Web design skills

[newyorkdude]

Fortunately, I have some domain names that really deserve development. Unfortunately, I lack the correct skills. I could pay to have someone do the work (an Indian outfit would be slightly cheaper for me). Or I could learn what I need to know.

Do you think an amateur like me could learn the necessary skills? Is learning the necessary skills a fulltime job? Can it be done part time?

In other words, will I always be at the mercy of someone else or can I take my domain name fate into my own hands, in your opinion?

[Gaurish]

Do you think an amateur like me could learn the necessary skills? Is learning the necessary skills a fulltime job? Can it be done part time?

The only thing one cannot not learn is Patience and dedication.
Everything else, is learned by practice and hard work.

If you have that zeal to learn, I am sure you will be a pro in no time

[newyorkdude]

Thanks Gaurish for your encouraging words. Maybe I should have added that I have developed a few names. They got no traffic to speak of. Fortunately they have expired, so I can't point you to them so you can lecture me.

What I meant to ask is whether an amateur like me can develop a very good, eye-catching, worth-many-return visits site? A boring, ordinary site isn't worth the trouble. [I suspect I know your answer, but I'll throw the question to you anyhow.]

[abhishekjha]

Fortunately, I have some domain names that really deserve development. Unfortunately, I lack the correct skills. I could pay to have someone do the work (an Indian outfit would be slightly cheaper for me). Or I could learn what I need to know.

Do you think an amateur like me could learn the necessary skills? Is learning the necessary skills a fulltime job? Can it be done part time?

In other words, will I always be at the mercy of someone else or can I take my domain name fate into my own hands, in your opinion?

learning is ofcourse a fulltime job, i had learned many years and still learning, its very big process because a small training would not make a site which you can happily show to others.

if you need a web designer/ developer who can make custom website and custom stuff, then you have one just writing this reply. im indian and make attractive sites. though i just started my small job few months back, you can check my portfolio page NuWiz Web Design Solutions . I dont charge much like the guys on elance but yes there is no compromise in quality of work.

if you want you can learn part-time, but its big process, one my friend took 3 years just to learn basic webdesigning because he was doing it part time and i took some months to learn because i spent 8 to 12 hours daily, it depends on how fast you can grasp the matter. if you want you can start with 1/2 hour videos on youtube then atleast that can help you setup some site, change some logo, colors etc and do the basic work, the rest when you start getting revenue from your site then you can hire somebody you wish to and re-make/re-design the site to a professional looking one. this is the basic theory. i saw on archieve.org that even yahoo.com didnt look such awesome in the past it had some moose and some crappy design but once it became popular and made revenue, then it changed its design to a professional one and now even companies like aol had cloned it once and microsoft wants to buy it.

thats a result of hard work. your choices are you either spend money and get it done very fast, or spend long time learning everything and make it yourself.

if in case your domains are expiring recently in the next few months - around june-july then i advice you to get it developed by a designer as you can learn even later when you sell the recently developed site and make some money out of it. else learning can even take so long time that your domains will expire before you learn to develop it.

to summarize this.
developing a website = spend EITHER your own time OR your own money.

choice is yours!

[Gaurish]

What I meant to ask is whether an amateur like me can develop a very good, eye-catching, worth-many-return visits site? A boring, ordinary site isn't worth the trouble. [I suspect I know your answer, but I'll throw the question to you anyhow.]

In My Experience, Design is secondary. Content is the king!
you can have original, Unique content which is not available anywhere else.

you will surely get traffic

[RaghavK]

Yes..I too agree..the content counts for a lot..but, at the same time, templates actually retain a visitor for that fraction of a second when he decides whether he should even bother reading or not..