This section contains all the tools you need to learn how to competently build a web site from scratch. The other sections of our site will show you how to add spice to your site, how to make tons of dough on the internet, how to get groves of people to visit your site, and the like. Yet before you can take advantage of any of those features, you must first become familiar with all the components of a web site and develop a firm grasp of the fundamentals.

DOMAIN NAME:

Web sites these days are primarily identified by the Domain Name they bear, and so this is where we begin. For those unfamiliar with the concept of a domain name, it is your site's address on the internet, just as the domain and address of this site is virtuallyignorant.com. Whenever possible, you should choose a name that is easy to remember, easily identifiable with your site, and easy to type. If your domain name contains too many characters, too many words, or unusual letter combinations that are neither words nor particularly memorable, you will most likely lose potential visitors as a result. Domain names can not be bought outright, but are rather registered for periods of time, usually two years. Once you have registered a name, for all practical purposes you own the name, and you will continue to do so until you either sell it or fail to renew the registration. Domain registration has gone nuts the last few years, and millions of site names have already been taken, including almost all one word domain names ending in .com and .net.

WYSIWYG VS. HTML PROGRAMMING:

Now that we've dealt with the issue of your site's address, we can get down to the real nitty gritty, building the site itself. You have a couple of options when it comes to putting a site together, you can either use one of the WYSIWYG editors (it stands for What You See Is What You Get) or you can do the actual coding yourself. WYSIWYG editors will allow you to create a page with virtually no previous computer experience, whereas if you choose to do the coding yourself, you will have to acquaint yourself with HTML (Hyper Text Mark Up Language), the computer language that web browsers read.

Although it probably sounds like WYSIWYG is a great and far simpler alternative to using HTML, we strongly recommend learning the HTML code and coding the site yourself. Sites coded from scratch using HTML tend to be far more versatile and error free than those programmed with WYSIWYG editors, plus by writing your own code you will truly understand the inner workings of your site. We know that the prospect of entering your own computer code is intimidating to most of you just starting out, but we assure you that the basic code is remarkably easy and the fundamentals can be learned in a few short hours. To back up our claim, we have put a complete HTML Tutorial on our site that will teach you all the basic and advanced HTML techniques you'll need to build yourself a killer website.

HTML EDITOR:

While you're first learning the basics of HTML, we recommend writing your code in Notepad, a free program that comes with all Windows computers. Notepad is great for those just starting out because it contains absolutely no advanced features to make your coding easier. Since it is completely bare bones and makes you do all the hard work yourself, it helps you learn your fundamentals well. However, once you move past the initial learning stage and start doing your actual coding, using Notepad can be a royal pain. At this stage, we recommend upgrading to an HTML Editor. These editors help you do your coding quickly and maintain the components of your site in an organized fashion, they don't actually do the work for you like the WYSIWYG editors. Some great HTML editors can be downloaded for free on the net, and even the ones you have to pay for tend to be relatively inexpensive.

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL (FTP):

Once you have your site coded, you will need to actually get it on the net. You'll need to use a File Transfer Protocol Program, FTP for short, to accomplish this. The FTP program is specially designed to send files from one computer to another. In this case, the web site you create will have to be sent from your computer to the computer where your site will be hosted (hosting options are discussed in the next section).

PROFESSIONAL WEB DESIGN:

We understand that not all our visitors are equally enthusiastic about the prospect of putting a web site together from scratch. Whether due to time constraints or an unwillingness to rest the future of their business site on their own site designing abilities, some of our visitors would like an alternative solution. For these individuals, we offer a variety of Professional Web Design options. Professional web designers can either build a site from scratch or can take the site you built yourself and bring it to the next level. For those looking for something different, we also provide a list of other highly qualified site designers.

• Register a Domain Name!
• HTML Tutorials
• MouseOver tutorial
• SSI tutorial
• HTML Editor comparison
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Programs