I need to build a website for my sports club, can anyone give me good technical advice?

What are your current skills? Is there any budget to get in a professional?

If your forced to go it alone the bare minimum you should consider learning is html, css and a little photoshop. I can recommend some books or you could join my online training course.

If it’s a not-for-profit site and you just don’t have the time or the inclination to learn web design skills PM me and I can get one of my apprentices to put something together for you as part of their training.

You could also check out sites like Template Monster and just buy and modify a design you like.

I helped a friend once with a website but the problem was the search engines had a problem finding it. And as for budgets the sports club’s budget is not big enough to hire a professional. Thanks for the recommendation on Template Monster I will check it out. I want to learn anyway how to build websites, I’ll see it as a learning curve. What books do you recommend and what’s your website’s name?

There are also other websites that provide good designs for free.
Such as Free CSS Templates and Styleshout.

Those designs are all licensed under Creative Commons, so you’re allowed to take them and use them free.

Thanks I will check it out

I recommend CSS mastery

but it’s not for the complete beginner and you will need to learn html first. Book from sitepoint or friendsof ed are usually good. O’reilly are excellent but bit of a stale read and generally best for reference rather than learning from scratch. SAMS even does a book that claims to teach HTML in 24hrs.

@archaeopteryx – good links, I downloaded one to check and the code was good too.

How about Google Sites,
http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html

I think I’ll try google sites it seems simple. Thanks

Id imagine youve found the support you need for your website now.
I was going to say the same as everyone else to be honest.
templatemonster.com is an awesome place to start, there are some great templates that will take the hardwork out for you.
i think the climbing of the search engines is where the hard work comes in to be honest, there are options you can take there such as using website promotion services or you can do it yourself, there are plenty of free links online that can take you through every step needed to be successful.
good luck my friend.

ps, do some research blogging, it seems to be useful for engine climbing.

If you do not have any technical skills regarding website designing and website development then you should hire a professional web design company or go at the below url
http://www.bitwords.com

The easiest way for a novice to build a web site is to start with a web template. Web Templates can be customized and you can use the layout but swap the graphics etc…. this will get you comfortable with basic HTML design and an HTML editor (like Dreamweaver).

Here are some resources for free or inexpensive templates that are easy to edit and manage.

Webmaster Templates – http://www.webmaster-templates.net
Free Web Templates – http://www.freewebtemplates.com/
Web Design Elements – http://www.webdesign-elements.com
Free Website Templates – http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/
Free Layouts – http://www.freelayouts.com/
Free Templates Online – http://www.freetemplatesonline.com

HTML website templates can significantly ease the burden of designing and creating websites by providing webmasters with a ready-made web layout, structure, basic graphics, and color scheme.

The templates can generally be edited and customized with any HTML editor. The biggest advantage for webmasters using ready-made templates is the amount of time that can be saved.