Web Design

Macrae88

Hi,

I cam program a little HTML and CSS. But not enough yet to develop a full all singing all dancing webpage. I eventually want to go self employed, and I'm going to start doing web design part time around my full time job.

My question is, if I used say pagebreeze to create a website, would I then legally be aloud to sell it? As pagebreeze is free I don't know if there are any restrictions?

Alternatively if I used say, Dreamweaver, would I be aloud to sell websites created on that? I'd rather use pagebreeze though for cost reasons.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

[Deleted User]

Yes, you can sell the websites. These are 'tools' that produce code for you.

You may be invalidating your license for the free edition of PageBreeze though. Oh no, the license police are going to get you!

gb12345

Not wishing to put a dampner on your plans but you're unlikely to get much serious business with basic HTML/CSS skills and a WYSIWYG editor.

Clients are going to want to know why you aren't capable of integrating their website with their database (or even building the database to go with the site yourself) or even write a bit of JS to validate their form before submitting it.

So unless you can get some skills in PHP (or ASP.NET), SQL and JavaScript as a minimum, you'll be limiting yourself to designing small static sites

Macrae88

gb12345 wrote: »

So unless you can get some skills in PHP (or ASP.NET), SQL and JavaScript as a minimum, you'll be limiting yourself to designing small static sites

Small static sites are what I'm aiming at for the moment. I do plan to learn MySQL, and perhaps PHP too, I'd actually eventually like to specialise in back end programming.

But my thoughts are that it would be more fun, and probably would help me learn, to be putting my basic skills into practice for real clients, rather than following exercises from a book / website etc.

[Deleted User]

Once you learn the web design skills, you'll suddenly discover you need to learn business and project management skills to go along with not getting screwed over.

It took having my entire design stolen from me to realise I needed to a) charge more b) protect my work

Then it took a picky customer for me to learn to a) charge more b) create a scope and requirement document prior to setting out work. This would also cover future additional costs, including rates for changes during the development period.

I quit making sites once I realised it was super time consuming, and I wasn't willing to do it as a hobby

brendon

If you enjoy doing it, keep going with it and you'll become proficient. But before you make it your full-time job, you'll need serious experience -- it'll take a few years at very least, I would think. Make sure you don't get too comfortable with using WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver. Make sure you are actually writing the HTML/CSS yourself. The best thing to do is to dream up a "big project" -- i.e. an entire website which does something functional -- and then just keep working away at it. You definitely have to throw yourself in at the deep end.

I sell the occasional website on the Flippa marketplace. It might be worth having a look -- some of the websites go for surprisingly large sums.

[Deleted User]

As someone that has been developing websites for many many years, it's exceptionally unlikely that anyone with no real experience is ever going to be able to work with clients to produce the quality of work that is worth paying for. Anyone with basic computer competency can operate Dreamweaver, which means you're competing with every persons computer capable nephew... and oh boy are there a lot of those out there.

Brendon is half right in that experience is essential, but I don't think a big project is the right place to start. Pick a very small idea, eg: a website about your pets, build it, learn from it, then pick another idea that is a bit more advanced that uses components from the first site and develop that... so on and so forth. You need to be constantly starting over so you have a chance to improve, if you're just focusing on one project when you're learning it's going to be a mess of spaghetti code and you'll be bogged down by bad decisions made when you didn't know half of what you now know.

Start with a website that lists your pets, then a site that lists all of the vets in your town that is database driven, then a site that lists different holiday destinations that is database driven and allows anyone to submit a new destination, then a site that people can list holidays and invite people using Facebook... so on and so forth.

The first thing to know is that web design and web development are completely different skills, although both require the ability to work with HTML, design requires a different skill set and design is very difficult to do well. A mediocre web developer won't have problems finding work (because you can hide poor quality code easily) whereas a mediocre designer will be unable to hide how mediocre they are.

Doing web work (design, development, management) is not something that just anyone can do, it's an acquired skill that takes many many years to develop and although it's very easy to set up a small website for yourself (using wordpress, freewebs, weebly etc.) the difference between doing it for yourself and others is huge.

Think of it like carpentry: sure you can assemble an ikea bookshelf for yourself but does that give you the skills to create bespoke shelving units as a profession?

Website development is a fantastic field to be involved in and I highly encourage anyone interested to give it a go but it is not a career that you can just walk into, it requires a lot of commitment and the people that think "I can use Dreamweaver so I'm now a web developer!" not only end up disappointing clients, they make the profession look like it's full of clowns. If you can't walk yourself through the process of building a specific site in your head (eg: what technologies will be used, considerations you'll need to make, what you need to know from the client) then you're not ready.

Now for some actionable advice:

The good news is the state of the web today is amazing compared to how it was 7 years ago when I first started learning, there are a huge number of online resources that will help you get up and running in relatively short period of time -- months not years.

Treehouse costs $25 per month and they have hundreds of hours of video and written courses that will introduce you to tools, guide you through the process of building websites and help you go from clueless to capable.

Codecademy has a lot of free courses that will introduce you to the general ideas beyond the things you need to know (html, php or ruby or python).

The thing to remember is that like any skill, you have to either be talented or committed. You cannot just spend a few hours a week in between watching TV and eating dinner and become someone that can provide clients the quality of work they deserve. I've been doing it for 7 years now and I learn more and more every day, you absolutely do need to put your 10,000 hours in to become an expert.

This is a booming field and there's very good money to make if you're skilled, it's probably one of the most future proof skills available, but it's also one that requires a lot of personal investment. Sure you might be able to clear minimum wage with a copy of Dreamweaver, but it would be depressing work.

marvin

I have been designing basic "static" sites for myself, friends and Family for years (1997 I think I started) and I do this only as a hobby. (I find it therapeutic, de stressing)

I would personally not want to try and sell the services as other have pointed out it is more than just a bit more than a little HTML.

If you really want to develop look to doing a few for free, for yourself for others but just the basics.

I have recently done one for my cousin who has opened his new Beauty Salon in Hove and I have done a very basic static site to get something running on the domain name for him. He can get something more, if he ever needs something more complicated, later or I will continue to run what is basically a leaflet site for him. (I won't post a link as it may be seen as spamming)

Looking to sell without the full skills is hard as others have pointed out, it is also a very hard arena to earn a living in.

As a very picky point (not a criticism just using it to illustrate the point). if selling websites I would make sure your English and spelling is top notch or no one will take you or any site you do seriously and they will point out any frailty. I say this because you have used the word aloud (as in to make noise to speak aloud etc.) as opposed to allowed (as in permitted to) Spell checkers do not catch this type of thing as the word is spelt correctly, it is just the wrong one.

What ever you do make sure you have fun doing it and you do it for the right reasons.

makeyourdaddyproud

In addition to earlier posters' rain on your parade, I would also add that a static site is also borderline useless without a decent shopping cart embraced by https and a half decent SEO campaign to promote it.

You have already gone wrong by mentioning dream weaver etc as you need to conscious of keyword choices, tag placement and density. IMO, web editors are not very clever in this regard.

Nowadays, choosing a .com domain from a generic sounding business is almost impossible, unless you choose a long tail domain.

If your thinking of just a static site then just don't bother. I will bet every 5 minutes you client will want new content added. Most modern websites have their content driven from XML compliant databases such as SQL server 2005+ or MySQL.

In fact, most decent webs have nearly ALL content generated from databases to be effective.

If your thinking about using tables or frames in your pages, your ranking in google could be affected.

If you want a tip, write some WP8 apps, Microsoft are paying developers to do this and C# is relatively easy (I come from a C++ background)

louise12113

You can also use sites like People Per Hour www.peopleperhour.com/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=outreach&utm_campaign=candidate2 where you can build up your portfolio and hopefully enhance your skills

PasturesNew

With the stage you're at, I'd recommend investigating Wordpress... you could quickly produce Wordpress sites for people and use your html/css skills to get the fonts etc right. Learn how the themes work and build themes for your clients.

Then, learn the php etc - and either write, or amend, plugins for the functionality.

Wordpress gives you a framework around which to work, where you can pick up "bits and bobs" of work along the way and without ending up in too much trouble for not knowing enough as there are plugins for most functionality that you can just use.

This route is often overlooked.