The Newbies' Guide to Web Design

Jumping blindly onto the World Wide Web, trying to create your first website by trial, error and pure dumb luck, was a necessity - even a badge of honor - through the 1990s. But, to paraphrase a popular teen icon of the era, "That is so 20th Century."

Creating a website today is something anyone can do, even if you've never even used a computer - much less the Internet. And "The Newbies' Guide to Website Design" is a major reason why.

Packed with tons of valuable information, this guide will take you from absolute beginner to a full understanding of the principles, technology and technical terms, ready to start creating your own websites.

Here's a summary of everything you will learn in this information-packed resource...

From the basics:

Why you really do need a website...
- Make money online
- Post your online resume, easily updated, easily available, with interactive links to really show what you've done in past jobs or education
- Keep up with friends and family - announce a new engagement, wedding, baby, achievement, job, move
Simplifying the jargon - then using it
- Know your COM, BIZ, NET, ORG, INFO, WS, etc.
- Know what you don't need to know about HTML, JAVA, PHP, ASP, etc. - and what you do
How do they do that? And should you?
- Spinning, bouncing, fading pop-ups
- Animated GIFs
- Streaming audio/video
The myth of the all-knowing programmer or site designer
- Most use the same tools available to you
- A lot of those tools are free
- Many are no more difficult to use than clicking a mouse button
Advertise your current brick-and-mortar (offline) business
- Provide a map to your store or office
- Offer "specials" you can change daily without spending a dime
- Showcase your service or product
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Start a new business online
Or expand the one you have to as large a customer base as you desire
- A website can focus tightly on a single city, even a neighborhood
- Or it can bring in new customers from all over the planet
Learn the history of the Net, how it came to be, where it's at, where it's going
- Not knowing this is like voting with no knowledge of democracy or the candidates and issues
- Your choice: Teach your children - or hope they will teach you

To the detailed:

How to get your own domain name
- There are a lot more choices than dot-com
- Choose carefully - as you would name a new baby
- One name, multiple domains?
Now, where do you hang your new name?
- All web hosts are not created equal, from costs to services to support
- What to look for beyond the monthly or annual fee
- When - and how - to cut and run if your host doesn't measure up
What software and equipment you need - and what you don't
- Pre-written scripts, many free, are fairly easy to install and can work miracles
- Depending on need and application, add audio and video to a website with equipment you already have - or go pro
- Dreamweaver, FrontPage, MS Word - for starters
- WYSIWYG - Myth or merely fantasy?
How to set up your first site in 5 minutes flat
- Using your host's online site creation system - with pros and cons
- Using prebuilt templates - thousands available free - to give even your first effort a high-class, professional look
- How to FTP
How to create a more complex website in a few hours or days
- Move from free templates to paying a few dollars for a package or a few hundred dollars for a complete prebuilt site
- Where to find - and how to use - templates, scripts, advanced creation software and other tools
When, where and what to look for if you need professional help
- Price does not always mirror quality
- Neither does experience - ask for multiple site examples and get feedback from previous customers
- Where to "shop" your request - and have dozens bidding to do your project
How to put it all together with the least amount of blood, sweat and tears
- There are at least a dozen widely used browsers other than Internet Explorer - and no two will display your site exactly the same way
- Multiply that several times over to accommodate different monitors with different screen sizes and settings (resolution, color, contrast, etc.)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Contrary to popular belief, "search engines" do NOT actually search the Internet
- If you build it, they will NOT come - unless you tell them you exist and where to find you
- And why
- How to avoid innocent mistakes that could get you banned from the search engines, your Web host - even the Internet itself
Content is King
- How to fill those empty spaces
- How to do that with something people actually want to see
- How to keep it fresh - people and search engines both hate sites that are never updated
Troubleshooting
- The pros and cons of Flash, Java, tables, frames, PDFs, site navigation, site search and more
- Validate your design
- Keep your links alive
- Monitor your traffic
A picture paints a thousand words
- Choosing and using the best graphics programs
- Paint Shop Pro
- Photoshop
- Free alternatives

To the newest innovations - and what's coming next:

BLOG
- The weblog has become this century's version of the "cheap" printing presses that allowed anyone to start a newspaper in the Old West
- Part diary, part rant, part creative expression, part controversial commentary, part anything you want it to be - including private (only those you want to read it can)
RSS - Really Simple Syndication on a two-way street
- You can send your content to others (without the problems of e-mail)
- You can pull RSS content from anywhere on the Web to your site, automatically
Forums
- Easy to create
- Easy to maintain
- Extremely popular
Games, Surveys, Freebies and other ways to attract traffic and keep them coming back
- No programming skills needed - get everything you need free or at very low cost
- The Web offers more things to give away than you could ever possibly give away
Multimedia
- Audio means music and much more
- Video isn't just for exhibitionists - so why let them make all the money?
- What software and hardware combinations are available - free, cheap or otherwise - to make your site stand out from the crowd
Money: Making it, not spending it
- eCommerce is not just for Microsoft or Sears
- Taking the fear out of online credit card purchases - including your fear as a merchant
- Exchanging your product for their money - quickly, easily and securely
- Creating logos, ads, headlines, sales copy - all things marketing, from a web design point of view
Affiliate programs
- Starting your own
- Making money as someone else's affiliate
Advertising: The Good, the Bad & the Very Ugly
- What works, what doesn't
- Ads on your site
- Ads about your site
- Be not a spammer
Promoting your site
- How this differs from advertising
- When and where to link - more importantly, when and where not to link
- Taking your show on the road
The Money is in the List
- How to create a mailing list
- How to use a mailing list
- How not to make a complete hash of both

Requirements: This ebook is in the form of a .exe file and can only be read on PCs running Microsoft Windows. The ebook can be printed out from a Windows PC, if required.