Many new internet marketers or prospective online business owners balk at idea of having to become familiar with HTML so that they can create and/or modify their future web pages. And it is one of most common questions I get asked by new subscribers and visitors to my site - "Do I have to know HTML?" I went through same anxiety and reservations when we were first considering taking our business online. I took a look at HTML that made up some of web pages and said WOW, what heck is that!HTML or HyperText Markup Language is one of major languages on Web used to write web pages. It gives you ability to combine text, pictures, sounds and links all in one page.
I had no background in programing or even an inkling of what HTML was or how it worked. It seemed like an obstacle that I wouldn't be able to get around. But I was determined to get my online business up and running and I didn't have a budget that would allow me to contract out my web page development.
So I started asking around about HTML on different discussion boards and did some searches and was surprised at amount of information that was available free. There are many sites out there with lessons on how to use HTML to construct a web page. Likewise there are many sites with free graphics, free cgi and java scripts. So it wasn't long before I had a basic web page put together and it also wasn't long before I started understanding some of coding and could mess around with it to make a page look different.
I want to digress a bit here in discussing my learning curve. During my research about HTML, I found out that there were a number of software products that made working with HTML in constructing a web page relatively simple. These programs actually allowed you to construct a great web page with out really knowing HTML at all. The one that I started out with was called "Hot Dog" available at www.sausage.com.au (I am not kidding about name, that's what it's called) and its cost is just under $100. I have been using it since mid-1998. I don't sell it so I am not looking for a commission. I found it easy to learn and use even though I had little or no experience with HTML. I subsequently purchased Frontpage2000 but I still use Hot Dog because I find it simpler. If you are interested in Frontpage you can find some tips and how to tutorials at www.microsoft.com/frontpage