Web site building
65Building Web Sites
I have updated this Hub for building websites with Joomla! and Wordpress.
I have been asked by another Hubber who's name is Sweetiepie, and I would encourage anyone who enjoys a good read to go visit her Hubbery, to show websites that I have published.
Being new to this sort of thing ( Is what we are doing called blogging) I thought the easiest way to do this would be to publish another Hub.
First of all a little story of how I got involved in the internet in the first place.
My friend Ern who himself now is also Hubbing, have a look at his Hubs at earnestshub, and yours truly were sitting down over a cup of coffee, at least Ern said it was coffee, discussing how we could fix the world's problems ,if only we had an afternoon to spare. When out of the blue we started wondering what this new fangled thing called the "Internet" really was, and could anybody really make any money purely from the Web.
Well after about 2 years and hour after hour of research I don't think so.
Any way I digress, that story is for another time, during my studies? I found at our local library a book on MS FrontPage, so with this tucked under my left arm , I'm right handed so I needed my right hand for the coffee cup, I told all and sundry I was going to design Web pages. After everyone stopped rolling around the floor in fits of laughter, it must have been about half and hour I said I'm pretty sure I can do it, and whats more I'll do it cheaply.
After all how hard could it be, someone had been able to write a "how to" book.
So then I went out and hired the best Web Designer I could find.
NO, seriously this is surposed to be a serious in depth story.
The Hard Work on Web Site Building Begins
Then the hard yakka side of my project started and I realised that I did not have a clue and self doubt began to creep in . Thats when friendship came to the fore because without the support and mentoring from Ern I do not think I could have accomplished what a did. Thanks a lot mate.
Anyway with all the mushy stuff out of the way I continue in my Quest.
I decided that just being able to design the web site was not really the only thing you need to do to get published on the web with a truly individual identity.
My steps were to be :-
- Obtain Domain Name
- Obtain Hosting
- Design the Site
- Publish
How easy is that you may well ask?.
I wanted to only build and publish a basic site, no bells or whistles at this stage just to say "There I've done it".
So briefly, this is how I did it:-
- Purchased Domain name from Go Daddy, this included free web page builder, but after playing around with that for a while gave it the flick.
- Next step was to find someone who needed a web site. ( Always comes in handy on a project like this). Just so happened that one of the only people who did not laugh at me originally was my teacher Brenda at Art Class. She offered to be the recipriant of this soon be knock-em dead Web site.
- Designed the website and with Brenda's artistic ability and my perseverance and trusty "how to" book we were ready to publish.
- We decided that we would then publish and avail ourselves of the free hosting from Go Daddy. After another sharp learning curve I learnt how to upload files by FTP direct from My Computer to the server.
- If you have got this far with me , thank you, and please have a look at Brendas site.
- Final cost of project about A$10.oo with the Go Daddy hosting plan there is no monthly fees, just banner ads on top. We are looking into hosting without ads at a reasonable price/month if anyones got any suggestions I'd like to hear from you.
- Please feel free to offer constructive criticism, as it is still a work in progress.
Update on my Journey of Discovery
April 2009
I have spent many months reading , learning, changing content on Web Pages the hard way . Such as updating Code on my Computer then uploading to the server using FTP . By the way a great free FTP program is called FileZilla.
I decided , like a lot of people have, that there had to be a better and easier way to do all of the above.
That was when I came across the term "content management system" commonly referred to as "CMS"
Now you might say that term has been around for ages, after all this Hub is actually being written on a CMS. Blogs such as "Blogger" and "WordPress.com" are written on CMS's.
But wait , for those of us out there who do not know there are now "content management systems" that you can install on your own Website Server and run like a conventional Website using your own Domain Name, so that when someone searches for your Domain Name they are actually pointed at your Domain.
They big advantage of these type of CMS's is that you can edit your content directly on the website by gaining access via an "Admin" portal with an appropriate User Name and Password. (We can't have those nasty little Hackers getting into our Websites ,can we?)
Types of Content Management Systems
Click edit above to add content to this empty capsule.
So far in my travels I have found two popular types of Content Management Systems:
- Wordpress
- Joomla!
WordPress
Now this can be a bit confusing because there are two Wordpress's available.
The first one is Wordpress.com which is where you go if you just want create a Blog and are not too worried about the Domain address. Your address will look something like the Blog I have set up :
http://greypowertimes.wordpress.com
where the "greypowertimes" part is what you have supplied and the rest is the wordpress address.
In the set up in the Admin section you have a choice of Templates which allows you to customise your site to you personal preferences.
If you are happy with this, that is probably the easiest way to get a presence on the internet. I just feel it is not the best way, the address does not look good and it comes across as a bit unprofessional.
If you want to have Wordpress on your Website , the Wordpress application you need is downloaded from Wordpress.org and is unzipped on your computer and uploaded to the Server where your Domain is located. ( usually the Root Directory) . But you don't have to worry too much about that as most good Hosting Companies will install it for you. Using something like "Fantastico"
Joomla!
Joomla! is another popular "content management system".
Joomla! (Yes it does offically have the exclamation mark) is only available to run on your own Domain and is installed either by downloading from Joomla!'s main Website or can also be installed by your Hosting Company (much easier option).
Just ask them to install it in the Root Directory of your Domain.
When you have installed Joomla! it is accessed via the "Admin" portal and administer from a "Control Panel".
There are many Templates available , many free and some that you may have to pay for.
There is a learning curve with Joomla! so don't be impatient and get familiar with the program before you publish to the Web.
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Comments
Thanks Earnestshub for the kind comments. You say "Almost", do you have any facts and figures to show me that it is possible to make money on the web as opposed to having a "real" job.
Good stuff. If you ever work out a way to make money off the net let me know will Ya :)
Cheers bloke
You are so sweet to mention me in your hub :). Beautiful paintings by the way.
This is timely and helpful! I bought a domain name about a month ago and keep putting off working on the site. Now that I see it is indeed possible even for folks like us who are 'of a certain age'--or, folks like me I guess--I feel much encouraged. Thank you!
What a lovely way of putting it "of a certain age" does that make us more sure of ourselves. If you purchased your site from go daddy, I found it a bit daunting at first and made a few "blues" if I can be of any help ask here or contact me via email only too happy to help.
Thanks! I will! I may have more time to work on it soon with the banks in the fine mess they are currently in here (I work in a bank), but that would be fine with me. I hate that bank. You are right about making money online. Sounds great--hardly know a soul who actually manages it!
I'm definately not a financial genius,or any other kind when it comes to that, but I get the impression our banks seem to be doing ok at the moment.
Making money online is like making love in a tumble dryer, you go around and around in circles but you don't get very far...... so I've been told!
Hi agvulpes,
This is good information for the beginner, and just what people who are trying to build a website for the first time are probably looking for.
I have two pieces of information to add. This first is a good host - since you'd asked, I know of a great free host which doesn't even force ads on your pages. They're 110MB.com, and I've found them to be excellent. They also allow you to pay $5 or $10 to upgrade your account in little ways if you'd like - the upgrades are permanent, and the payments a one-time thing.
Secondly, there's a free open-source platform for building websites, that doesn't require any programming experience whatsoever. It's called Drupal (which is Dutch for "water droplet"), and can be downloaded for free from Drupal.org. Not only is Drupal free - and can have your basic site up in about two hours - lots of independent people on the internet have created all sorts of free add-on modules you can plug into your Drupal site, allowing it to do various new tricks. Like e-commerce, or hosting a forum, or pretty much anything. So when you use Drupal, you get all that expertise for free, and you can get your website to do lots of things down the road you hadn't even thought of - without having to remake your site from scratch or by hand.
Wanted to pass those tidbits along to you. Thanks for the Hub!
Wow, thanks Satori what a great piece of info. I have heard of Drupal but I was led to believe it was a bit compicated for the beginner. I'll definetly look into 110MB.com. I've just started using Thunderbird and thinking of changing to Flock, would you care to comment on these programs . Thanks again.
G'day Earnestshub. Its a bit like the mouse chasing his tail. or should that be a bit of tail.
Nice job on your first website:-D and the art is lovely by the way!
You might want to check http://www.officelive.com/ as they provide free web hosting with no ads. I haven't built a website with them yet but I've registered and viewed the backoffice, and seen other sites that have successfully used this service and i couldn't tell that they were free at all. If I remember correctly, you only need to register with a credit or debit card and they charge your card $1 (which I think is refundable) this is simple done to verify identity. Check it out, it's definitely worth taking a l@@k!
Thanks Multimastery, I'll check that "officelive" out as soon as I can, sounds pretty good. I'll let you know what I think?.
G'day Multimastery, I had a look at "officelive", to me it appeared to be more of a file sharing type of platform (a very good one by the looks) I like the freedom of designing my pages on my own computer, then uploading via FTP.
Did I miss something in "office live"
This has been a great hub to follow through. What I am working on now is a new page which I can develop myself and then get it added to my commercial website. I was a bit concerned that it wouldn't be very efficient if I used the various free open source platforms for building websites.
G'day mate, obviously I don't know all your circumstances or details but if you feel that I might be able to assist with some 1 on 1, pop me an email and I wouln't mind at all in helping?
Hullo again, Mister Fox! I haven't used either Thunderbird (Mozilla's Thunderbird?) or Flock. I know Mozilla makes very solid products - starting to wish they made an operating system so I could scrap Windows more easily. From what I've read on them, Flock is a social networking browser, and Thunderbird's an e-mail client. Two different things, for two different purposes. If Flock will do your e-mail as well, you may very well want to swap over to it. I do know that Mozilla's stuff works very well.
Drupal uses a menu-based system, so there's no coding. You do have to make sure when you install a module that you've also got all the modules /that/ one uses to do what it does, but it will tell you which ones - and whether you've got them installed or not. Here's a basic website I threw together with Drupal in about two hours.
G'day Satori, thanks for the great info. I like the "pinkslab" layout. I might have another crack at Drupal!
There actually is a number of Mozilla open source operating systems available.
I have heard one of the best and most like Windows is "ubuntu" with Linux as base but that should not frighten anyone. Apparently you can run it from your cd rom drive and try it before you install it or not. Totally free and when you contact them you can either download the o/s or they will post you a disc free of charge. Even include another disc for a friend. I have received mine but hav'nt tried it yet! Came all the way from The Netherlands. good deal Eh?
hi agvulpes,
Making money on the net is easy! when you know how! and you will always find newer and better oppertunitys of doing so, and using the net to earn money online gives you so many opportunities depending on what knowledge you have, and what you enjoy doing! even if you don't have the knowledge, research, everything you need to kno ! I am doing pretty well but like us all we can always do better!
Good luck in your future web designing which is a good earner if you can do the business!
For hosting Ive used both dreamhost.com and hostgator.com they are both pretty cheap (about $7/month - but you have to pay for a year to get that price) and if you build more websites then don't pay any extra for the hosting. Leave the domain itself with godaddy and just separate out the hosting: the site looks lovely but the godaddy banner rather spoils the effect.
Thanks for the advise Lissie. I discussed this with the artist when I was doing the site. Due to economic pressures at the time we decided to leave the ads on.
I'll check out hostgator and dreamhost as time progresses, also Godaddy has a ad free package at a reasonable price. All the Domain people seem to be putting up their prices probaly due to the economy.
I don't understand how Hubpages doe's it for free?
Lizzie just a small question if you wouldn't mind?
Do you know of a good wysiwyg editor (free) as Front Page is no longer!
Hi - I know one but its not free - I use dreamweaver but its not even cheap - I just found the learning curve with the free ones too steep!
Good job agvulpes! It's a great deal of work pulling a site together from scratch, but you're doing a fantastic job in figuring it all out. Brenda's art is incredible.
Is FrontPage the editor you're most comfortable with? I like that one myself. I'll do some checking around for free programs.
Thank you for sharing your experience agvulpes. Most people build websites to get as many visitors as possible. The best solution is a web hosting package that provides a proven process, and a technology free, complete set of tools for brainstorming keywords, site concepts, search engine submissions, site building, hosting and marketing.
Your site should be geared to the fundamental way people use the internet. Unlike a physical business whose most important aspect is it's physical location, the net is different. People don't just happen onto your site. They type in search terms looking for information or they type in a specific url. Your site must provide what your target market is looking for.
Reggie Auzenne
Pam thanks for the comment I really appreciate it.
Iv'e gone off Front Page cos microsoft isn't supporting it any more.
At the moment I'm trying to master "Seamonkey" (free) have you tried it yet.
I'm also playing around with "Joomla!" and "Wordpress" (both free)
I'd really like to hear comments on these two programs.
Reggie thank you for dropping in and leaving a comment.
As I am a relative newcomer to this whole www world,I appreciate any advice you are gracious enough to offer.I do understand I have got a lot to learn especially in SEO.
Reggie I only regard this as a hobby and will more than likely not do a lot of websites and unfortunatly when you are working on a budget of nearly $00.00 it becomes quite a challenge even to just get a website on line.
I will check out your Hubs for further information.
Ah, FP is new and improved as Microsoft Expression now. Hmmm. It sounds like you're having some luck finding free editors. I hope you find one that works well for you agvulpes.
Hi, Ag. Good work. Mine is hosted by Microsoft office live. They also give you a free domain name. I got reillycreative.com, which is a pretty good name. I am looking into a much more complicated site for a company a friend of mine are branching into (after the economy steadies, that is) which would have to have the same video capabilities as youtube. I have already bought the program to make this happen, but making it happen is a whole nother can of worms! Your off to a great start!
Where ya been? You asked me for a Yogi Berra hub and then you disappear. What's up with that?
Hi Chris thanks for the kind comments I'll have a look at your site. I had a look at Office Live and at the time it was not available in Australia. It did look a bit limited with what it would allow you to do. eg templates only what was offered etc.
The site you looking at making: do you mean you will have videos to view by other people? that sounds like it may require heaps of bandwidth.
I would like to talk to you further about that if you wouldn't mind? mums the word!
I havent been around much lately, tied up with other projects and non web activities. Summer hols and end of school year is fast approaching.
Years ago, when the internet was still thought to be "a passing fad" (LOL!), I had some silly notion of making money as a web designer. Immersed myself in the intracies of html code and built some rather nifty sites (including a renaissance festival's site) using only a word processor and FTP. By playing around with code, I did things that weren't considered possible until style sheets and such came along. Did it for a year and darned near starved, thanks to the free web building programs that began coming out. Why pay someone to build a site when people could do it themselves for nothing.Not custom sites, mind you, just sites.
Granted, programs like FrontPage and DreamWeaver do the intricate coding that would take days from scratch, but there's a certain amount of creative freedom lost when using them. Much like old DOS hounds feel about Windows, or your friend Brenda probably feels about paint-by-number kits. (Her paintngs are gorgeous, btw. I already Stumbled and Delicio-ed her site before reading this hub.)
That said, I think you've done a great job navigating the speed bumps on the road to web building, some I never had to deal with *because* the internet was so new. Didn't take much back then to get *tons* of traffic. Usually just an afternoon registering a site with a dozen or so search engines. Ah, the "old days". :)
JamaGenee, thanks for the nice words. The more I play around with html the more I'm finding that the so-called "editors" cant give you the best result, you still have to know the code markup!
With the phasing in of CSS and such , I believe you will find that the Pro designer will be in demand again. On the other hand you have Platforms like Joomla! , Wordpress and other CMSs taking a big chunk of the market.
I find the whole Internet set up to be fascinating and a long way from Hopalong Cassidy and Co.
What is the secret of getting traffic? I made 20c today!
Thanks again. C-ya
20c! Congratulations! LOL!
Seriously...I'm the last person to ask about getting traffic. I didn't join HubPages to make Money-with-a-big-M, but for the pleasure of writing and meeting interesting people like yourself from different parts of the world. My Sarah Palin hub is what hubbers and Google call "evergreen" (but not for much longer - her star is waning), but wasn't written with the idea of generating traffic.
Recently I branched out, put up my own blog, and under protest, am slowwwly learning about backlinks, key words, and many other things that make HTML seem like a walk in the park. Ah, progress!
JamaGenee the backlinks eh, what would we do without them?
I wish I understood why they are so important.
It's nice to know that you have the impression I am interesting. I think I am just a pretty ordinary Ozie bloke leading an interesting life.
I must catch up with you blog where can I find it ?
btw I think your avatar is the cutest picture. round the 1930's ?
:-[)
You have given some good tips. Although I have already followed all these steps but for a newbie it will prove to be a good hub. Thumbs up.
G'day paperpack, thanks for dropping in and leaving a comment. I am, like a lot of us here on Hubpages still very much a newbie in the wonders of the web.
I may have changed some of my opinions from when I wrote this Hub and I may have to do a 2nd edition.(or not). I would certainly be prepared to listen to any ideas you have to put foward to us?
It is a very long learning curve which seems to have the goal posts moved just about every other day. I still find it fascinating.
Funny about that agvulpes! I wonder is it because of new competition or just that more and better keyword placement will change the game. I agree it is a long hall to get a heap of paying hits. I agree also with using Wordpress as it is easier for SEO. Joomla appears to be harder for me to use.
earnestshub, thanks for the comment. Keywords placement is still a subject that I have to come to terms with. I am still struggling with Joomla and Wordpress does seem the more user friendly progam?
Thanks for this..I was wondering whether designing and having your own site is easy.You have given me the tips..let me work on it!Thanks.
laila thanks for dropping by and leaving a nice comment.
btw I have checked Brenda's site and it is working ok at the moment. The server on GoDaddy may have been down when you looked.
Thanks for the heads up.
Useful hub!
I really need this information.
Thanks for sharing..
hsofyan thanks for your kind comment.
I researched Joomla, Drupal and Wodrpess before picking Wordpress for my websites. I built my first website in half a day from scratch, with no programming knowledge. The fact you can use ready-made themes in Wordpress makes life a whole lot simpler!
Marisa i agree that Wordpress appears more user friendly than both Joomla and Drupal. One other advantage is if you want to get your hands dirty with code its not that hard to find the template codes.
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a great comment.
Good info! ;-)
earnestshub says:
15 months ago
Good work. I ALMOST agree with you about making money online but I do hope to prove you wrong on that one.
I feel sure many beginners will get a lot out of this.
Getting a website of your own up can be daunting without a map to follow.
You have provided a lot of easy to follow stuff.
There is lots of information out there as you know but some of it is too hard to understand for beginners, so this should be valuable to newbies.
Top stuff for a learner to get started with.