Question:
Building Websites Parttime - What I need to know?
anonymous
2009-09-10 08:42:30 UTC
I want to start building, and possibly hosting and maintaining, websites for a part time gig. Right now I plan on focusing on creating small sites for small businesses in my geographical area that are not on the web right now.

I have gone through HTML and CSS and have a good handle on it, But what Else do I need to know before I start to build a portfolio of Faux sites to show my abilities? I have some Flash experience and will gain more as I go.

What about Drupal, or dreamweaver? What do I need to know to create a site my customers can update themselves?
Six answers:
anonymous
2009-09-10 10:01:28 UTC
I think you're on the right track thinking about content management systems. The type of client your talking about might settle for a static web page, but you'll have hundreds of competitors who can do that. You can offer a real service if you can provide a content management system that the user can modify.



The particular CMS you choose is up to you. Drupal is becoming an industry standard, but it isn't easy to learn. It does take quite a bit of getting used to.



I tend to use websitebaker for small businesses. It's open source (like drupal) but it's quite a bit simpler for me to customize. It's also easier for the user to add custom content. (My clients include farmers and balloon artists... They're smart enough people, but they don't believe themselves to be technical. I tell them if they can send an email, they can update their page with my system.)



If this is what you choose to do, you will spend most of your time creating custom themes. This means you need to be quite sharp at CSS, and a little bit of PHP and MySQL knowledge wouldn't hurt. You'll also spend a lot of time customizing graphics - incorporating their logo into banners and so on...



Flash experience is fine, but use it sparingly. Use Flash only where it helps, and resist the temptation to make entire pages based on Flash. It just adds more problems than it solves. (I like Flash: I wrote a book on it. I just don't think Flash-based web sites are a great idea.)



Dreamweaver is perfectly fine, but for CMS work, it really isn't any more useful than an ordinary text editor (and it's a lot more expensive.) When you're building a CMS, the visual design work is done by the template. You'll need to do the fine-tuning by hand. Most of the time, you'll be running Dreamweaver in code view, which means you could probably get by with a programmer's editor instead. I use Aptana for the heavy lifting or notepad++ for quicker edits (when I don't need the overhead of Aptana but still want something better than Notepad. Both tools are entirely free. I use Gimp for my graphics editing, which is also free, and very capable.



My overall advice is to pick one CMS (again websitebaker is ideal for beginners) and create your own web site with it. Build three or more pro-bono sites with the same CMS so you can learn its idiosyncrasies. At that point you'll have an impressive portfolio you can use to build your business.



Good luck to you, and stop by my site if you have questions or want more help!
?
2009-09-10 09:06:30 UTC
Based on my 13 years of building websites - and based on your focus of small sites - the simpler the website - the better - especially if you are planning on having your clients update them. When we have clients that want to update and make changes we use the following HTML code to insert instructions where changes are to be made:







For grabbing quick images and graphics PicPick is a great free program - you can find it at http://picpick.wiziple.net/
?
2016-05-19 04:00:33 UTC
Home based, 'part time' or 'full time' on line/offline job are becoming popular. They are not so rewarding. You save on commuting, you earn also less comparatively. You continue to stay with in four walls of your dwelling, most of the time. Accordingly, your ex poser to the out side world and possibility of learning from colleagues, also get reduced comparatively.
mike H
2009-09-10 08:46:47 UTC
you can use whatever package your familiar with Dreamweaver is a good choice, so is a package such as photoshop.



having a good understanding of databases if you intend to create dynamic sites is a must MySql
Tom Caflisch
2009-09-10 08:48:03 UTC
Google content management systems. That is where users can update content themselves. I reccommend CushyCMS.



Your going to need to keep up on current standards and also be able to create graphics pretty decently.



I recommend sites like

http://www.smashingmagazine.com

http://nettuts.com

to keep you up to date on new technologies and keep you learning new things.
Ehsan T
2009-09-10 09:02:54 UTC
if you want you customers to be able to update their sites by themselves, then you need to develop a database driven website.

there are many many CMSs out there which are free and you can use them for your customers like JOOMLA, MAMBO, PHPNUKE and many more.

But if you want to do it yourself, you need to know how to program in a programming language like PHP or .NET and also you have to know how to work with a database engine like MySQL or MSSQL or MS Access.

then you can build and interactive website.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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