I had a wee e-mail in from a nice Chap called Babar this morning. He was concerned about his lack of web design skills. Given my recent post about how smashing Wordpress is for the non technical, I thought it was an appropriate “Ask Kirsty”.
Here’s his question….
hi,i would like to create a website.Something from which i can hopefully earn
money from in the future.The trouble is i lack the skills.
In the uk, learndirect offer a 5hr online webdesign course for £40.Would you
be able to recommend learn direct ,or any other courses.
P.S-i like your style of writing.It is warm and welcoming;gives the impression
thst your a very happy and content person.I hope this is the case ,and i wish
you a happylife.
now your obliged to respond.
Ha ha Babar,
You know how to ingratiate yourself don’t you?
I don’t think you need to be a web design expert to try out being an
affiliate (It helps though).
Check out my most recent post about using wordpress. It helps if you are
able to understand what’s going on in a web page to make use of some of
the plugins… but it’s not 100% necessary.
I think you could find a basic html course online for free. That’s how I
started out. http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/chapX1.shtml
This one looks quite good at first glance. If I were you, I’d look
through that and then get into things with a Wordpress blog. They are so
easy to use, and have a content management system which includes a WYSIWYG
editor allowing you to put together a page at the push (or two) of a button!
Good luck Babar,
Kirsty
November 29th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
There are so many free resources available on the internet to learn website design or simply utilise the freeware packages such as Joomla, Wordpress etc. I always recommend two packages to learn for affiliates which can help them to setup static websites such as Dreamweaver for HTML, Photoshop for image manipulation. I can tell this is lot more easier than understanding KPI’s, Commissions, product feeds, brand bidding, deep linking and all the affiliate jargon..
Thanks..
November 29th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I wonder if its a good thing to design your own website if you’re unexperienced. I mean, if your goal is to make money with it, I think you should focus on your most lucrative activity: marketing.
Now if it takes you let’s say 30 hours to build your website. Wouldn’t that 30 hours be more profitable doing keyword research and testing your landing pages for example?
That being said, I do develop my own websites because I can do it in no time. But for stuff that requires too much of my time (like data entry), I rather outsource it. I use getafreelancer.com and elance.com.
Just my two cents
November 30th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I think you’re totally right Stephanie, you should outsource areas that are not your core expertise. However, a lot of beginners don’t really have the budget to do this, so I reckon it’s better to have a less than perfect site you’ve made yourself than none at all!
December 6th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Nice, wordpress is defenetaly the right option for this fine fellow.