Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have money making website ideas, but I am still somewhat a newbie web designer. My only experience designing websites are: 1) WordPress for a bike blog I took down (spam problem) 2) my resume website in Dreamweaver CS6.
The money making websites will use ads [don't know how to do this], donate buttons [do know],
subscriptions to access web pages that do things [like show a training video, etc], forums
[don't know], and probably sell stuff [like my own ebooks]. One website concept - users
upload something, then later when another user accesses the input data it is in a specific
formatted output generated from a database driven website [what to use to do this?].
rideabikeforlife.com - bike website to complement my bicycling ebook.
----------db.com -- top secret concept
beautifulskirtsuits.com -- website showcasing the beaty of skirtsuits.
indie-gamer.net == needs a forum, will distribute and sell game assets.
-----resume.com = my resume
videos-showcase.com = pay subscription site for videos, some are free
I think to achieve my website goals I need to make database driven websites. But I have only taken a CC course in databases but did no sql. So I am thinking about getting this whole complete Dreamweaver Extension KIT: Webassist Super Suite for $799 It seems like it has the solution to all of my problems --
Do you advise on this DW Extension? It seems like the best thing for me to do...
I think you're better off spending $0 and learning something like Django, which is very easy to get started with and has high quality tutorials and documentation. It can handle the DB setup for you. You can look at the SQL its generating to get an idea of how to do it yourself, too.
You can pick up something like Bootstrap to help you design modern, responsive web sites that don't look like crap. There are tons of examples on their web site and the documentation is very good.
Agree with JasonF. Sounds like what you want can be learned for free. The problem is narrowing it down to what you need to learn. That Dreamweaver extension is expensive. It may solve your specific problem, but if you want to make even more dynamic websites, I am sure it will be very constraining compared to the things Jason has listed.
I would say pick up a cheap book like "Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL." This alone won't solve your problem, but it will certainly open your eyes to what is involved and prepare you for learning all you need to know.
Actually, I was thinking about developing prototype websites that would use this software to complete them. I would also self train on PHP and MySQL and some Relational Database knowledge so I would have a good background knowledge to evaluate these DW extensions to see if they are worth it [15 day refund guarantee].
And if I was going to learn a CMS for a website that sells stuff maybe I'd learn Magento. But then there are web developers from India on Elance that will do this for $6/hr.
There are experience web developers using these DW extension because they are a big time saver in developing a prototype website.
I am learning on Lynda Dreamweaver + PHP & MySQL videos.
I have very big reservations about hiring a developer from India. I feel they could cheat me by stealing or duplicating my money making website idea. And I heard a lot of bad things about Indian outsourcing, so I kinda hate hiring them. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of money or a job to pay someone to do web development for me, so I have to go cheap or do the web design myself. But learning web development would be a good job skill to enhance my resume.
Think of your website as a brand. Nobody wants a brand with a bad reputation.. you're basically investing in your business, and if you want it to be successful, don't try to waste it in a bad way and then reinvest again to make up for your bad decisions.
Most of these people do not know the "correct" way anyway, they take pieces of code from the internet, try to put it together, and have a huge amount of semantic errors that you just cannot fix without spending even more money. Thus, they will probably make you pay for the updates, which leads us to the next point.. that's how web masters / web developers usually survive when they are working on a project. Money has to keep flowing.
Actually, I'm a US Citizen temporarily living in the Philippines. I should hire a Filipino local. Minimum wages here are about $10 / day. A hotshot web developer might make only 40,000 to 60,000 pesos per month. Forget the Indians, but some of their profiles on Elance look so good.
But still, I would rather learn web development myself.
Do you want to build web sites (code), or do you want to build the content (the thing that actually makes you money).
IMO ... unless the site itself is a very unique concept that doesn't already exist, there's really no value to coding it by hand. Use one of the dozens of prebuilt (and free) systems that already exist to handle pretty much anything you need to do. At most, customize one of the existing systems to handle your unique situation.
To me this is like saying; "I want to open a cafe, but I need to build the building by hand first", and having no experience with construction. Building the structure provides little value (it may save some money, but probably not), where hiring an experienced contractor gets the building open quickly so that you can get to the point of the business (selling food in this example).
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
