Question re Website Development

[JerseyGirl]

I am still new to the game, and have so far outsourced the development of my websites through eLance and made a little money. The cost-benefit analysis, however, is still a slim profit margin because I’ve paid several hundred for development of the websites.

My questions:
1. Do most of the money-making affilites here design and SEO your own sites? If not, do you outsource through eLance, or another service?
2. If you do, what do you use? Have you taught yourself enough HTML/ PHP/ CSS/ Java/ et al. to do it from scratch? Via template? Or do you use something similar to Adobe Dreamweaver?
3. If you design your own, how did you learn how to do it- and about how long was the learning curve?

I’m looking to a) up my profit margins and b) learn how to do this stuff, whatever it is, in the quickest manner possible to get further into the business. My knowledge of html is novice to intermediate, but I’m lost when it comes to Java/ PHP
Thanks, in advance, for the responses.

 

[ebiz]

I'm a complete dudder when it comes to website and UI development - consider this and the fact that my firm is into building and developing RIA's.

I actually have a strategic partnership with another firm who kick ass when it comes to cool design and UI dev.

So, i personally think the best way you could actually go would be to go for a long term partnership with some one.

 

[barman]

It's not hard to set-up a wordpress blog, find a theme you like, and add on all the SEO plugins.

I've been doing design for a long time and using an open source CMS just saves a lot of time, no matter how you slice it.

 

[Trademark]

JerseyGirl, I promote affiliate stuff through PPC. I build my own sites and don't outsource much. I know basic html and can copy/paste PHP snippets like a bandit.

That said, I'm not a $100K/month affiliate. If you *really* want to scale your projects, outsourcing programming, content, design, etc. is the quickest way to do it.

If I need to outsource things, I'll probably send up a flare at the Sell, Buy & Trade sub-forum. Whatever you're looking to do, there are probably a few people who can do great work at reasonable rates.

It may depend upon what you're trying to create (sites to sell off, PPC sites, SEO sites, an automated blog farm, authoritative sites/blogs, etc.).

I just realized the above isn't much help at all. But, I tried.

 

[kofiannan]

I'm kinda the same, so what I do is make sure I do absolutely every thing I possibly can myself (design the page even if just a mockup, do a flow chart of what the site should do) before I submit it (I use rentacoder, and I always use a newbie). I know enough about php to check over the code and fix or adjust little things. Maybe you just need to try outsourcing it elsewhere?