Creating an all singing all dancing website from scratch all by yourself is a big task, especially with all the different skills required (e.g. CSS/ HTML, PhotoShop, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript etc). Even though I work in the web hosting industry I have practically no knowledge of server side scripting (PHP, Perl, Ruby etc), no understanding of JavaScript, very little experience of using MySQL, limited HTML/ CSS and no eye for design coupled with being baffled by Photoshop.
Despite this I can happily build a website that looks pretty good and has working (and secure) scripts. Below is a list of resources for you to take advantage of if you need an element for your website but creating it yourself is beyond your skill set.
Edit content with minimal knowledge of HTML
If you are a CG Computers Silver or Gold web hosting customer you can install Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress (yes its officially for blogs but it is being used more and more as a CMS), Joomla, Drupal or Mambo with just one click. Once these are set up you need never edit an HTML file again (although you can if you still want to!).To get started log in to your eXtend web hosting control panel.
Have an attractive looking website without HTML/ CSS or Illustrator
I can hold a paint brush but that doesn’t mean I can paint and just because you know how to use the software that doesn’t mean you can design a beautiful website. To get yourself started or even to use it as it is “out of the box” here are some great websites to download readymade designs. Some are free, others require payment.
- http://www.onedollartemplates.com/
- http://www.freecsstemplates.org/
- http://www.free-css.com/
- http://www.woothemes.com (WordPress themes)
- http://www.styleshout.com/
- http://www.rockettheme.com/ (Joomla templates plus WordPress themes)
- http://joomla2u.net/ (Joomla templates)
- http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ (free WordPress themes)
Edit images without Photoshop
Admittedly you’ll never be able to hit the dizzy heights of those that can use the likes of Photoshop but you don’t need to for most sites. Being able to rotate, re-size and crop an image is enough for the majority of editing requirements and you can do it all online with these programs:
Deploying scripts without understanding the code
It may sound odd that anyone could so this, but as the majority of free scripts come with nice clear step by step installation instructions, with only a little bit of knowledge you can add advanced scripts to your site quickly and relatively easily. For example, if faced with a blank text editor I wouldn’t be able to write a secure “contact us” form, but I can certainly copy & paste one in to my site or click ‘install’ on a WordPress plug-in!
- http://www.hotscripts.com/
- http://www.phpjunkyard.com/
- http://www.codango.com
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ (WordPress plug-ins)
- http://extensions.joomla.org/ (Joomla extensions)
Still not enough?
And if you don’t want to have to do any of the work, you can always buy a readymade website: http://flippa.com
