Topic: Need Advice/Have Questions About Online Business and Website (Read 85 times)

Hello, I am trying to set up my own website for a business. Essentially, the business involves a user (customer) submitting certain documents and things for me to analyze. Then, I will provide a page on the website with my summarized analysis, for a monthly fee. I have been learning HTML, CSS, and Ruby, but I still feel completely inadequate when it comes to developing this website. One major thing I am worried about is the website getting hacked, since it will involve financial transactions. Also, I cannot afford to hire a professional web developer to do this for me.

So, I have a couple of questions. First, what is the best path I can take that will allow me to achieve my objective of getting this website up and running? I have been using Codecademy and it's alright, but I feel like I am not actually learning much. I have a strong background in inflected languages and so far learning to code hasn't been all that different than learning languages, but I am still lacking. If anyone has experience in setting up online businesses, what boxes do I need to check (things that I need to learn) to make this possible? What programming languages and what aspects of them do I need to familiarize myself with the most?

Secondly, and this is a more technical question, is it possible for a website to contain pages that can be accessed through an external link only, and not found internally? For example, the url link would lead to the page, but that is the only way for someone to view that page; they wouldn't be able to navigate to it from the website itself.

I appreciate the help of anyone replying. I am a big believer in the ability to figure out any solution on the internet, and hopefully I can get this website and company started. Thanks!