Web design as a life-skill
In today’s world, the ability to build and manage your own website is a life-skill that can revolutionise your business if you have one, or open up amazing doors of opportunity, enabling you to share your passion with the world. It is a skill that I learned when I wanted to launch my first business, and it proved to be the keytomy business success, giving me a huge advantage over my local competitors.

Who isthis coursefor?
This course is for you if you own a mac computer and want to build a website using Rapidweaver. Rapidweaver is the best web design software for Mac. It makes web design easy and accessible for the amateur. Importantly, you don’t have to learn to code. I will show you how to build a website with the drag-and-drop simplicity of 'stacks'.This course is aimedprimarily at those who want to build and manage websites for their own use. That includes:

• Business owners who want to attract more customers

• Self-employed workers like Plumbers, Electricians, Artists,Authors, or Entrepreneurs

• Anyone with ahobby or passion theywant to share with the world.

• Or it might be that you’re an employee of a small business and your boss has asked you to make a website.

As I said at the beginning, in today’s world, being able to build a website is an important life-skill. The applications of it are limitless.

What you will be able to do at the end of it?
This is a beginners course that requires no previous web building experience. At the end of this course:

• You will be able tobuild and publish a simple website

• You will understand important considerations in choosing a domain or web address for your business

• You will understand key elements that make a website convertvisitors into customers

• You will know how to find whatever addons you require to meet your particular website needs

• You will be able to spend your website budget wisely, identifying the addons you need without wasting money on ones you'll never actually use

• You will know where to find tutorials on advanced Rapidweaver topics in order to take your skills to the next level, including integration of eCommerce solutions, Content Management Systems (CMS), and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Should you wish to starta new career building websites as a business, this course could be the start that you need.

How isthe course structured?
There are 8 sections to this course:

1. Introduction

2. Start building using Rapidweaver's built-in page types
   In this section you'll gain an overview of Rapidweaver's interface and tools, andlearn how to add several built-inpage-types. These pageswill be replaced in a later section after adding the Stacks plugin, so web building will only be taken to a very basic level in this section.

3. Choose a Web Hosting company
   I'll guide you through a list of top recommended companies.

4. Choose your own Internet Domain
   I'll guide you through various important considerations to help you choose the right address for your website.

5. Manage your hosting and domain, and publish your website
   You may choose a different hosting company to me, but I'll give you a brief tour of the control panel for my web hosting anddemonstratehow to obtain your publishing details and input them into Rapidweaver's publishing settings.

6. Enhance Rapidweaver using Addons
   The reason Rapidweaver is suchapowerful web building solution is that it provides a platform for third-party developers around the world to create their own addons. There are now over 1,000 addons available and in this section I guide you through the various different categories to choose from.

7. Continue Building using Stacks
   This is the longest and most detailed section, in which you will follow mestep-by-step as I create a new and better website for my plumbing business. If you keep apace with each lesson and build your own website, by the end of this section you will have a website ofyour ownsufficient for many types of business use.

8. Course Wrap-Up
   In this lesson I will show you how to extendyour Rapidweaving skills further beyond the scope of this beginners' course.I will introduce Search Engine Optimisation. Iwillshow you where to find courses andaddons for advanced topics like integrating eCommerce solutions and Content Management Systems. I will give you anoverview of graphics and videoapps that you may find usefulin your web building projects. I will show you why building your own website gives you such an advantage over your competitors who mostly outsource their web design. And Iwill give you an overview of strategies I have used to advertise my business and attract visitors to my website.

Course Support Page
Throughout the course I refer you to my Rapidweaversupport page on a website that Ihave created as an informative supportto my Udemystudents.This page contains a detailed description of 'All Things Rapidweaver', together with a multitude of links to help you find all the tools you need to excel in your Rapidweaving skills. I also refer you to the Rapidweaver Community website where you can find the most comprehensive library of addons as well as tothe Rapidweaver Forum. If you have questions about any of my lessons I encourage you to message me via Udemy and I will try to answer your questions or add Q&A Videos if appropriate. For general questions about Rapidweaver or specific addons, I encourage you to contact the specific developer, or make use of the Rapidweaver Forum where you will find enthusiastic users only too eager to answer your questions.

What are the requirements?
Rapidweaver is a mac-only web design app, so you need:

• to own a mac computer running a recent version of Mac OS X

• to purchase Rapidweaver from Realmac Software.It costs £79.99 GBP, but you can also download a free trial version to start with. This course was made with Rapidweaver 7 which is very similar in layout to the newly released Rapidweaver 8. You can learn about its new features and refinements by visiting Realmac Software's website.

• to buy web hosting from a hosting company and register a domain so that you can publish your website. Prices vary according to company, but start from about £20 for the first year.

• to buy the Stacks plugin from Yourhead Software, which costs about $50. Without this, you can build a goodwebsite with just the Rapidweaver app, especially if you know a bit of html.Stacks is such a revolutionary enhancement that I would recommend this as a must-have for most users. It enables you to build your website with the simplicity ofdrag-and-drop stackelementsand no coding expertise.

• a budget for additional addons. As much as possible, Ishow you addons with a demo version that you can 'trybeforeyoubuy' in order to help you make best use of your website budget, and avoid wasting money onaddons that you won't actually use. A recommended websitebudget will depend on your particular requirements, but it is certainly helpful to have another two or three hundred pounds or dollars to spare. If your budget is tight you cancreate a website within your budget and improve it with more addonsas and when additional funds become available. In addition to the searchable addons library at RapidweaverCommunity, on my own support websiteI havecreated a RWstacks page that ismy ownsearchablestacks library. You can filter stacks by several categories, including price, and pick out the free ones if you're on a tight budget. This page is a work in progress, so is not yet as complete as the one at Rapidweaver Community, but Ihope you will find it helpful.