Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual

The book is broken up into four sections, covering how to plan your site, find a good webhost and register your funky new domain name, through to a primer for HTML and CSS and web graphics and finishing off with some excellent advice on how to attract visitors to your site, and how to get them to stay! The final section looks at 'web frills', adding javascript, audio and video to your site.

The book is firmly aimed at the web-novice - some of the sections on html and css are fairly basic, but cover the material well, staying clear of the too much jargon pitfall that dogs other books on the subject. Even so, there are some excellent tips and examples which taught me some new things!

As with all O'Reilly books, the style is clear and concise, with clear examples and pictures illustrating key points.

So. Recommended for beginners and worth chccking out for those past the first steps in building a website. Overall, a fine book.


Great, excellent, easy to understand   November 22, 2007
julius ceaser (London. uk)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful

This book is really good if you're new to website design and blogging. As usual, the missing manual series has debug website design in easy to understand manner, and with less jargon. It takes one through the very basic website design method, lays down the tools you need and how to use it. This is a must read book if you are new to web design and want to learn from scratch. It can't get better than this.


Really good book   June 19, 2009
Marie B. Stein (England)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I bought this book last year when a friend was building a website for me. I didn't want to be able to build it myself, just to follow what he was doing and learn a bit more about websites and the internet. But I actually think that I would have been able to build my own site with the guidance given in this book, it is so well written and takes you through step by step. And I have no IT knowledge, other than how to do the usual stuff of switching on, doing emails and using various Microsoft Office programmes.
One of the reviewers has criticised the book for the use of IT terminology but in fact everything is explained as you go along. There is an excellent index and HMTL glossary. I didn't even understand what HTML stood for when I opened the book and now I am sufficiently confident to do basic HTML stuff on my website. This has certainly given me enough knowledge to enable me to run my site without bothering my tecchie friend too often!
The best thing about the book is that it covers all aspects of creating a website, including SEO techniques to get traffic and using Google ads to generate a bit of income from the site. I regularly pick it up and re-read sections when I need to remind myself of something! Well worth the money!


Great book   February 3, 2009
Mr. L. D. T. Sheppard (Birmingham, UK)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

I'm slightly confused about the previous review. Is he suggesting that he's never used a text editor?? So what if you haven't? The book DOES suggest which ones you might want to use and, since they all do essentially the same thing, does it really matter which one you choose? To focus on one sentence like that in a book of hundreds of pages is short-sighted to say the least.

To say that this is not a good beginner's book because it doesn't spoonfeed you what a text editor is is completely absurd. The fact is that it IS a good beginner's book and I would strongly advise people not to be put off by the previous review.

It walks you through all the skills you need to create your own stylish-looking websites in a logical, easy-to-follow manner, which is pretty much all you want from this book. It does EXACTLY what you'd want it to do and it does it very well. If you're looking for other good beginner books, try Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML, which will give you a very good grounding in most things html and css.


Just what I wanted   March 31, 2009
EastLancs22
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book is just what I have been looking for. It takes you from the basics of using XHTML to putting together a quality website and getting it online. Author uses really clear language and doesn't go over your head or talk down to you. It's approach is to teach you the PROPER way to write web pages, i.e. in XHTML, rather than showing you the quickest way. That way you get a good foundation and skill set for future development and you understand how it all works. Recommended.