This web site was created to help the absolute Beginning Web
Designer & Do - it -Yourself Designer learn the basics (and
beyond) of Web Design and Microsoft Expression Web. After learning
how to design your website, you'll be ready to choose the best
web host and have your website up and running.
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How to Use this Site: The Main Feature of this site is the Expression Web Tutorials & Training DVDs and Online Class For Beginners. View the Catalog and watch the many Free Video Tutorials & the Sample Lesson from my online class.
Also take advantage of the Free Content on this site. All of it is meant to help you succeed. It will also give you a glimpse into my teaching style and to see for yourself how simple it is to understand the tutorials being taught.
NOTE: There are two Updates available for Expression Web 4. Check them out here.
The Quick Start Guide is a Series of Steps, like a checklist, that will help you set up your web site with the correct files. Start with Step 1, and at the bottom of each page is an arrow that is linked to the next step. Just follow all the arrows until you have completed setting up your site.
To help you along, here is a Step by step Flowchart you can download and follow as you go thru the steps.
Start Now -- Step 1: Set up
an Empty Web Site

Learning some basic HTML and CSS will take you a long way. CSS is not as hard to learn as some folks make you believe. It is used simply to control the appearance of our web pages. And it makes your designing life so much more efficient and less frustrating as compared to table-based layouts.
HTML - Used to Structure the Web Page and its Content
CSS - Used to control the Presentation and Appearance of HTML elements.
This separation of Content from Presentation has many advantages. But basically, it makes creating and maintaining web sites much easier. And I can prove it to you. Just go try to update a site made with tables. Those darn tables break so easily and what you thought was a 5 minute update turns into hours worth of headaches.
CSS can completely eliminate that problem of breaking tables. With CSS, you can easily update the appearance of your site without touching anything on the page. The HTML is completely left alone. Likewise, if you want to edit the content on your pages, you can do so without toying with the appearance. Believe me, this makes a world of difference and will save you from unnecessary frustrations.
CSS is also a Web Standard. Sites built according to the current Web Standards (Recommendations) will do better in the Search Engines. If your site does well in the search engines, this results in more traffic to your site. This is free (organic) traffic! More traffic usually generates more revenue. More revenue makes us happy!! Saving money is also a very good thing. The more free traffic you get, the less you need to spend on advertising. Again, the bottom line is greatly improved.
HTML5 Structural Elements (New Tags)
While Expression Web writes all the code for you, you will find having a working knowledge of the basic HTML Tags will be quite helpful. See, you will need to make some decisions as to which Tag you want to use. You will then indicate this to Expression Web, which in turn, will write the code for you.
These HTML Tags will also become the hooks we need for applying CSS Styles. Therefore, study the basic HTML Tags I have listed for you before you study CSS. Of course, watch my free Video Tutorials to get a better understanding of how to use CSS. The current Web Recommendations call for use to use HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0.
However, in the very near future HTML5 will become the new web standard. Read below to find out more about the newest Markup Specifications due to be official in 2012.
Learn CSS & HTML HTML and CSS is where we really get into constructing and styling web pages. Several articles/tutorials are included for your edification. Don't skip this stuff! None of it is very difficult. But it does contain info you need to learn, and you will do so in the context of Expression Web.
Expression Web makes learning CSS and HTML so much easier. So, please don't listen to those telling you there's a long learning curve. Any Beginner can learn enough CSS to make superb web sites.
I have many customers who have used Frontpage in the past and now find themselves having to learn Expression Web because FrontPage Server Extensions are being phased out. Their first question is usually, "Should I Start Over from Scratch and Re-Design my current Site?".
My answer for 99.9% of folks asking this question is, "Yes". "It is a good idea to just Re-Design Your Site in Expression Web, rather than attempt to 'convert' or 'transition' an existing FP site.