IMO, you need to at least know the basics of HTML before you attempt to build one. The Dummies books are good resources. What you create it in doesn't make much difference. You've got Dreamweaver which is my personal favorite and once you know the basics, it's as easy to use as any. Flash is a little more intense, but you may not even need it. As for ASP or SQL, you may not even need those either depending upon what you are wanting to do with the site.

If you are using any custom graphics, you need something to create those in also. I use Adobe Illustrator, but teaching yourself that is a totally different ballgame. The last thing you want, IMO, are the cheap scrolling and spinning graphics that look like they were created with WordArt (and they probably were).

Learn the number one rule in marketing: Proper use of white space.

IMO, by far and away the easiest way to learn and get the site up and running fairly quickly is to download a few free templates, open them up in Dreamweaver and modify the content. If you do a search for "free website templates" you find thousands and many will be very professional looking. It won't take the fun out of it because you'll get plenty of aggravation just from modifying the pages. You can even find some with some Flash integrated into it and learn to tweak that yourself also.

 

Your 100% right on the space management. I have also been trying to avoid the cheesy factor too. I want it to look good, be simple and easy to navigate. I've been reading more on how you want to build it and working on the how you build it now. I've got the page started as far as the what the concept is going to look like (after about 5 different try's).

This what what i have come up with so far *********edit

I would like to work Flash into the buttons and have some sort of flash picture viewer on the home page. I haven't spent much time on the links and the rest of the code. I wanted to make sure I was happy with what it looked like before I really started getting into it.

Any recommendations on how to get hits from google searching and stuff like that? I have been reading a little about it but I figured that would be my last step?

 

..did you check out "Free Submission" ? the link in my 3rd post?
There are other tools in the site that may be helpful as well...on the right hand side, see additional tools.

 

I didn't get a chance to go through the links yet. Appreciate it Roadhog!

 

If you have some ready-made graphics maybe Photoshop will work out better. I tried to learn Illustrator and it's better to learn with someone who knows it. I tried when I took a graphics course. Talk about whole new ballgame.

Good advice about the white space. Flashy is nice, but don't over do it.

 

If you have some ready-made graphics maybe Photoshop will work out better. I tried to learn Illustrator and it's better to learn with someone who knows it. I tried when I took a graphics course. Talk about whole new ballgame.

Good advice about the white space. Flashy is nice, but don't over do it.

 

You can use the mass submission tools if you'd like, there are tons of them out there. From my experience, they don't work very well though unless things have changed in the past few years. Most search engines are setup to avoid that sort of thing. Google is a very precarious creature in it's own. You can be listed at the top for a particular search one day and suddenly just fall off the face of the earth as far as they're concerned. Every search engine compiles there list differently, but there are a few things that will help with most of them.

1) Go to dmoz.org and submit your site. This used to be the cream of the crop for directories. Unless things have have changed Google pulls their own directory straight from dmoz. Every submission is reviewed by a human and they look for some type of originality.

2) Submit your site to as many directories as you can find, even the small ones. The more inbound links you have the better chance you have to get noticed when the search engines send out their spiders.

3) Manually submit your website to as many search engines as you can.

4) Do not try the old hidden and overly repeated keywords tricks. They don't work for the most part anymore and it will even get your site banned from a lot of directories when (not if) you're caught.

5) Ignore most of the so-called "search engine optimization" programs out there. They're may be a few good ones, but there are far more scams. Most of them employ the tactics described above in #4.

6) Use keywords in an informative manner. Select the few best ones and don't fear repeating them as long as it's constructive dialogue and not useless drivel just repeating the same keyword over and over. Don't over do it.

7) Some will tell you not to submit individual pages, but I've found that this works with Google if you don't over do it. If you are offering products maybe submit the links to a few of the better sellers or more popular items.

You will find that getting your site to come up in the search results will take as long or longer than building the site itself. I spent many a night up til 3 AM working on it until I got to where I had several keywords that would land me at the top or at least on the first page of search results. Had a pretty good run at it until I kinda got bored or burnt out on the whole gambit.

To get the Flash buttons is where a template might come in handy. You can download templates with Flash buttons and either add your content to the template or use the Flash controls from the template in your own design. IMO, if you try to tackle all of it at once, you'll be in for a long hard ride.

I also wouldn't bother with submitting the site until your finished designing it either. The last thing people want to see is "Under construction" when they pull up a page or a total change in design from one visit to the next. Decide on a logo and layout and stick with it. The most recognizable brands are the ones that remain unchanged.

Good luck!

 

delete

 

If you are interested in the Abode products (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat), the Adobe website had trials you could download to try them out. Hope this helps and good luck. BTW-Illustrator is vector-based, so very different from your other graphic programs. It's great for drawing and very precise, IMO. But check out the trails.

I'd like to see your site after your done.

 

Don't over do it on expensive stuff. It is very easy to learn how to make a basic web page. You could do it in note pad if you wanted to. I use a free html program from www.tucows.com. Mine is called alleycode html editor. I can create html, css, php, perl, and etc. This one you need to do all the coding yourself unlike front page. There are other free editors out there also.

I have a website over 100 pages. It still doesn't seem that big, but it is. I learned from free easy tutorials off of the net. Keep searching for one until you find one that is easy for you to understand. You will want to start with an HTML tutorial at first. This is an easy tutorial in my opinion from http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp. Learn the basics, learn how to insert an image, and link to other pages.

Soon after you learn the basics, and create a simple page to test your new knowledge. You will want to learn css. Even with a small website, css will make you're life much easier. All of your format elements will be in css with what is called an external style sheet. Format elements would be site layout, background, text fonts/bold/size, spacing, and etc.

For example you decided to change your background image on a ten page website. With css external style sheet, all you need to do is change one code and you're done. Otherwise you will have to change the code on each page you have created. Think of having to change the code on 100+ pages. Not fun.

It is better to use CSS to format you're page. You will be able to do many more things than if you just stuck with html and decided to use tables for a quick two or three column layout. I have learned tables and formated my site with it. It is strict on what I can place where. I decided to learn CSS, and just testing things out with what I'm learning is giving me a much more flexible layout. I'm still in the testing phase, so didn't open them up to the public or change anything on my website. I don't have to keep everything in blocks any longer.

It is tough going from a table mindset to working with the more fluid css layout. If you jump into CSS without worrying about learning tables and other formating codes, it should be much easier for you. You can code two, three, or more columns with or without headers, and not have to fuss with tables at all. It will speed up the time it takes for your site to load when someone goes to look at it.

Instead of your content inside of the table loading last, your content will load first.

If you decide to insert java script, know that there are many people who surf the web with the java script turned off. If you have your navigation done in java, there will be people who would never see the links.

You can't put the navigation links in the css external style sheet, and change all links with one code. That is why some use java. I'm looking into using a server side include such as php for that. I have used php before a long time ago. I'll probably have to relearn it.

Take your time. You are not going to learn everything in a day. Take a break when you go from understanding what is being said to confused. When you learned enough to create a website and get stuck, there are webmaster forums out there where you can get help. I got help creating a four column layout in css for one of my pages. I still have alot to learn.

Tip for the search engines when you are looking for something specific. If you want an html code, put html first before anything else. Example: HTML link to another site. CSS making a left hand column.

Good luck to you.