Not Easy, Is It?

I signed up for the course that Jennifer recommended. I thought maybe they would direct me to software to do a blog or website. All I got was that free site maker that makes the same site for everyone. I'm not giving up because I guess I will pick some things up from the course...and I'm not that far into it, so I may be really surprised. However, I want to do my own thing. I'm a retired graphic artist, so I think I can do better than a "canned" site. Where should I go to do my own site? Do I need to learn html? Is there software that can make it easier? I guess it was too easy, everyone would be doing it. I shall carry on and do more research, but if anyone can help...I'd appreciate it!

Hey there Schmoopy60,

The course is designed to teach you the basics to get you started as I said in a previous post. I agree about the FREE website as I talked about before. You will not get anywhere with it as far as making money. It should just be used as a tool and a starting point. You can learn a lot of information on how to do things, where to get started, and sites that you can go to within the course so please continue to utilize it. It will be very beneficial for you.

As for where you can start building a website of your own:

Blogspot is probably the best place to start. It is easy to navigate for someone just starting out, but it has it's limitations. Blogspot is where I made some of my first sites.

Wordpress.com is another place that you can build sites at with a little more options.

Wordpress.org is the ultimate place to build websites at as there are no limitations for the most part, and there are numerous templates out there that are compatible with this platform. It is more difficult to learn though. It took me many hours, days, weeks to finally get a grasp of this. You will have to have your own hosting account for using this platform also. That is why I suggested you start out with one of the others as they do not require your own hosting.

You do not have to learn html to start out with. You can build a complete website without knowing a thing about html. I still have much to learn myself when it comes to html......it is quite confusing. I know a little, but that is it.

Being a graphic artist will be an asset, when it comes to building websites. You will be able to do a lot of things that others are not able to do. You should think about setting up a website that will highlight yourself and what you do and then maybe at some point, you can set a site up to sell your services as a graphic artist, if that is something that you would be interested in. There are so many things that you can do.

All of the above have numerous tutorials that you can review about how to design and build your sites. If you get stuck along the way, I will be glad to help you out with it as I have used all 3.