How to make own website?

[AMD]

Hey all,

I wonna make my own introduction website for my new gaming forum so that people can visit my site and also be re-directed streight into my gaming forum.

But do i need to know something called HTML coding to create my own website? or is there a website which offers templates and i can just edit the templates and change it to how i want?

Thanks for all replies.

[rspassey]

Yes, Yahoo Page Builder - among others - allows you to simply use a template. This is the easiest way, but doesn't look very professional. I would suggest doing it yourself. With a little practice with HTML (and being able to produce nice looking images), you can have your own working site whose interface and layout is fully customizable to your liking.
If you would like any help with HTML, I would be glad to help out - I am a little rusty and my skills aren't the greatest, but I have been working on webpages for a while.

[glc]

You can also use a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Mozilla Composer, which is part of the Seamonkey suite, is a decent freebie.

[Kareeser]

If your Microsoft Office suite came with Microsoft FrontPage, you can also use that.

Learning HTML isn't like learning other programming languages, in that it is 100 times easier. The learning curve is much lower, and you can be thoroughly introduced in one afternoon.

There are plenty of websites that offer help on HTML, google 'em

[jillsy]

There are some good intro HTML courses at ed2go.com. Go there and look at their course catalog and then choose a university through which to take courses. The prices are reasonable and you can do everything on your own time.

You can also get some books on HTML coding. The "Visual Quickstart Guide" series books are very good; I think they're published by Peachpit Press. Amazon has many books like this along with customer reviews that give you an idea of the best ones. Make sure to choose a book that was published recently as things change often in the web design world.

If you choose to teach yourself HTML code and want a fairly simple site, you can use your Notepad application to write code and save the file with the .html extension. Then use an FTP (such as CoreFTP Lite for free) application to upload it to a webhost. Your webhost may also have its own FTP upload utility.

I use Hostgator to host my site and have been pleased with them so far. They offer all sorts of free scripts and tools, including site-building tools with templates. I pay only 14.95 per month and get plenty of space and bandwidth.

If you think you'll have a lot of traffic, make sure to choose a host that offers plenty of bandwidth. This is what dictates how many visitors you can have at your site each month. Too little bandwidth will cause your site to be shutdown until the next month. Don't get too worried, though. Most reputable hosts today offer ample amounts of space and bandwidth at reasonable cost.

There are a lot of free hosts out there, too. However, your site will probably be in a subdirectory of another domain. You will also most likely have all sorts of ads on your site which you have no control over. You're better off buying your own domain so your site will never have to move and you will have complete control over everything.

You may already have a host for your forum and you may just host your site there. If so, you can disregard all the hosting advice.

Good luck.

[catacon]

I think it would be worthwhile to learn HTML. Even with a WYSIWYG, you may still need to do some coding.

[PCgamerX]

im probably of much help, but freewebs.com gives free sites, and they are WYSIWYG. on the downside, everybody i kno (including me) hates freewebs with a passion.

[GuitarHero]

I would avoid learning a WYSIWYG, you don't really learn anything that can be used to make you money down the road. If you learn HTML now, and eventually some css or javascript along with a little photoshop knowledge, you can make a lot of money on the side making websites for people. I learned from http://www.w3schools.com/ its a great site for many online programming languages.

[mysticm]

Originally Posted by AMD Hey all, I wonna make my own introduction website for my new gaming forum so that people can visit my site and also be re-directed streight into my gaming forum. But do i need to know something called HTML coding to create my own website? or is there a website which offers templates and i can just edit the templates and change it to how i want? Thanks for all replies.

In my opinion the easiest way is use Microsoft Frontpage 2003 to build a webpage and use phpBB for a forum, however you need a hosting package which will cost you. I pay a lot for mine about $50-$60 a month, however you can get packages for $5 or so it's up to you. On my website I have tons of music so I need a lot of space (which is why it costs a lot for me). Depends on what you need. Even if you use frontpage to build a site, you would still need to know basic HTML which in my opinion is not really that difficult to learn. I learned myself in a few weeks the basics. I hope that helps kiddo!

[blue60007]

Personally I wouldn't use a WYSIWYG editor. IMO, coding by hand allows you to be much more flexible with what you do. I can recongnize a Frontpage from a mile away...unless it's done right. The thing with FP is you don't really learn how to make a webpage. If you use a FP template, it's obvious that you used FP because your site looks a lot like other sites that used the same template. If you use a WYSIWYG editor, *don't* use the templates that come with it or your site will look like a hundred other sites and that isn't very original or professional. I remember taking a FP class - original sites always look better than ones made with templates....sure it's easier, but learning HTML is a fun and rewarding experience.

[Stryker]

Whole heartedly agreed blue!

Many people get so caught up using a WYSIWYG editor that they never really learn anything about coding a webpage. You will never understand how they actually work and if you ever run into a problem the editor can't handle, you won't be able to correct it in the code itself. Keep in mind that if you are starting/operating a forum and website you will have some maintenance to keep up with, and possibly some issues to resolve. Once you know HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) you will have complete flexibility. You will also have clean and maintainable code that you are familiar with, allowing you to change and fix quickly and easily.

As suggested by GuitarHero, w3schools is an excellent resource for learning HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc... Of course, if you are absolutely dead set against learning the language, WYSIWIG editors will get the job done. But where's the love?!?!

Stryker