When I promote systems like Site Build It! or WordPress themes like Thesis, I’ve noticed it doesn’t sit well with some people.

A lot of the critics I’m referring to are programmers and designers.

Many of them believe that programs like SBI! and Thesis provide help and/or tools that you can get or learn for free (or cheap) by simply Googling the information or buying a couple of “how to” books.  Why buy Thesis when you can learn CSS from scratch?

Now, I have to admit this. Even if you set out to create your own site and use tools like Site Build It! or Thesis, you should still learn the fundamentals of HTML and CSS.

I have a basic understanding of both languages and I’m very glad I do because it has helped me greatly along the way.

However, what some people need to realize is not everyone wants to learn coding from scratch, and fortunately it’s not necessary to have success online.  Coding your site is definitely a part of it, but the other piece is marketing.

There are many 6-figure Bloggers and Webmasters out here who aren’t designers (I’m one of them).  We choose to outsource some or part of our work and use products like Thesis so we can focus on what we enjoy and do best.

I personally love writing and marketing much more than I love sitting and staring at code.  So tools like Thesis allow me to get things done faster so I can focus on what I truly enjoy.

I wouldn’t expect a product like Thesis to provide much value to a programmer or a designer who writes CSS from scratch.  But some people find great value with it.  I recommend it because I know there are people just like me.

Sometimes paying for tools is fine if they provide individual VALUE, and everyone values different things.

Below is my response to criticism often handed out by designers and programmers when they see people using or promoting web tools that make life easier for those of us who don’t care to become certified programmers…

UPDATE: For the record, I don’t let these people get to me.  I made this video to make the point that you don’t have to become a programmer to make a lot of money online.

So in a sense, these critical comments actually gave me inspiration to create this video so I can teach others.  It’s about turning negativity into opportunity and education. 

I have no regrets about my overall journey online because I believe any mistakes I’ve made have taught me great lessons.  However I want to discuss some things I would do differently if I had the opportunity to start over again.

Using Free Web Hosts

I told my “free web hosting story” in a recent YouTube video.  In a nutshell, I used free hosting some 11 years ago and the company decided to start charging. Anyone who did not want to pay their ridiculous monthly fees lost their site.

Fortunately it wasn’t a huge loss for me because I had already moved to paid hosting for my main site and those free sites were just sitting out there collecting Internet dust.   But it taught me a huge lesson about the price of free… especially when it comes to web hosting.

Of course, there are many more reasons not to use a free host, especially if you are starting a business. However, my story is quite common when it comes to free web hosting space.  Many of the companies simply cannot afford to remain free due to their own server costs.

Learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

When I was still at my 9 to 5 job some years ago, a coworker kept telling me about all the wonderful benefits of CSS. I remember it going in one ear and out the other.  After all, I was just getting the hang of HTML and didn’t need anything else confusing me at the moment.

Now that I understand what CSS can do and I see how much time it has saved me, I wish I would have learned it much sooner.  There is nothing more rewarding than being able to change your entire design in minutes by updating one file.

I recently completed a mini facelift of 2 Create a Website and it took me all of 15 minutes to update all 140+ pages.  Heck, it took me longer to decide on the colors I wanted to use than it did to actually update the entire site.

Being familiar with CSS will also help you greatly if you have a blog.  Blog templates are typically designed using CSS so having this knowledge will be a great benefit for you.  This is especially true for Blogger users.  There aren’t as many templates available for Blogger as there are WordPress so I find a lot of Blogger blogs with the same design.

The best way to learn CSS is to visit a site that teaches the basics like W3Schools or HTMLDog.com.  Knowing the fundamentals will help with syntax and will also help you troubleshoot should you run into problems.

You can also learn the lazy way (as some call it) and download a template that already has a stylesheet attached and study the stylesheet to see how the coding actually affects the page.  FreeCSSTemplates.org is one of my favorite free template sites.

This is the way I learned, but I frequently find myself going to sites like W3Schools if I need to troubleshoot something. Let’s face it. If you want to get the most out of CSS, you really should learn the fundamentals.

The Internet Marketing/How to Make Money Niche

I always tell people, “If you are not making money yourself, you should never create a site on how to make money or market online.”  Not to mention the “how-to-make-money” niche is so heavily saturated.

This advice often confuses people because 2 Create a Website focuses on Internet marketing and making money, yet it is successful.  But what a lot of people don’t know is I had a site before that which primarily focused on Internet Marketing and it failed.

The problem was I was not making much money at the time so my site was filled with paraphrased, common facts that you could find anywhere. My content was not fresh. Not to mention, I didn’t do any research and had no idea how competitive the niche was.

When you first start out trying to make money, it’s very tempting to build a site about how to make money and talk about what you’ve learned thus far. However, if you are not making much it’s very hard to build credibility and it’s equally as hard to put out fresh content because you cannot rely on your own experiences.

I believe 2 Create a Website has been able to compete in this saturated niche because I can now use my own success stories and personal experiences to inspire my content and people understand that I am actually walking the walk and not just talking the talk.

I Didn’t Own Most Products I Recommended

I either own or have owned/used most of the products/services I recommend on my sites, but I haven’t always done so.  I remember when Site Build It! first launched 9 years ago, I blasted ads and articles all over my site because I was so excited about the $75 residual affiliate commission.

As my site’s traffic grew,  I continued to get more and more questions about the product and most of them I couldn’t answer because I didn’t own it.  I started to feel a bit uncomfortable because I was raving about the product as if I really owned it.

If you want people to respect you and your recommendations, you really have to be familiar with what you’re promoting.  Not only will you feel more genuine, but you’ll find it will boost your affiliate commissions.  Anyone can say a product is “great”, but a solid review that contains your own personal experience with the product will get you more mileage.

Also, don’t be afraid to talk about the negative points of a product.  It actually adds to your credibility and shows you’re not afraid of giving people all the facts.   Will it turn away a few potential customers?  Maybe, but the credibility you’ll gain will improve your site’s overall earnings in the long-run.  I cannot say enough about the importance of credibility.

Multiple Websites/Blogs

When I first started out, I tried to maintain multiple websites when I hadn’t found success with any of them.  The problem with starting out with too many sites is that your energy is spread too thin and you cannot focus.

If you’re doing something wrong that is preventing you from succeeding with one site, you’re probably making that same mistake on the others. So if you haven’t figured out how to succeed with one site, no point in starting others until you discover how to build traffic and make money.

Yes, I have multiple sites now, but I have discovered what works for me so I use that same formula for my additional sites.  And if the sites are related, I use the existing site to promote the other (i.e. 2PlanAWebSite.com and 2CreateAWebSite.com).

Don’t overwhelm yourself.  Focus on one website or blog at a time if you’re just getting started.

What About You?

What have you learned since you started marketing online? I’d love to know what you would do differently if you had the chance to begin again. C’mon… don’t be shy.

There’s been a lot of talk on my forum about creating a social networking site and what is involved.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a fan of building these kinds of sites from the ground up unless you have already have the traffic and programming expertise to support it.

It’s easy to get caught up in the success of MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, etc. and think this is the way to get rich online.

Unfortunately most people discount the amount of technical expertise involved in building and maintaining a social networking website.

On the other hand, there are some situations when creating a social networking sites is a good idea.

Watch my video below to learn when and how I recommend you create a social networking site (if that’s your goal).

When some Webmasters set out to build their websites, they have a lot of big ideas.

They want forums, profiles, user interactivity and all the Web 2.0 features that make a website look cool and fun to visit.

Nothing wrong with having goals to build the baddest site on the planet, but it’s important to think realistically and put things into perspective.

Unless you are a skilled programmer, have a good understanding of Net marketing and possess a ton of money for promotions, then I would not suggest that a new Webmaster begin by creating an interactive Website that targets a large audience.

You can’t assume that if you build it, they will come. You have to know how to bring people to you.

And unfortunately, the average new Webmaster doesn’t know much about building traffic.

Getting ranked high in Google, having the top article on digg.com and getting thousands of visitors per day doesn’t happen just because you’ve launched a “cool” site.

Internet Marketing is a complex subject, and it’s getting more complex as the Net matures.

Start small. Target a small group of people by providing valuable information they would find interesting. Then as your site gains popularity, look into launching forums and other user interactive tools to support your audience.

Here’s an Example…

Say you love video games. While I know it would be cool to create the Net’s largest video game networking site, you have to take this in small steps.

1) Start by focusing on one video game niche (Role Playing, for example.) Build a simple site that offers reviews and the latest news on games in this niche.

2) Learn the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) and start generating traffic from people searching for these games. Your reviews are important because that content will help the search engines find your site.

3) Once you start building an audience, install a forum or a simple chat room to get your visitors talking.

4) As your audience grows, now it’s time to think about expanding and developing more advanced applications where your visitors can interact on new levels.

Useful content builds traffic, not Web applications (unless you have deep pockets for advertising.) So you might as well start out small, learn the basics of free SEO and then launch your fancy website when you have the traffic to support it.

Nothing worse than learning how to build a complex, MySpace-like site (or paying a programmer big dollars to do it) and your site goes virtually unnoticed.

Since my flat stomach site has been completely “CSS’ed”, I’ve really been pushing the benefits of using CSS on your site.

If you are looking to start your first site or want to redesign your existing one, this blog post is important.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) allows you to control large sections of your site’s design and layout by updating one file.

Not only does it make your HTML code much cleaner, but it makes for faster loading Web pages and quick site-wide updates.

You should never build a site or blog without it.

To help you learn CSS, I’ve taken my template from flat-stomach-exercises.com and provided it as a free download. I’ve inserted notes so you can learn how to make updates.  This is something I wish someone had done for me. I probably would have picked it up faster had it been presented like this.

Now, don’t be frightened when you first see the template because it looks nothing like my finished site. I did that for a reason.  First of all, I want you to create your own design, and I want you to understand how the CSS file controls the various areas of the site.

So what you will find when you download the template is a completely “dumbed down” version with no logos or cohesive colors. I’ve provided instructions in the index.html file so you can customize the template to your liking.

Download my free 3 column CSS template here and don’t forget to read the instructions.html file first! Also do not try to view the template file (index.html) through the zipped folder.

It will not display properly if you try to double-click the index.html file while inside the zipped folder.

Open the zipped folder and drag the “CSSTemplate1″ folder to your Desktop (or some location on your PC) and then view the index.html file.

When you open the folder you should see 3 files…

1) instructions.html file – Please read this first

2) index.html – Your homepage and template you can modify

3) style.css – This is your style sheet and controls the index.html file’s layout and design

To get the most out of this, it’s best to open the template files in a Web editor like FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Nvu (free) or CoffeeCup.

————–

Update 6/12/08: I have also created a slightly different version of this template that includes a header image. You can download it here and watch the instructional video to learn how to customize it.

Enjoy and happy learning!

I’ve created at least 10 different sites over the past 10 years, but none of them have been developed better than my latest Site Build It! site, flat-stomach-exercises.com.

Now, I’m not talking about the the design and look and feel of the site. I’m talking about the way in which it was coded.

The entire design is controlled by CSS (cascading style sheets) and SSI (server side includes).

I know, I know… more intimidating acronyms that could confuse the heck out of you…

I’ll try to keep it simple so bear with me, OK?

CSS & Includes

CSS allows you to control large aspects of your site’s design and layout with one file. So if you want to change the color of your hyperlinks, you’d update your CSS file and your entire site will reflect the change.

Include files generally contain content that is repeated throughout the site (left nav, footer, etc.). So instead of updating every page when you want to change your left nav, you update the file that includes your left nav. And every page on your site references that one file.

With the combination of CSS and includes, I can update any aspect of my entire site (width of site, hyperlink colors, left navigation text, header image, font face and size, border colors, header styles, bullet styles, footer etc. by updating the corresponding files… instead of opening each page individually.

I’ve used CSS before with other sites but only for certain things like hyperlinks, font styles, colors, etc. But I’d never used it for an entire layout. Thanks to Dreamweaver I was able to really unleash the power of CSS completely without becoming inundated with confusing code.

You won’t believe this, but the entire coding layout of my Flat Stomach site is simply this…

<html>
<body>
<div id=”top”> (My header)
<div id=”leftnav”> (My left nav)
<div id=”sidebar”> (My right nav)
<div id=”content”> (My main content)
<div id=”footer”> (My footer)
</body>
</html>

That’s the coding shell for my entire site. Then I use a style sheet (CSS) to define how the layout should look in each of those 4 ID sections (The “content” section is obviously different on every page so you wouldn’t include that one).

So any time I want to update any of those sections, I don’t open the content pages, I open the one CSS file and/or the includes.

Of course, if you view the source of my site, you’ll still see all the scary-looking code, but the browser combines and displays the code from the CSS and include files. (So it really looks like I’m a big time programmer, right?)

However, when I’m updating a particular section of my site, I only open the corresponding file (leftnav, footer, etc.).

So if you give one gift to yourself this year, learn CSS. Grab a copy of Dreamweaver CS3 and go to your local bookstore and get a reference book. I bought Dreamweaver CS3 For Dummies.

No really, I did. People do actually buy those “dummy” books.

You’ll be amazed at what CSS can do for your site. And when you realize you can update your entire site’s design and layout in about 20 minutes, you’ll understand why it’s worth it.

So What’s My Biggest Design Mistake?

Clearly it was not using CSS sooner. The thought of learning more coding overwhelmed me for so long that I kept putting it off. But it really helps to have a good Web editor to help you muddle through it.

Thanks to Dreamweaver, I didn’t have to really become more proficient as a programmer, I just had to become more proficient with using the program.

For some of you reading this, CSS is probably old news. Even though it wasn’t new to me either, I hadn’t unlocked its full potential.

But mark my words… I will never design a site without CSS again.

You shouldn’t either.

When you’re new to website building, web design can be a very intimidation process.

Heck, even if you’ve been around awhile it still can be intimidating if design is not your forté.

So here are some tips for getting off on the right track when designing your first site.

Tip 1 – Familiarize Yourself With a Web Editor

There are many different editors out there. They all have their pluses and minuses so it’s important to find what works best for you.

Just make sure you learn to use something. It will make your life easier, trust me.

If you’re on a budget, Nvu or CoffeeCup may be a good choice. Nvu is free and recommended by many newbie Webmasters.

CoffeeCup is not free ($50), but comes with some awesome templates. There’s even a free, 45-day trial.

If you don’t mind splurging on some really good software, I recommend Dreamweaver. I recently switched to this program after FrontPage started phasing out.

With a price tag of $400 I’m sure you’re wondering what it possibly does. My short answer to that is everything. And while I don’t use half of the features this powerful program provides, I like DW because it’s great for people of all levels.

If you’re a beginner and just want to learn the basics of creating a page, you can use DW for the basic HTML commands.

But if you want to take it to the next level and learn more about CSS (see Tip #2), XML and other Web languages, DW will support those too.

There are also a lot of customizable features in Dreamweaver, so you can set it up so your favorite commands are easily accessible.

Whatever editor you decide use, buy a book or use your favorite search engine to find a tutorial that will help you get familiar with the program.

You don’t have to learn every menu function or feature, but you do want to learn the basics such as creating links, bolding text, starting new paragraphs, etc. There are some great free online tutorials for almost every popular editor out there.

Tip 2 – Learn The Basics of CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, and it’s basically a sheet of attributes that assigns various styles to your website. Don’t let the acronym scare you. It’s pretty easy to learn and a very handy function if you just learn the basics.

One style sheet can govern how your entire site is designed while giving it a cohesive, consistent look.

For example, you can declare your sitewide font style, font size, hyperlink colors, background color, table design, etc. all with one file.

That means if you ever want to change the look of your site, you just edit the style sheet instead of opening every page and changing the HTML code directly. What a huge timesaver, especially if you have a large site.

The best way to learn CSS is to find a site template that already has a style sheet attached. For example, I bought my site’s template from dreamweaver-templates.net and there was a style sheet included.

I’ve learned a lot just by changing colors, sizes, etc. to see how they affect my site’s layout and design.

Dreamweaver also has a function called CSS Layouts that will help you learn more about CSS and apply it to your site.

You can also go to W3Schools if you want to learn the basic CSS attributes and creating a style sheet from scratch. There are some good tutorials there.

Tip 3 – Find a Design Template

As I just mentioned, I bought my template from dreamweaver-templates.net, but there are many other sites that offer templates, some even for free. FreeCSSTemplates.org has some free ones you can download.

I would highly recommend you choose a template that includes CSS, unless you plan to create your own style sheet from scratch. Again, if you use Dreamweaver then this is pretty easy to do.

Once you’ve found a template you’d like to use, open it up in the editor you’ve chosen. Always save a backup copy of the template in case you want to start over.

Most templates only come with the index page (the homepage) so if you want additional pages simply “Save As” from the homepage to create new pages.

I’ve created a basic 3 column CSS template you can download to learn how to design a web page.

Tip 4 – Learn Basic File Management

Websites are basically a series of files organized on a server. Whatever Web editor you use, you should organize your website files so they are easy to find and manage.

Don’t just throw all your files in one folder. Organize them into logical sub folders and always store your images in a separate folder.

So, if you have a site about cooking, you may have your main index file (your homepage) and then you’ll have a series of sub folders (i.e. baking, grilling, frying, etc.) And inside those sub folders will be pages that go in those categories.

When you start setting up your site, the sub folders could likely be navigation items on your site.

So before you use your web editor, you need to create a folder on your hard drive where your site will live.

Let’s say you create a folder called CookingWebsite and it resides at…

C:\Documents and Settings\User\CookingWebsite

If you downloaded a template, you want to store/save all the template files inside this folder. And if the template came with an images folder, put the images folder inside this same folder so the path to it would be…

C:\Documents and Settings\User\CoookingWebsite\images

Make sure you keep the template’s file structure the same as when you downloaded it.

So when you open up your Web editor and start a new site, most editors will ask where your site lives locally. You will navigate to this new folder you created and this is where you’ll go to update your site each time.

Keeping your file structure organized will help, especially if you’re using a Web editor. Not only is it easier to find files, but linking the pages and adding images is much easier when everything is organized into folders.

Tip 5 – Learn How to FTP

I know, I know. Another dag-blasted acronym. FTP just stands for file transfer protocol and it’s the process of transferring your files (web pages) from a local environment to your Web server (or your hosting account).

If you’re using a regular web host, you can setup an FTP account at your host’s control panel.

Most web editors will allow you to save your site directly to the web using your FTP username and password. So you simply choose the “Publish Site” command in your editor, and generally you’ll be prompted for your FTP information.

Voila! Your site is live and kickin’.

If you’re not using an editor or your editor does not have a publish feature, you can download a separate FTP program to publish your files to the Web. Filezilla is a good one and it’s free.

Or if you use Firefox, download the FireFTP plugin. You can access it from the Firefox Tools menu and you don’t even have to close your browser to use it.

Tip 6 – Find a Graphic/Image Editing Program

You don’t have to become a full-fledged graphic designer, but it does help to know how to resize and touch up graphics. Gimp is a free image manipulation program you can use to make minor graphic edits.

If you want to create images from scratch Paint Shop Pro and PhotoShop are two popular programs used for this.

I use PhotoShop for all my graphic needs. Yes, it’s pricey, but does everything under the sun (including animation) and I’ll never need to buy another program again.

___________________

So there you have it! Six tips to get you started with your first website. It’s really not that intimidating if you just do it. Becoming comfortable with a web editor and finding a template is half the battle.

Here’s to your first website! (Cheers)

I often talk about how I’m not very technically inclined and not anywhere close to being a programmer. I keep my designs simple because I enjoy writing much more than figuring out the techy stuff.

While I use CSS on 2CreateAWebSite.com for my links, headings, colors, etc. I’ve never taken full advantage of its capabilities.

And while I’ve read how much easier CSS makes managing tables, I usually ignored it and kept building my tables in HTML – a.k.a. the old fashioned way.

[sidebar]

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and it’s a page that sits on your server that tells the browser how to apply different style attributes on your site.

From hyperlink colors, font size, margin widths, line spacing, you name it. You can do everything with CSS and it’s very convenient because when you edit an attribute on your style sheet, it automatically updates that style on your entire site.

[/end sidebar]

Well, my site’s most recent template came with a style sheet and had a few table styles already declared. In English, that simply means if I use the appropriate tag from the style sheet, I could generate a table on my site.

I won’t go into creating an entire style sheet in this blog post. There are several sites out there that can give you the basics and even a free template to start with. W3Schools has some great tutorials. I just want to show you how easy it is to create a table and define its style so it makes updating your site a breeze.

In my style sheet, here’s the following code that defines how my tables look.

.table {

background:#EED9A8;

color: #000000;

border:1px solid #D29C1A;

width: 430px;

}

The above code is what goes inside my style sheet to tell the browser how to display the table on my site. Notice it defines the background color, text color, border size, border color and table width.

Of course there are other attributes you can add to the table if you wish (padding, etc.), but it’s up to you how many or few attributes you’d like to use.

Now, in order to display the table on my site, I simply add the following code inside my HTML page…

<div class=”table”> Insert text inside table </div>

That small bit of code will render a table with the attributes I declared in my style sheet. Notice the div class is named “table” because that’s what I called it in my stylesheet. Had I named it table5, then I would have used <div class=”table5″>.

As I mentioned before, the beauty of using CSS for tables is when you’re ready to update your table designs, you simply change the attributes in your style sheet, and Voila! – you’ve implemented a global table change throughout your site.

So if you aren’t using style sheets yet, I hope I’ve given you enough of a preview to whet your appetite. Using CSS allows you to make global template changes in a heartbeat and it helps your pages load faster too.

Head on over to W3Schools’ site to learn more.

1. Visit/Hit Counters

Nothing says “amateur website” like a good ole’ fashioned hit counter.

Let me be blunt…

No one really cares if you’ve had 15,034 visitors since May or 232 hits today. They care about your content, site usability and what your site can do for them.

I think a lot of people add counters because they feel once the number increases, it will make their site look popular. But if you have a low-trafficked site and someone happens to notice your hit counter has only gone up a few digits in a week, it’s going to make your site look small-ish.

If you want to keep track of your stats, that’s fine. Use a hidden counter like Google Analytics. You can check your stats at any time while keeping your info hidden from the public.

But stay away from visible stat counters. Yuck!

2. Animation Overload

Animation can be effective in small doses, but you don’t want your site to look as if an Adobe Flash program threw up on your homepage.

I remember designing my first site. I was so excited that I added any kind of graphic that either flashed, bounced or scrolled. I’m surprised I didn’t get a headache from looking at it.

If the goal of your site is to make money, realize content sells, not graphics. And you don’t want anything to distract from your message. Graphics are fun and can enhance a site, but too much can turn people away.

3. Fake Testimonials

Who the hell is “John P. from Colorado”? I’m sure there probably is such a person, but chances are he never emailed you about your site.

If you want to gain credibility from your testimonials, either get permission to add the person’s e-mail address or add a website link after the person’s name. (Be sure to get their permission!)

Don’t make up people and add a city after their name. It’s the oldest testimonial trick in the book and it doesn’t fool anyone. If anything, it makes you look less trustworthy and this is amateur work at its best.

4. Too Many Ads

Web surfers are getting savvier. They recognize Google ads, ignore banner ads more and more, and can tell when someone is more interested in getting paid than offering good information.

Work on building your credibility with good content first, then start serving up ads. And even then, don’t overdo it. If you spend time making your site useful, you’ll be surprised at how much you can make from a minimal amount of ads.

5. Inconsistent Layout

Have you ever gone to a site, clicked around and wondered if you are on the same site?

Well, if I just described your site, you’ve made a common mistake that screams “amateur.” A website should have a cohesive look and all pages should share the same layout.

Use the same fonts on every page, keep link colors the same and be sure your navigation remains consistent. And if you need help choosing a color scheme, check out my hex color scheme generator.

You know absolutely nothing about web design and the thought of creating your site intimidates you. So it’s just best to pay someone to do the site for you right?

Not necessarily.

Read this article for my thoughts on the subject.