First Things First: Website Development Basics

Note: this post is an excerpt from Nick’s Traffic Tricks

What you need

There are a few basic things you need to learn to maximize the traffic your site gets. A basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will greatly enhance your ability to optimize your site for search engines. It’s easy to learn and well worth the couple hours invested.

HTML

Websites are written in language Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML for short.

If you are going to have a website you really should learn HTML. It’s not hard. In a couple hours you can learn the basics.

Here’s a good introduction to HTML:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp

Here are 100 examples of HTML
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_examples.asp

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS for short are used for controlling the style and formatting of your site.

You don’t need to become a master of CSS to be successful online but you should know a little bit about it.

Before you dive into CSS you should first be familiar with HTML.

A good introduction to CSS:
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

JavaScript

HTML enables you to put static (or unchanging) text on your web page.

For example if you put the text “Today is August 3, 2007” your website always display the text “Today is August 3, 2007” no matter what the date actually is.

If you want to show the actual date for today you will need to use JavaScript.

An example of how to do this:
http://www.webreference.com/js/scripts/basic_date/

JavaScript is one of those things that is really neat but you don’t need to master or study much. Just know it’s there when you need to do dynamic things on your site.

Get a taste for what JavaScript can do:
http://javascript.internet.com/

Before you dive into JavaScript you should first be familiar with HTML.

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript require no special software. All you need is a simple text editor like Notepad. You will also need a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. If you are reading this you probably have a browser already.

I also recommend getting a decent text editor.

EditPad Lite is free:
http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html

Crimson Editor is also free:
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/

If you have some money to burn Dream Weaver is an excellent tool for website development and SEO (search engine optimization).

I personally don’t like FrontPage but some people have success using this limited tool.

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