Where to Start with Website Designing?

[Deactivated] on 23/07/2021 - 16:39
Last edited 23/07/2021 - 17:13 by 2 other users

Web designing has always been my fantasy. I started making web pages etc when Geocities and CJB.Net was a thing. I studied a degree in commerce and business overseas and then studied a bachelor degree in accounting in Australia and now working as a security guard. Not really what I really planned.

I think learning coding from the stract can be a difficult thing at this stage for me but designing a website can be easy to learn.

I don't want to enrol myself in another diploma/bachelor degree and waste anymore time and funds

I love photography and started a photography business during pandemic last year which is bugged down due to back to back lockdowns and no website

Please guide me to the right direction. I might not make it a career but want to be able to execute some ideas without relying on an external person to make me a website.

Serious replies only please.

Internet

Comments

  • waterbottled on 23/07/2021 - 16:47

    Wordpress + elementor should do it. Plenty of youtube tutorials on those two things.

    • [Deactivated] on 23/07/2021 - 17:05

      Alright, I'll check it out. I was also thinking about Adobe Dreamweaver and buying some themes? Is that software outdated?

      • AustriaBargain on 23/07/2021 - 17:17
        +1

        Be warned about Wordpress, even with visual page builders like Elementor, you will need to pick up bits of HTML and CSS as you go. Even a bit of javascript for certain things. And Wordpress alone is a bitch to learn, so many little quirks and stuff. But it's the wave of the future, throw a dart at any random website and it was probably made on Wordpress.

      • fratzhaus on 23/07/2021 - 18:56

        Dreamweaver should be banned. It is a cumbersome and terrible software, and if you would like to build on it more as the site grows, its a much more intensive experience to develop on. WordPress is a great starting point, with lots of customization out of the box and resources available for anyone to pick up on.

        Knowing the WordPress CMS even a little can go a low way.

        • [Deactivated] on 23/07/2021 - 19:05

          I got it. I will start looking into wordpress. Any suggestion or tools/themes/modules etc?

          • fratzhaus on 23/07/2021 - 19:25

            @[Deactivated]: Elementor as already mentioned is great, but a lot of the good features are locked behind a paywall. If thats a cost you're okay passing through to the customer, then you'll find it to be an incredibly simple process to build nice looking sites, with neat functions. As you grow, you'll get more comfortable with the entire process regardless and find other plugins that change your life.

            You can reference the below guide, ignore almost the entirety of step 1 and 2 - as this railroads you into using BlueHost. Do your own research for a host that suits you!
            https://www.wpbeginner.com/start-a-wordpress-blog/

            For what you are after, follow the rough steps below:

            • Find a good web host (or host for free with a temp domain at wordpress.com - making sure to not actually pay to use their service - its not that great). Many Web hosts will have an FAQ guide to install WordPress that you can follow. Many Web Hosts also have a money back guarantee if you wanna trial it out the right way.
            • Once you have your hosting service and have installed WordPress, navigate to the WordPress dashboard > plugins > Add New - and start installing
            • Find Elementor, install this. https://elementor.com/help/how-to-install-elementor/
            • Install the "Hello Elementor" theme or any that they recommend to get a base theme to use
            • Create a Page and edit it with Elementor to start playing around with how Elementor works.

            Using Elementor is entirely optional, there are also a billion "Getting started with WordPress" guides out there that have their own best practice methodologies in each - some will also be specific to Photography sites, detailing how to best optimise images you upload! definitely look into that also.

            Don't be afraid to call your web host when you need to work things out, development work isn't what they can really do - but they can help a lot in getting a service up and running, and getting you to a WordPress dashboard if the resources online aren't clear.

            Best of luck with it all!

              • Muzeeb on 24/07/2021 - 00:42

                @[Deactivated]:

                My name is Zain, I believe every family is different and has a unique character and documenting those real moments and interactions like when a mama kisses her baby, when a dad tosses his child up in the air or when siblings hug each other, play or explore their surroundings together.

                This is the world's longest sentence and doesn't even make sense. It needs to be broken up into at least 4-5 sentences.

                There are multiple spelling and grammar errors throughout your site.

                The portrait of you on the beach is washed out. It needs contrast, levels and saturation adjustments. The horizon is not level. The lighting on your face is far from ideal and the highlights in the water are blown out. The cropping is also very poor. Subject matter placement and cutting off of body parts is actually really bad for someone that specialises in portrait photography.

                Please take this as constructive feedback.

                • [Deactivated] on 24/07/2021 - 02:04

                  @Muzeeb: that photo is actually just there to fill the space and content is not corrected or properly written due to time limitation but I'll fix these issues soon :-)

                  that photo is from 2014 :-D

  • Hellfire on 23/07/2021 - 16:50

    Set yourself a project of building your photography website and learn as you go.

    WordPress is an easy way to start that has lots of learning opportunities if you want. You could start with a free plan at WordPress.com to get a feel for it.

    • [Deactivated] on 23/07/2021 - 17:07

      A colleague, Security guard with IT degree, is working on it. No SEO done yet and content needs lots of modification. I bought a domain and hosting last year. of course, hes a learner so its taking time but there is progress, no doubt.

      • Broke-Ken on 24/07/2021 - 22:11

        Guess what? your colleague is only a couple of steps a head of you. He is using wordpress with "(hello) elementor" theme for your website, exactly what everyone here is suggesting to you.

        I had a quick checked of your website SEO and discovered your website got hacked recently, they put up fake japanese ecomm store. On top of what others have suggested, I would suggest using a plugin called wordfence to protect your site, it will also do a scan and audit your website for any security flaws.

        As for learning, see if you can team up with your colleague and learn from each other.

        Sign up for a library card with city of Melbourne library and then you will get free access to linkedin learning(formerly known and lynda.com). Just did a search and some decent wordpress courses there.

        https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/community/libraries/learn/P…

        • [Deactivated] on 25/07/2021 - 00:53

          Yes you are absolutely correct about hacking. It happened when i figured out that a plugin was installed on my website by my colleague and "a bot" kept resetting the cPanel password. I figured it out and told my colleague and got the host to reset the whole thing and create a new account.

          I will definitely get wordfence installed also how did you find information about the hack (if you don't me me asking)

          • Broke-Ken on 25/07/2021 - 14:35

            @[Deactivated]: In that case, wordfence would have detected and warned you that that plugin had a vulnerability.

            You just need to type in "site:websiteurl.com.au" into google, eg: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aozbargain.com.au&oq=s…

            First step when looking into SEO for any site is to do this, it's simple free and available to the public. Works for most search engine, but you really only need to do it in google and bing to get the picture.

            Google had index some of those hacked pages, I viewed the cached versions. If you haven't already sign up to google webmaster tools(not sure of what they call it these days), then do it.

            • [Deactivated] on 26/07/2021 - 08:40

              @Broke-Ken: Oh (profanity). I looked it up and saw that random BS :-D

              Sure, I'll follow these suggestion. Also, Is there a way to get rid of those random hacked cached pages showing in search?

              • Broke-Ken on 26/07/2021 - 14:04

                @[Deactivated]: The correct way to do it is to sign into your google webmaster tools account and do an "index removal" of the URLs, or to recraw and get the updated info.

                The alternative is to just wait it out, google will figure it out themselves when the links no longer loads or has different info.

                As your website is not established, I wouldn't bother and just wait it out, unless you want to do it as a learning experience.

                • [Deactivated] on 27/07/2021 - 19:27

                  @Broke-Ken: Got it. thank you very much for all the support.

  • No Username on 23/07/2021 - 17:06
    +2

    Web design is very easy now in todays age.

    You no longer have to code everything manually as there are awesome frameworks such as React and Tailwind.

    Pluralsight and Udemy have some great paid content.

    One person I recommend for HTML, CSS and JS is "Jonas Schmedtmann".

    If you want to easily create a fast and responsive website with SEO optimisation then I would recommend looking into Nest.JS (A React Framework).

    Nest JS will handle all the routing and component injection for you.

    If you hate CSS then I would recommend looking at Bootstrap or Tailwind. It makes front end development so much easier and complies with ARIA and Accessibility Criteria's.

    If you hate SQL then I would recommend using Django for your backend as it has an easy to learn ORM for setting up your database models.

    • [Deactivated] on 23/07/2021 - 17:09

      amazing suggestions and i really respect you for taking sometime out and sharing all of it. I don't hate coding its just that I think I just don't have time like i used to back in old days.

  • rektrading on 23/07/2021 - 21:07

    What is Moralis Web3? Build and Ship Dapps Quickly
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTJMZ7tWJvA
    https://moralis.io/

    • [Deactivated] on 25/07/2021 - 00:53

      great, thank you :-)

  • ShannonN on 24/07/2021 - 10:12

    Joomla CMS

    • [Deactivated] on 25/07/2021 - 00:54

      I'll check it out, heard quite alot about Joomla but never dived deep into it.

      • ShannonN on 25/07/2021 - 08:52

        Look to here lots of free full Joomla templates there

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