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johnnybrown09
Posts: 1
Joined: 3/24/2009
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Web Design Without Programming - 3/24/2009 8:41:54
Hi,
I run a retailed garment shop and can afford little money for advertisement. I’ve been told that hiring a web designer is a costly affair. Can any one tell me some simple steps to build my website from development to publishing on the web without programming?
[removed]
Let's not be slipping links in my friend... it inhibits my trust. 
< Message edited by Mike54 -- 3/24/2009 8:54:30 >
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Giomanach
Posts: 6187
Joined: 11/19/2003
From: England
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RE: Web Design Without Programming - 3/24/2009 9:49:50
To build a site for that purpose you would need to use some form of programming - whether it be ASP or PHP. You also have to think of the incurred hosting costs.
There are some programs out there that will cater for what you want, but you still require some knowledge of HTML/CSS and ASP or PHP to edit them to suit your company's web.
Now, where to start properly.
Let's start on what a company needs on their web.
Design
You need to be able to choose a design for your web, one that suits the image you want to give of the company, rather than an image of your product. A web site is your companys presence on the web, not your products. With the site, you are selling your companys image, it's a first impression - and you need to set it in stone about what your company is. I won't lie to you on this, getting the design right for a first timer - sometimes even for the more experienced designers, is the hardest part of building the web. When you've made a design, walk away from it for 30 minutes, come back to it, put yourself in your audiences (read: customers) shoes, and ask yourself: Would I buy from a company with that website? Get the design right, and there's only one more hurdle to cover on impressions.
Content
Now, I understand your site would be mainly images of your products, however, you will need some content about your company, an introductory paragraph on the home page to lure new customers in and to welcome back your current customers. You would also need aluring descriptions of your products. Give details, give as many details as possible, but be careful not to overdo it or give out personal information freely.
Accessibility
As you will be a commercial web site, you need to take accessability very seriously. This allows all customers from every walk of life, the sight impaired, those with read difficulties to view the site, to browse it and purchase your products. Speak to the guys in the CSS and Accessibility forums - or borwse it yourself, you will find everything you need there.
Building, Coding and Refining
Probably the biggest challenge for anyone new to the web design and development world. With your design, the sky is the limit, but you have to be very ostentatious about it. You want to attract customers, this means have a simple layout on the surface, something that make people want to dig deeper into the web. When building a web from a design you've made, it can go very wrong.
Here's a link to show you how not to design a web: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/worst-web-sites-of-2008.html
On the coding factor, you can go several ways - there a literally hundreds of packages out there that will do the job, but only a few will ever come recommended:-
- Dreamweaver - Popular choice, but very very expesnive
- Expression Web/FrontPage - Same Program, different name. Favoured by a lot of the Outfront residents
- Notepad - My personal favourite, handles any form of web language, but it does need good knowledge of the web coding languages (HTML/XHTML/CSS/AP/PHP/JavaScript) etc.
Refining your site is just getting any little snags out the way, like borders not aligning, text over flowing where it shouldn't be and getting your content down to the perfect letter.
Hosting and Publishing
Hosting is the harder part - there's millions of them, myself included. Deciding on what's best for your site is most certainly the biggest choice. Never trust anyone who offers "unlimited" items unless it's domains - even then, those will only come on Reseller packages.
Unfortunatley, I can't offer any recommendations on a good host - I've always used my own, and I would undermine my own income ;) The others here can offer you recommendations, quite often give the right results ;)
Hiring a Designer
As you stated, this can be a costly affair - however, if you're lucky, you may come across a designer/developer willing to do it for a cheaper cost. These designers are very rare unfortunatley. I don't know if anyone on Outfront would offer this service - I have contemplated it a few times. You would need to be able to tell them exactly what you want, new comers to this area of the commercial world will be very insistant - as I'm sure you are, but you would also need to listen to the designers advice. A professional web built by someone bred into the business is the best you will get, and more often than not, they will build it as you desire, but they will still offer advice on anything that they would deem unsafe for the web (just ask Jaybee)
Search Engine Optimisation
As a selling point, you want your site to be found on all the Search Engines. Usually not a problem for most webs, as they have backlinks everywhere. You would also need to have very tidy coding. The search engine bots rummage through your page reading the coding for content to put in the search results. Speak to the guys in the SEO forum - they can give all the information you need.
There's your stepping stone.
As a wise man once said - I can only show you the door, you have to walk through it.
Gio
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jaybee
Posts: 14320
Joined: 10/7/2003
From: Berkshire, UK
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RE: Web Design Without Programming - 3/25/2009 6:58:33
quote:
(just ask Jaybee) Moi? 
There was one thing Gio missed in that great advice that you also need to understand, and that's different Browsers. If you look through here you'll see loads of posts saying "my site looks great in Internet Explorer but I've just seen it in Firefox and it looks a mess".
In that case it also looks a mess in Opera, Google Chrome and loads of others. Professional developers will make sure the site looks good in all of those. If it doesn't then they're not Professional developers.
Pros charge because they've invested a heck of a lot of time in learning how to do things right. Yes you can get a web editor and press some buttons and come up with something that looks good to you and you're going to be really proud of what you have achieved, rightly so, but that doesn't mean that what you've done looks good to other people, is easy to use and portrays your business in a professional manner.
An example in point.
A couple of years ago a member posted her web store in critiques. She'd spent a lot of time putting it together and was proud of what she'd done. Within her limits she had done a great job but the site got ripped to shreds when she asked for a review of it.
I spent quite a bit of time explaining all the issues and pointing her to various learning resources as did others.
A couple of days ago I got an email from her thanking me for all the advice with a link to her revamped site which is still a work in progress. She's taken on board all the things that were said and has spent many many hours learning what she needed and the site is a huge improvement. It's still not perfect but she's working on it.
Conversely, I have a guy who insists on doing his own site. I've given him advice, I've done template layouts, tried everything to give his site, which sells high end cars, a professional feel. I looked at it yesterday and it still has animated gifs of naked gyrating women all over the home page. And he wonders why he spends more time playing with his web site than he does selling cars. 
_____________________________
If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is.
GAWDS
Now where did I put that Doctype?
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d a v e
Posts: 4348
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: England (but live in Finland now)
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RE: Web Design Without Programming - 3/25/2009 9:51:42
jb "Conversely, I have a guy who insists on doing his own site. I've given him advice, I've done template layouts, tried everything to give his site, which sells high end cars, a professional feel. I looked at it yesterday and it still has animated gifs of naked gyrating women all over the home page. And he wonders why he spends more time playing with his web site than he does selling cars. :) "
and the link is? (nah only kidding)
_____________________________
David Prescott
Gekko web design
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turboguy
Posts: 178
From: Beaver Falls PA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Web Design Without Programming - 3/25/2009 17:33:03
Johnny, a little more info might help us answer your questions a little better.
You have been told a website designer is expensive. What is your idea of expensive and how much would you be willing to spend to get your business online by a professional. It may not be as expensive as you think.
Are you looking for an online store with all your items or are you looking for something to promote your business.
How much time and money are you willing to put into it.
If you really want to do it by yourself and want to do it cheap. There are some free website templates you could download and change to fit your business. Cost $ 0.00
You could modify the code in notepad if you learned basic HTML and CSS without too much difficulty if you found a template close to what you want. There are lots of online tutorials on learning HTML and CSS. Cost $ 0.00
You need to have the site hosted. You should be able to find a decent host for $ 7-10.00 per month. There is free hosting available and you could search for that but I would not recommend it.
You need a domain name if you don't have one already. I would recommend GoDaddy. Cost $ 10.00 a year.
That is the best suggestions I can offer for "really cheap". You could pick up a used copy of Frontpage or Dreamweaver on Ebay fairly reasonably and go that way.
Tell us more and good luck
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turboguy
Posts: 178
From: Beaver Falls PA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Web Design Without Programming - 3/26/2009 6:03:56
His original post was only two days ago so it might be a little early to say he won't come back but I agree there are others and in this case probably quite a few with the same thoughts and questions.
Usually when I want to ask something I do a search first. I think I am in the minority since I often see a very similar question posted very close to another just like it. Still, I think if Johnny doesn't come back others will benefit from it.
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