building websites

steve1980

I learnt loads of information from https://www.w3schools.com and trial and error.

I've been building websites for years but to do it full time as a career is harder than a loaf of stale bread!

Maverick1984_2

The best way to host your own websites is to simply use a content management solution called Wordpress.
Its a very powerful platform which has a very customizable front end and a really flexible back end.
First buy a domain name using a domain registrar like namecheap
Then sign up for a hosting provider like justhost
Then once you're given your account details with your hosting provider, You'll then be given access to a backend called CPanel which most hosting providers use and allows you to do things like email forwarding, sub domain setups and other stuff.
Look for an option called Fantastico Deluxe. If you click on that, it will take you to an option to install Wordpress. Simply install it and you will then have your own blogging platform on your own domain. You can then simply go in, change the design and start posting and creating content.

Designing sites from scratch via HTML is very rarely needed nowadays and requires no coding experience to get started.

The reason why Wordpress is so awesome is because it works very well with Google due to it's coding structure. The google crawlers can crawl the sites quicker and results in faster and higher rankings in the search engines, which is what you need in order to gain exposure of your site and to ultimately make money.

Doing this with HTML will take a lot of time, skill and experience. I would use Wordpress personally. It's what most small business use when starting a new website.

steve1980

If you want a professional website DO NOT USE GoogleSites (GBBO) as a host and domain registrar. Always keep domain names and hosting separate.

Kevie192

Anyone can create a basic site but to create one that someone will pay for is significantly harder. You may need to be prepared to do free or significantly reduce price sites for a while to build up a portfolio... After all, you won't get many customers paying for sites unless they've seen what you can do.

anfieldred

There's alot of competition on freelance sites though; you might find yourself undercutting people just to get a job then realise you've spent more than your time is worth doing it.

What about setting up an ecommerce site through amazon associates, or an affiliate site etc instead using wordpress?

Ewaf

Far too many people these days knock together a personal website and think "Hey,, I could do this for a living!".

You need to ask yourself, are you as good as or better than the competition out there:

http://www.fullyillustrated.com/portfolio/design/

http://www.engageinteractive.co.uk/

Theres are some really good designers and the web design industry is EXTREMELY competitive. If you can't design websites to that standard don't bother trying.