Everything for a newbie webmaster. Everything for a novice webmaster Where did the term “webmaster” come from?
We live in an age of high technology, when computerized devices provide human convenience, and the Internet provides access to any type of information.
Just a few generations ago, few would have thought about not doing manual labor. Hard work robbed people of their strength and health. But now the labor market is teeming with vacancies that require mental work.
Naturally, the World Wide Web is not only news, weather and funny pictures. The Internet has long become a place of work for many specialists ( not necessarily in the IT field). However, this article will consider such a profession as a webmaster, namely, what you need to be able to do for it and where you can learn it:
Who are webmasters
If they meet you in a dark alley, they put a knife to your throat and ask “ Who is a webmaster?”, then you can safely say that this is a person who does everything. There are practically no impossible tasks for a webmaster ( in the customer's view), and the main thing is that the activity is related to the creation of the site.
Let's imagine that in some random society of potential customers you called yourself a webmaster. Let's look at the list of requirements that may be presented to you.
- Design the website. For any novice webmaster, the words “HTML” and “CSS” should be near and dear. In addition to words, you must master the appropriate technologies:
- Program any processes on the site. While doing layout, you will not be involved in the development and implementation of various algorithms ( programming is full of things). Implement user registration, online ordering of goods, optimization of database functioning - all this is work for the webmaster ( well paid job);
- Design the design of an information resource. In this case, you should understand that the profession of a web designer is quite specific. If you graduated from a higher educational institution, became a certified artist, and know everything about the techniques of fine art, this does not mean one bit that you will immediately be able to design the appearance of websites:
- Optimize site content. The information component of any resource is the basis for success among users:
The resulting picture is that a webmaster is a generalist, a jack of all trades and an expert in any field. Some people position themselves this way when they offer their services on the labor market.
However, in modern conditions, “narrow” specialists who work in a specific area are valued. A reputable customer is unlikely to hire the same person to design a website and write content.
Where do they teach to be a webmaster?
If you do not have sufficient knowledge in web technologies, but have firmly decided that the webmaster profession is suitable for you, then below are several training options.
- Universities. It should be understood that in higher educational institutions there is no such specialty as a webmaster. Training should be perceived as an opportunity to gain basic knowledge ( to make it easier to master specific technologies in the future). Of course, in addition to the basics of programming, you will learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript. However, familiarity with these technologies will be superficial, and the acquired skills will not allow you to immediately engage in the work of a webmaster;
- Webmaster courses. It is worth noting here that there are various courses, the completion of which can give you certain knowledge and some kind of document on completion of training ( often without any weight). However, IT companies often organize their own courses in order to hire the best ones upon completion of training and internship;
- Self-education. If you are reading this article, then you are already engaged in self-development and are becoming one step closer to the profession of a webmaster. There is a huge amount of literature ( both English and Russian), video lessons and articles on the Internet that can provide real help to a webmaster. Next, we will consider some useful recommendations for self-education.
Help for webmasters
In order to perform the assigned tasks efficiently, any webmaster must have the appropriate tools.
We list some of the most necessary programs for a webmaster:
- Browsers. It is impossible to design websites without being able to see the results of your work:
- Development environments. If we are talking about web programming, then you cannot do without decent editors that allow you to quickly create highly readable code in which it is easy to find and fix errors. As an example, we can cite such environments as Eclipse, Zend Studio, Aptana. Of course, you can write in a regular Notepad, but with large amounts of code this is fraught with enormous confusion;
- File managers. When you develop a website, you are constantly uploading something to a remote server.
- Graphic editor. If you are engaged in web design, then you cannot do without specialized editors:
- Programs for working with text. If you are going to create content, then in addition to standard text editors, you will need tools for checking articles for compliance with SEO requirements:
In the modern world, the Internet has gained enormous popularity, so many people want to create their own website, resource, service on the Internet, i.e. become webmaster, but almost everyone, at first, does not understand at all what they will have to face in the process of creating a website. Everyone thinks that this is quite simple to do, but in fact it is not, and today we will look at what technologies a novice web master should master in order to learn how to create full-fledged, high-quality websites and then promote them.
Let's start with the fact that if you just want to create your own page on the Internet, then, of course, you don’t need a lot of knowledge ( register on ucoz and almost everything). Therefore, if this is your goal, then you can simply not read further, but if you want to create high-quality resources on the Internet that will be visited, and maybe even generate income, then you will have to face everything that will be described below. In other words, you will need to study all of the technologies listed below, or at least learn to understand them.
Master the content management system
Today, almost all websites on the Internet are developed using so-called CMS systems. CMS (Content management system) – content management system. There are quite a few sites developed completely manually, but if you master all the technologies listed below well enough, then you can easily do this. But this point is not about that, but about the fact that in order to quickly create a website, you need to decide on the site engine, in other words, specifically on the CMS. Today there are a lot of them, there are paid ones, the most popular of them are:
- 1C-Bitrix;
- UMI.CMS;
- CMS S.Builder.
There are also free ones, the most popular:
- Joomla;
- Drupal;
- WordPress.
It is necessary not only to decide on a CMS, but also to learn how to use it, since without this you cannot create a good, high-quality website. But even if you have studied all the features of managing a particular CMS, you still will not be able to go beyond what you can do ( standard means) this CMS. Therefore, you need to know, or at least have an idea about the technologies on which this or that CMS is implemented, in order to expand the capabilities of your site.
Master a programming language
The second point to note is that you must master ( or understand) some server-side web programming language; of course, you need to choose to study exactly the language in which your CMS is implemented, otherwise there is practically no point in studying it. For example, your CMS is implemented in PHP, and you started learning perl, what is the point in learning perl, no, so in this case, of course, it is better to study PHP. But in fact, there are also many server-side programming languages, for example:
- Perl;
- Python;
- Ruby;
- Any of the .NET programming languages is ASP.NET technology.
In my opinion, the most popular is probably PHP, so you can choose to study it and choose a CMS based on it. If you have a question why you need to know a server programming language, because it is in it that all the functionality of the site is implemented, and everything else ( design and more) implemented using other technologies.
Master the DBMS
During the creation of a large, full-fledged website, a lot of information accumulates, so it needs to be stored somewhere; the best option, of course, is to use some kind of DBMS. Many CMSs have the ability to work with different DBMSs, but the most common one on the Internet is MySql. It is free and supported by all CMS. Therefore, when studying a server programming language, it is necessary to simultaneously study the interaction of this language with a DBMS, in our case, PHP and MySql.
Know how to work with a Web server
Even if you know some kind of server language and even know a DBMS, you still will not be able to host a website on a server on the Internet. Because for this you need a Web server, since without it everything makes no sense, since it is he who processes HTTP requests coming from clients, and gives them HTTP responses, so that this or that one is displayed in their browser another web page. The most popular Web servers are:
- Apache ( occupies about 65% of the total share of sites on the Internet);
- Nginx;
- Lighttpd.
Have skills in working with a server operating system
Since we are talking about Web servers, then, of course, it is necessary to mention how to deploy them, i.e. on which operating system, since installing or configuring a WEB server will require knowledge of operating system management. The most popular platforms are:
- FreeBSD;
- Centos;
- Debian;
- Windows.
Most of all websites are hosted on Unix-like operating systems.
Master the HTML language
We’ve sorted out the functionality, storing information and hosting the site on the Internet, now it’s time to talk about displaying all this information to the user in the form of an HTML page. To do this, we need to mark up our document, this is done using markup languages. There probably shouldn’t be a choice here, since the most common hypertext markup language is HTML. Many novice webmasters believe that if they have learned HTML, then they are cool Web developers, and at the same time they are not aware that such technologies as CSS, XML, JavaScript and others exist. As you understand, this is, of course, wrong, since with knowledge of HTML alone, you won’t even be able to change the design of any module on an existing site, so everyone who already knows HTML, move on to other web technologies.
Master CSS
We've also sorted out the markup language, now let's move on to the beautiful output of our marked-up HTML page. Of course, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) will help us with this. In HTML it is possible to design a page, but HTML, of course, cannot give us the same opportunities that CSS provides us. Therefore, CSS is a must-learn.
Master JavaScript
Next, it is necessary to note such a technology as JavaScript. It can be attributed to both design and functionality. Almost all sites, all CMS use JavaScript technology, since JavaScript implements the dynamics of a web page without reloading it, i.e. without accessing the web server. From this we can conclude that JavaScript is a client-side technology that runs on the client side. By the way, JavaScript is not the only such technology; there are others, for example VBScript, ActionScript, but, in my opinion, JavaScript is the undisputed leader in this direction.
Understand XML and XSLT
When developing almost all websites, technology such as XML is used, and along with it XSLT. These technologies are used for many things, for example, to form some kind of data structure and display it on the screen. XML is a markup language. XSLT is a language for transforming XML documents, i.e. their visual design when displaying an XML document on the screen. From everything said above, without knowledge of XML and XSLT you will not be able to become a good webmaster. By the way, some may think that XML is easy, in fact, the XML document itself is not difficult to write, everything that surrounds XML is difficult, since XML is used not only in web technologies, but also in others, but even only in the web technologies environment XML is so vast that it is simply impossible to study everything. Almost all other web technologies can work with XML, so it’s impossible to say that XML is easy.
Know the principles of website promotion on the Internet
I think now there is enough knowledge to create a website, but it is not enough to create a website and place it on the Internet, it still needs to be promoted and a whole science is devoted to this - SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Therefore, a good webmaster must know the basics of website promotion and interaction with search engines.
Let's summarize, I now present to you the 10 technologies that I would choose myself ( some of them, as you understand, are mandatory), but this is my choice, if you liked something else, then no one forbids you to study it.
- CMS Joomla
- Server programming language - PHP
- DBMS – MySql
- WEB server – Apache
- Operating system - Ubuntu Server
- Markup language – HTML
- Visual design of pages – CSS
- Client technology – JavaScript
- Structural Markup Language − XML and XSLT
- Necessarily - SEO
Well, that’s probably all for now :), if you want to become a normal webmaster, you should know these 10 points, so decide on the choice of certain technologies and let’s go for it.
Good afternoon, readers of the blog gora-babla.ru. Today I want to tell the story of how I became a webmaster. You will find out who this kind of work is suitable for, whether you can learn how to create websites yourself, and at what age it is better to start.
Let's go back to the distant year 2001, it was then that I became interested in one of the sites that talked about making money on the Internet. Like most people, I didn't believe it and was extremely skeptical about it. In fact, where does money come from on the Internet? This is a simple computer and access to the network, how can you earn anything? The generation of people over 30, at least the majority of them, does not believe in this possibility.
A mechanic makes a website and becomes a webmaster
So, back in 2001, I worked as an ordinary instrumentation and automation mechanic at a factory. At that time they paid me only 4000-5000 rubles, which was the average salary at that time and was considered a great success for my city. On that site I read that you can earn more without even working at a factory. I told my friends about this, who just twirled their finger at their temple and said that it was all nonsense.
Still, I decided to try to create my own website. As it turns out, it's not that simple. I didn’t understand why I needed a website, how to make money on it and how to make it. The Internet at that time was already using ADSL technology, which simplified access to various few sites. I started learning the HTML programming language. It took a lot of time to take the first steps, which took me away from squandering the money I earned at the factory in taverns and pubs. It’s not so easy to understand where to write this code and where to place it, what hosting is.
My month of labor was crowned with success. I created the first website on free hosting people ru from Yandex. For colleagues, it was funny that a mechanic was making a website and was doing a stupid job. They advised me to work better and improve my skills. As a result, I produced my brainchild - it was a 5-page site with pictures of naked women and a next button. The first visitors immediately appeared - my friends, but not all. The Internet at that time was an expensive pleasure and, for many, a meaningless thing. It was not yet available on smartphones. Mostly people downloaded movies and played online games.
The question arose about monetizing such a site, about getting money from it. This is where a large flow of knowledge began with a bunch of questions, how to earn your first money, where to withdraw it, how to turn electronic money into cash and buy beer with it.
Soon, after 2 days, no one stopped visiting this site at all; there was only one visitor - me.
I didn't give up and decided to try my hand at email marketing, surfing and click sponsors. I earned my first 20 kopecks in an hour. My joy knew no bounds, on this occasion I drank a couple of thousand with my friends, I treated them. A week of painstaking browsing of sites while surfing brought me two or three rubles and that was the end of my desire to work on the Internet.
This ended my experience in creating websites for 7 years. During this time, I studied at the institute as a correspondence student and got a job as an engineer.
First income from websites for a webmaster
It was 2007. I worked as an engineer. I had unlimited Internet access at work and a lot of free time, naturally, in my free time I played World of Warcraft on a pirate account. I didn’t even think about any websites, but this year I got married, had a child, and the question of a mortgage arose.
The most powerful incentive to look for additional income was my wife, who constantly sawed my brain. She couldn’t bear to live in a rented 1-room apartment in poor conditions, so she methodically sawed through my brain.
A solution was found, I got a job as a taxi driver on weekends. At the same time, I decided to return to looking for work on the Internet.
I decided to change my approach a little and not give up on the idea of making my own website. To do this, I took and copied a website about making money and placed it on free hosting. Added links to affiliate programs of click sponsors and WebMoney bonuses. During this time, I mastered electronic wallets, but there was no money for them.
Oddly enough, traffic started flowing to the site and the first referrals appeared. During the day, surfing sites I earned 10–30 rubles from referrals, then it rose to 50. The question arose about withdrawing money. The first time I cashed out was by replenishing the balance of cell phones of my family and friends. I topped up my balance with 100 rubles, they gave me 70.
The second site (I wrote about the first above) was static with 20 HTML pages. I constantly improved it and reworked the texts, added affiliate programs for downloading files, surveys, and images.
I soon realized that doing work this way is very difficult. Changing and redoing pages on an HTML website every time is a tedious task. From that moment on, my mastery of the PHP programming language began.
A year has passed since the launch of the second site. In 2008, the first child was born. By this time, at my main job I was earning 20,000 rubles a month, the site brought in another 1,500-2,000 rubles. Taxi driving was no longer an option.
Now is the era of SDL (made for people) sites, which are article articles with good design.
The most important thing is that earnings from the Sape exchange have not gone away. Until now, many MFA (made for adsense) sites are being built every day and no filters are a hindrance. Webmasters have learned to make them very high quality and similar to normal sites.
Let me sum it up.
- I became a webmaster while working as an ordinary mechanic at a factory.
- Anyone can learn how to make websites and make money on the Internet.
- The generation of people aged 30 and above does not really believe in this possibility.
- The generation of people over 50 generally treat the Internet as something incomprehensible.
- Working on the Internet will take time to understand what's what.
- Learning the programming languages HTML, CSS, PHP will be a huge plus, which will double your income several times.
Don't be afraid to quit your job to build your online business. Unfortunately, I can’t afford such an opportunity; parents, father-in-law and mother-in-law will immediately swoop in from all sides, and my wife will start grumbling. All this demotivates you to devote all your energy to the Internet, although you can earn a lot on it.
Start with the simplest thing, learn HTML and try to make your first website.
Most importantly, don’t think that all webmasters are bespectacled nerds who sit at a computer on the Internet all day long. A business like this makes money on liabilities. You can go fishing, relax on the sea, play sports, and at this time your sites bring you money without your participation. A person who goes to work every day cannot afford such pleasure.
Views: 216Added: 02/28/2018
Webmaster is also a web developer or site builder - specialist in the development of Internet resources, web services and web applications.
Among Russian-speaking Internet users, there is also another spelling of this term - webmaster. How to write and use it depends on personal beliefs.
Typically, people who devote themselves to this industry have skills in several areas. They can combine the knowledge of such specialists as an author, layout designer, programmer, administrator, designer, content manager, SEO optimizer.
A webmaster is a kind of Kulibin in website building, who, instead of ingenious mechanical inventions, creates small websites. He knows all the basics of search engine promotion, easily copes with optimization tasks, deftly corrects errors in HTML code and writes readable articles.
For many webmasters, website development is a favorite hobby that generates income. Specialists of this profile can work in a web design studio, web programming department, together with other hired employees of a large company, or independently (freelancing).
Where does the term "webmaster" come from?
Poking around in history, you can find that this term was first introduced by the forefather of the World Wide Web - Tim Berners-Lee. It happened in 1992 when this brilliant inventor of URI, URL, HTTP, HTML mentioned it in the document “Online Hypertext Style Guide”.
Here is a verbatim excerpt from the text:
You should create a webmaster email alias so that people can easily contact you if they have problems with your server...
If we could go back to the early 90s, when one of the most powerful states of its time (the USSR) was coming apart at the seams, we would notice that most sites were developed from start to finish by one person - a webmaster.
Despite the fact that the webmaster profession, as such, does not officially exist, today specialists in this profile are incredibly in demand. This is due to the commercialization of the network.
How to become a webmaster
To taste the juicy fruits of this sought-after craft, you will need extensive knowledge in related industries. There is no universal formula for how to become a webmaster. However, most often, many employers present the same requirements to candidates:
To understand one thing, it will take more than a month of hard work. Therefore, webmasters most often become young people who, instead of noisy Friday parties, chose to study the basics of layout, programming and SEO.
Webmaster - how versatile is he?
It turns out that a webmaster must thoroughly understand many things. But is it possible for the ordinary Petya Pugovkin from the house opposite to master all this? The question is, who needs it?
For example, reputable companies distribute all the above-mentioned responsibilities among specialized specialists. For more productive work and greater impact of a particular project, the company separately engages a web designer, layout designer, content manager, marketer, etc.
However, this does not mean that a webmaster does not need to have all this knowledge at a basic level. A true professional in his field must know what a website consists of, what slows down its progress and how to wrap a link in noindex/nofollow.
What does a webmaster live on?
Like every living organism, a webmaster needs to eat. To earn money for a juicy steak, strawberry ice cream, or take his wife and children to McDonald's, a webmaster constantly works, looks for clients (or they are looking for him), and maintains their web projects.
Many web developers are the owners of numerous resources from which they consistently earn good income. Such sites pay for themselves and make a profit by selling space for links and placing contextual advertising.
Bottom line
If you decide to become a webmaster, sign up for training courses on PHP, HTML and CSS, read specialized literature. A lot of useful information, as well as free training lessons on programming and search engine optimization, can be found on the Internet.
And remember, as with champions, webmasters are not born - they are made.
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From the author: Hello, dear friends! I dedicate my post to everyone who is tired of going to the office every day and doing uninteresting routine work. If you don’t know where to direct your potential and love for computers, then this article is just for you! I'll tell you how to become a webmaster and earn good money from it.
Pros and cons of working as a web master
Anyone who is interested in the question of how to become a webmaster from scratch, one way or another understands that this profession has not only its advantages, but also disadvantages. On the one hand, there is complete freedom of action, and on the other hand, various problems that have to be solved independently. Let's look at the main advantages of being a webmaster:
you belong to yourself, you work without bosses and a clear schedule, you don’t have to get up early in the morning and don’t have to worry about public transport to work;
you can work absolutely anywhere, even traveling around the world - the main thing is that you have access to the Internet;
in order to get started, you will need virtually no investment - you will only need to spend on a domain and hosting;
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You can combine website maintenance with your other interests;
there is no financial limit, your income will grow in parallel with the popularity of the resource;
the asset can be sold at any time through exchanges.
Webmastering today is one of the most promising areas in the Internet sphere, however, it also has its disadvantages:
you will have to forget about stability, because income is floating;
the niche is competitive, so it’s difficult to develop in it;
income does not begin to flow immediately;
you have to work closely on optimization and constantly learn;
there is always a risk of losing all your assets, for example, if the site falls under search engine sanctions;
often costs can go beyond borders (hiring freelancers, purchasing links, templates, etc.).
Who is a webmaster and what are his responsibilities?
Before taking a webmaster course, you should clearly understand what exactly this profession includes. Since a webmaster literally means a person who creates websites, we will consider using the example of website development.
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Using a programming language, the programmer creates website pages and combines them into a single object, after which he layouts them for correct display in browsers. At the same time, a web designer works with the programmer, who develops the layout of the site and decides how the interface will generally look.
To create a website, you also need an optimizer that will create a semantic core and determine which key queries will be used to promote the site. His responsibilities also include website promotion through purchasing links for these key queries and more.
So, a professional webmaster does all of the above himself! Yes, yes, it turns out that a webmaster is a programmer, web designer, layout designer, administrator, moderator and SEO copywriter rolled into one!
What knowledge do you need to master to become a webmaster?
Before becoming a webmaster, you need to familiarize yourself with and study many technologies, programs and systems. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to become a webmaster without programming knowledge. I will tell you in what order it is better to do this, and what you should pay attention to.
The first step towards the goal should be mastering. You must not only learn to understand them in order to layout simple signs, but, at a minimum, learn block-based cross-browser layout and learn how to write valid code. This is all the foundation of your future profession. These technologies cannot be neglected, so if you find it difficult at the first stage, I recommend visiting or using video tutorials.
The second step will be the Photoshop program. You need to learn not just to cut out pictures from ready-made layouts, but to create your own good quality layouts.
JavaScript, jQuery, Mootools - the modern web is nowhere without them. These are all kinds of pop-up windows, carousels, sliders, counters and other dynamic website components.
The programming languages PHP and Perl will have to be given much more attention, because almost all functionality will depend on the scripts written in them. The quality of the scripts determines the security of the site, its speed, support by third-party developers and possible scalability. In other words, you should immediately accustom yourself to writing high-quality codes so that you don’t have to “embarrass” yourself for your website. You can start studying with courses or books.
It is impossible to become a full-fledged webmaster without knowledge in the field of databases. I recommend that you start with MySQL based databases. You must compose queries in an optimized and correct manner, understand the principles of operation and know all the intricacies of the MySQL server. It wouldn't hurt to learn how to configure it.
If you have mastered all of the above, then you should not stop there. Continue to develop as a webmaster and learn at least one UNIX-like operating system - CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian or FreeBSD. You may never need to compile the system kernel with various parameters, but you will need to configure and install all sorts of services quite often.
It is worth mastering many commands for working with the command line and learning how to configure PHP, MySQL, Nginx, Apache. Get used to working with control systems GIT and SVN. Spend time testing, commenting, and documenting projects.
How can a webmaster find clients?
When you have completed webmaster courses or acquired the necessary knowledge yourself, you are faced with the question: “Where can I find clients willing to pay good money?” First of all, of course, you should spread information about the change of qualifications among your friends (“word of mouth” in most cases has a positive effect).
Many customers are looking for their contractor by organizing tenders on specialized resources. As a rule, the choice is made based on the following indicators: experience, specialty, timing, cost. Therefore, be sure to participate in tenders, because there is a high probability that you will be the right choice for the customer.
If you have a well-promoted website, customers will be able to find you themselves. After all, many of them are looking for webmasters through search engines. Communicate on thematic forums and blogs, attend specialized conferences - usually the customers found there are ready to pay for the work at its true worth.
There will be a demand for webmasters as long as humanity uses the Internet. Therefore, if you have already chosen this profession, do not stop, keep pace with progress, develop and study new technologies and programs. Invest in yourself, and your price on the labor market will constantly increase. As they say, “the further into the forest, the thicker the partisans.”
That's all. If my article was useful to you, share it with your friends and subscribe to our blog. Bye bye!
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