The Newbies Guide To Web Design Ebook

Dear Friend,

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

To the detailed:
 

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

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

• BLOG
  • 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)
  • The weblog has become this century's version of the "cheap" printing presses that allowed anyone to start a newspaper in the Old West
• RSS - Really Simple Syndication on a two-way street
  
  • You can pull RSS content from anywhere on the Web to your site, automatically
  • You can send your content to others (without the problems of e-mail)
• Forums
  • Easy to maintain
  • Easy to create
  • Extremely popular
• Games, Surveys, Freebies and other ways to attract traffic and keep them coming back
  • The Web offers more things to give away than you could ever possibly give away
  • No programming skills needed - get everything you need free or at very low cost
• Multimedia
  • Video isn't just for exhibitionists - so why let them make all the money?
  • Audio means music and much more
  • 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
  • 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
  • eCommerce is not just for Microsoft or Sears
  • Creating logos, ads, headlines, sales copy - all things marketing, from a web design point of view
• Affiliate programs
  • Making money as someone else's affiliate
  • Starting your own
• Advertising: The Good, the Bad & the Very Ugly
  • Ads on your site
  • Ads about your site
  • What works, what doesn't
  • Be not a spammer
• Promoting your site
  • When and where to link - more importantly, when and where not to link
  • How this differs from advertising
  • 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