Design It Yourself
Okay, so you would rather build your site yourself. Where to begin? Here is a collection of some of our favorite resources.
| Design Basics | Site Design Programs |
| HTML | Graphics |
| Search Engines | Web Hosting |
| Shopping Carts | Learn More |
| First things first--Design Basics. |
| eFUSE True, they want to sell you something. But get past that, because there is a ton of great information here. This is the only link we're listing under this category, since it really doesn't get any better than this. |
| Site Builders |
| For AOL users only, go to keyword AOL Press. You can download a free website design program there. |
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What if you're not an AOLer? You can use Netscape Composer to build your site. You can even build it in MS Word or Wordperfect, if you have to. Or try Arachnophilia. If you're wondering what we use, it's Macromedia Dreamweaver. It's a fantastic (albeit expensive) program, but it's probably a bit much for beginners. |
| HTML Maybe you want to write your site manually. Even if you don't, you really need to learn at least a little html, because you will have to tweak things from time to time. Here are some sites that will help you out. |
| HTML Goodies You can really learn everything you need to know about html right here. This site is easy to understand, too. |
| DevHead is written for techies instead of us regular folks. But if you can speak their language, you'll find more useful stuff here than you'll know what to do with. |
| WebMonkey is another techie site that's full of great information. |
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You don't want your site to be nothing but text, so you'll need some graphics. It's easy to find graphics already done for you--just do a web search for free graphics, or backgrounds, or designer sets. Can't find exactly what you want? Create the graphics yourself! Download a trial copy of Paint Shop Pro from Jasc Software. It does virtually everything the big expensive graphics programs do, but it only costs $99. Here are a couple of good PSP tutorial sites: |
| Web Graphics on a Budget |
| Lori's Web Graphics |
| Paint Shop Pro Users Group |
| You'll probably want some new fonts and dingbats for those page titles. Start with these: |
| Font Mania |
| Font Garden |
| Vladimir's Font Archive |
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We've never used this particular program, but another site highly recommends Corel Xara for graphics. After you get those pages up, you may find that your graphics load too slowly. GIFBot will help you trim them down. |
| Search Engine Registration Yes, there is an art to it. And it's something of a pain, but you have to do it. Here are two sites that give a lot of insight into how to increase your chances of getting a top ranking. P.S. Our hosting plans come with an automatic search engine submission tool! |
| The Art of Business Website Promotion |
| Search Engine Tutorial for Web Designers |
| Website Hosting Of course, you really should host with us. You won't find a better deal for the money. But if your budget is extremely tight, it's easy to find a hosting company for free (if you don't mind the ads). Here are a couple of places you can start looking: |
| The Free Site |
| Web Host List |
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Shopping Carts Shopping carts can be really confusing and really expensive. If you're hosting with us, you don't have to worry about that, because a free cart comes with nearly all of our hosting plans. But if you must do it on your own, here are a few sites that make it easier (and free!) |
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Safe Shopper With this one, you build your catalog pages on their server. Very easy, although the design options are limited. |
| VIP Cart (Formerly FreeCart) Like Safe Shopper, your cart is on their site, and you build it online. |
| Agora CGI Okay, so this one is not so easy. But it's a full-featured shopping cart for free! Definitely worth looking at if you don't mind learning a bit about the Perl programming language. |
| U Shop Lite Rather than running on cgi scripts, this cart is Java-based. That means it's significantly easier and less confusing to set up--but it also means if your customer's browser doesn't support Java, they won't see your cart. Most browsers do support Java nowadays, though. |
| CCNow If you don't have a merchant account, this is an excellent option. It not only handles your shopping cart; it also allows you to accept credit cards. The cart is free, and they get a 9% commission on your sales. Not a bad deal at all! |
| That pretty much covers all the basics, but here's one more: if you feel more comfortable learning from a teacher, check out Smart Planet. For $19.95 per month, you have access to all sorts of courses, including website design, graphics, and e-commerce. |
| Have fun building your site! But be careful....it's addictive! :-) |