What It Takes To Build A Website

Many people think that building a website consists of one skill, when in fact, it consists of many skills. Though there are many website builders out there such as Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and many more that can build you a great looking website in just a few clicks. However, if you like to stand out from the crowd then you need to invest the time it takes to learn some of the skills it takes to build a website.

1.) Take the time to learn a little PHP. If you are using the Wordpress publishing platform then a little PHP knowledge will go along way and save you a lot of time when setting up your website. Wordpress also has some great support forums that will have you coding PHP in no time.

2.) HTML is a must if you want to have any kind of control over your website. Fortunately, HTML is pretty easy to learn. Jut look for a real time HTML editor and get some practice in and you will learn it in no time.

3.) CSS is a great way to add some style to your website incredibly fast and easy. There are many great free tools online to help you learn CSS very fast. My favorite tool for learning CSS is an add-on for the Firefox browser called Firebug. With Firebug you can live edit any web page and watch what happens in real time.

4.) Graphic design is a very good skill to have. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to create your own art work and get something to look how you want it to look. You don't need to spend any money on some great graphic design software either, just download Gimp, it's free and it's a very effective tool. Though Gimp can have a slight learning curve to get the hang of it so I highly recommend watching some video tutorials on how to use it.

5.) Learn your control panel of your hosting provider. Often times people sign up for hosting and they have no idea where to start. It's extremely important that you learn how to use your control panel at your web hosting provider so you are able to complete necessary tasks. Most web hosts have great tutorials on getting started with their control panel so be sure to watch as many of them as you can.

6.) Search engine optimization (SEO) is an often over looked aspect when building a website. I highly recommend going offline to learn this one as there is just too much bad information on the Internet. I highly recommend Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, 3rd Edition, by Peter Kent. It's a great book and will teach you all you need to know about SEO.

The skills listed above are only a fraction of what is used on a complex website. However, taking the time to learn a little bit about each of the six skills I listed above will put you ahead of many of the websites out there today.