A lot of people out there think they can create a website without a website designer and I have news for you they are 100% right. If you have the time and some technical expertise creating a website is definitely within your skill levels. Here is a short tutorial on how to set up a website for your business and get going. It is far from comprehensive but gives you an idea of the main building blocks.
And here is the conclusion at the beginning. I know I could change the oil in my car and I could probably put in an outside tap but I don’t because I know I could never do it to the quality levels of a plumber or mechanic and it would probably take me 10 times as long.
(Editors Note: I have never done either of these things as I cam a complete disaster with DIY)
Get a Hosting Package
First and foremost you need a hosting package. A hosting package allows you store your WebPages and allows the end content be visible on the Internet. There are many companies in Ireland and worldwide that can help you with this. Blacknight are one of my favourites (no this isn’t a paid plug I just like their support, accounts people and their overall attitude). This is a yearly fee and currently they a Minimus package that is 49 Euro for a year (not including VAT which brings the total to 60 Euro per year). You have to pay this every year to allow your site be hosted so that is cost number one. Shop around for different hosting deals though. There are lots of other good Irish companies that can help you but the price will be in and around this mark.
Domain Name
Once you have a hosting package you then need to register your domain name. This will be the home for your website if you just want a .com/.net/.org/.me then this is again just a matter of registering it (again with a hosting company as they handle the registration process). Expect to pay between 10 and 20 Euro to register a domain name. For a .ie name you need to prove ownership of the name and this can take a couple of days to process with various identity requirements (company number, VAT number, proof of identity and so on). Again you have to pay yearly to retain your domain name. If you don’t it lapses and is available to someone else to use.
The Fun Begins – Design the Website
So you have domain name, hosting is setup and you have access to the website. Usually a simple ftp tool like Filezilla will allow you ftp files to the server. If you are not familiar with ftp then most good hosting services offer a web based tool for file transfer. However it is worth learning the basics of ftp as the web based approach can be slow and they can usually limit the file size and number of files at a time that you can transfer.
You then needs some other skills to make the website creation easy for you.
HTML Knowledge
Although there are tons of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors out there from DreamWeaver to Coffeecup it really really helps to understand the basics of HTML. W3CSchools does a good job here stepping you from the very basics through to more complex areas. Spend a few hours looking at these tutorials. I rarely use a WYSIWYG and Notepad++ is my tool of choice. I can nearly write HTML as fast as I can type as I have been doing this since Santa was an elf. If you are doing a one off site then you may never have to worry about HTML but it is like learning the basics of a car engine. One day the site may break and with a basic understanding your may be able to fix it yourself.
CSS Knowledge
CSS stands for cascading style sheets and these babies revolutionised website design when they came out and now are the backbone of any site layout. CSS lets you control how your site images and text are presented in a browser. Again the W3Schools site has a good intro to this and if you are going deeper into the area then a good level of knowledge does not go astray. With CSS you can control the position, format and layout of your website with great ease.
Ready Steady Site
Now that you have some site knowledge then you can fire away with your web pages and create a site. OK off you go… If you are stuck for ideas for layout and structure then why not check out Blueprint or 960 /which are CSS frameworks that allow you get started with your layouts to frame your sites. I have used both of these in the past and even created customer sites with them with some (read lots) CSS changes.
And Then
From then on its up to you how advanced you get, you may dip into jquery, flash, some php and so on to put more power under the websites hood. Create contact forms, dabble in database manipulation and so on. I am still learning new tools and methods (I won’t call them tricks) as the technology is constantly changing.
You can dip into some of the stock images that are out there to add relevant images to your site (I did just that for this post). With Photoshop you can then work with those images and enhance them to even more effect.
Why Are You Telling Us This
The Other Conclusion (the one at the end)
You are probably asking why am I giving you this information when this is something that you do and get paid for it?
Its simple really. If you want to get to even the basic level of expertise then you need to invest the time. I personally think to even get a basic entry level knowledge and expertise needs 2-300 hours of reading and the same again of working with the tools. Some may disagree. I read at least an hour a day reading on new web based technologies and refresh my old knowledge regularly. I try and learn new skills so that when a client asks me if I can do a certain thing with their website I know what is practical and doable.
The misconception is that people are paying for the hosting and domain and a bit of HTML – that’s not the case. They ae paying for your knowledge and ideas. They are paying for the time that you have spent fine tuning (and still doing it mind) your skill set to help them get an excellent end product.
Now I am not saying don’t go off and build your own website but approx 30% of my business is re-designing websites that people did using the steps above. I am not saying their intents weren’t good but 9 times out of 10 these sites were built by people with good IT skills, some of the knowledge above but they were lacking the expertise and ideas to make the site a viable site in the long term.
Why all the comedians. Well to be honest there are a lot of jokers out there who claim to be website designers who flat out aren’t. And these guys in the images were some of the greatest jokers ever but they never created a website so we are safe in our houses tonight.
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