What i need to know to get my first site going.

[littlegrasshopper]

Hello everyone, this is my first post and i hope that it finds you all well and having a great day. In recent months i have been doing a lot of reading and thinking of someway i can make some money on the internet. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there is an awful lot of potential with regards to multiple streams of income right here on the net, 7 days a week 24 hours a day world wide. I dream of making a fortune on the internet and i have my ideas all organised. The first thing i need is a website!.
Ok i have no knowledge of how to make a website. i do know however what i want it to look like. Basically i want to make a subscription site, where people can obviously find content that they want and also buy products and download products, some are free some need to be paid for. such things are software and digital books. so i need to be able to find out how to make a checkout or something? i have adobe photoshop...allthough im not very skilled at using it but i just dont know how to do anything html wise or java wise.
can some one please help a young grass hopper..well not that young im 25.

[txbakers]

Welcome to the webmaster world forums!

I'll keep my answer short and sweet.

i just dont know how to do anything html wise

Learn HTML.

So you want to make money on the web, but you nothing about how it works. Learn how it works first. Start building simple websites.

There is no "magic" to making money on the web. If you don't feel comfortable opening a store and selling what you want to sell, then you won't feel comfortable selling stuff on the web. You will become discouraged.

Just because you build a website doesn't mean people will buy your stuff. there are millions of websites, many of which will be selling the same stuff you want to sell.

[littlegrasshopper]

for sure i know that! i dont own a store, im and electrician! im just buying dreamweaver 8 and some books to learn it. so i suppose that this is a good place to start huh?

[txbakers]

very good grasshopper.

When you can snatch the pixel from my hand you will be ready for e-Commerce.

[LifeinAsia]

I'm not trying to rain on your parade, but I get the idea that you think spending a few hours and throwing up a web site will make you an overnight millionaire. Sorry, but it just ain't gonna happen. All of the Amazons and eBays and Googles have years of development and gazillions of dollars invested in them.

That's not to say that it is impossible to still make money on the Internet- it certainly is. But you need to temper your get-rich opinion of the Internet.

The first thing i need is a website!

Wrong! The first thing you need is a business plan. Okay, it doesn't have to be a 100-page formal business plan signed off by an accountant that you can use to shop around for venture capital (although that may come later). But you DO need a roadmap for how you're going to turn your ideas into a viable business.

From your post, I assume you are coming in with no knowledge of the following:
- HTML
- web programming
- databases
- E-commerce/security issues
- Internet marketing
- search engine optimization

Each of this skills individually can take weeks to learn and months/years to master. You should strongly consider outsourcing most of these tasks. Otherwise, it will either take years before you can start or you will jump into the business with something very unprofessional that doesn't work and will keep people away in droves.

OK, that's the Internet side of things. How are your business skils? Namely:
- accounting
- cash flow management
- business development
- market/advetising
- strategic analysis

Now, how about your finances? Are you going to be doing this part-time while you keep your day job or do you have a huge inheritance or a house you can mortgage so you'll have some money to live off for several months before some money starts coming in?

[littlegrasshopper]

ok ok i get your point! but i am well equipped. firstly before i was an electrician, i was a vb vba database developer....for and accounting and consignment tracking software house, i know enough to know that its not easy, but i do have a business plan, and i do have it organised. there is a part in my business plan about the skills that i need to aquire to make it a reality..this is one of them. i have reasearched thoroughly what i want to do...i need to learn how to make websites first of all so that i can succeed.

[LifeinAsia]

Very good, grasshopper- you have passed your first test! :)

Often, when people hit that first reality check, they either
A) become very defensive with the "My situation is different, *I* don't need to bother with that stuff" excuses and avoid the reality,
or
B) give up because reality suddenly seems to difficult for them.

As txbakers pointerd out, your next step should be to learn HTML. Understand the basics of what each tag does and how it's used. Make plenty of practice pages and experiment to see what small changes look like. Remember to look at your pages with different browsers and different resolutions.

Do reasearch on the web and check out the source code for various sites that look interesting to you. See how they coded their pages. They may not necessarily be coded "right" but looking at different styles can help you develop your own style.

[littlegrasshopper]

thanks guys! Well i managed to get dreamweaver and a small video tutorial to go with it just to teach the basic etc, im finding it real interesting. i know a few sites that i really liked the look of so im going to investigate them. hey im really enjoying this~!

[LifeinAsia]

One other thing, don't rely too much on Dreamweaver. It will help you build nice looking pages, but it won't help you learn HTML very well.

If you really want to learn the Zen method of HTML, use Notepad as your editor at first.