There are so many things that go into making awesome websites. This tutorial is basically for beginners, but maybe, just maybe, someone else might be able to learn from it.
Introduction
Three very important things go into making a website:
They are all equally important and essential to any successful website. And so, unless you want one without the maximum amount of features, you MUST have something GOOD of all of these. Otherwise you won't really be doing all that you COULD do for your website. There are many other steps, smaller, less important ones, but steps all the same that you can probably figure out yourself, from experience, and from instinct. (Well, maybe not instinct. Instincts don't work with computers. But I can't find any other way to put it.)
Coding
No one's going to code your site for you (unless you pay them, usually). If you have zero experience with PHP (or HTML), you might want to try
MyAdopts before tackling the actual script. MyAdopts is a good adoptables site host and uses the old Rusnak Adoptables script, but you can't edit the script with MyAdopts. Once you get good at MyAdopts; get the feel of the script and blah blah blah, then move on to Mysidia coding.
Kaeliah's Basic PHP & MySQL Tutorial is very informative and a lot of people learned a lot from it. Skim it, read a paragraph, or read it top to bottom, I don't care. Just try it out a little.
I hardly know ANYTHING about PHP, but I can still figure out the script. (And it has those little tips and bits hidden throughout the code.) Honestly, I bet if you just knew basic HTML you could make a site from the script. Experiment! Don't be afraid to mess up! Don't be afraid of a huge mass of coding. We all were, once or twice in our lives. Good sites take DETERMINATION and LOTS OF TIME to finish. You can't do it in one afternoon, and you can't do it without muttering "%*#$@!" once or twice. At least, I can't.
Members
Get members, control your members, like your members. Simple as that. But it's not that simple.
You must have basic skills, rules, etc., to control your members. You can't be too harsh, and DEFINITELY not too soft. You have to be friendly and welcoming to your members, but you can't tell them to "read the rules or face a ban." You'll get members staying for your game, not you, on your site.
Okay, that sounds kind of weird. But you don't want members staying just for the sake of playing on your website. You want them to talk to you and like you. It sounds like a lot of haves and don'ts and musts, but really, it's not that hard. You don't have to be a born leader to be a good leader. Don't let members mess you up. Your site, your decisions. Members can help, but they can't control your site. Don't let that happen.
Community
I shall now use a somewhat stupid example.
You know on CreatureBreeder? It's kind of boring, right, if you don't talk to people and stuff (it's boring on your site too without a good community and members).
Well, that's why you need a community. For FUN! Add a forum! (A website's not a website without a forum.) Add a role-play site! (Role-play is really popular this time period :P) Add whatever you can, and always be open to suggestions.
So make sure you have some of these very basic things for your website. Seriously. This stuff is essential, and I wouldn't post this tutorial if I hadn't spent a half hour making it because a lot of this stuff is pretty obvious. But I don't feel like erasing this topic because I worked so hard on it so yeah . . .