. One person can have www.makemoney.com and another person can have www.makemoney.net - they’re two different domain names. There are many different domain name suffixes available, but if you can, purchase the .com option. Most people remember .com because it’s been around the longest and is the most common.
To secure a domain name, you need to purchase it from a certified registrar. I suggest GoDaddy.com - they’re inexpensive and are the largest registrar in the world. It only takes a few minutes to secure a domain name and costs around $10 a year.
Once you buy a domain name, you need to pay a host to serve your web pages from their web servers. Web servers are computers that are designed to store and display your web pages. A host with high quality web servers rarely go down and are backed up frequently in case of a failure. It’s a bad idea to pay for a cheap host if their web servers frequently crash. GoDaddy also provides web hosting very inexpensively. For a basic server, you can pay as low as $3.99 per month. I suggest buying an inexpensive hosting plan at the same time you purchase your domain name. I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve been very happy with the service I receive. If you want to move your domain to another host in the future, it’s very easy to do.
That’s it for today!
We’ve covered:
- Internet browsers
- Text Editors
- FTP Clients
- Choosing a domain name
- Domain name registrars
- Web servers
- Hosts
Now gather those tools and explore them! We’ll get into the meat and potatoes of building a web site in tomorrow’s article, “Day Two - Skills Required for Website Development.”