Creating a Web Site

[Starfishy]

My brother asked me for some advice on building a website for his small contracting company. He came to me because I am the family "computer wiz". However, I know absolutely nothing about writing code, hosting??, design, etc.

Is it an easy enough process for a n00b? Do we need to buy software? Free software? Any tips/advice would be great.

Thanks in advance CP.

[JohnnyB]

I just finished building my first site hosted on my own domain. I used Bluehost as the hosting company to register the domain name and then used their simple scripts to install the Concrete 5 CMS. There is a simple script for Joomla too, which is a more commonly used and sophisticated CMS, but Concrete 5 is more user friendly.

Speaking as someone who did this for the first time, it's not a really difficult thing to do. Once you've got your domain hosted and use a simple script to set up your CMS then you just need to choose a template for the website and start plugging your content in.

EDIT: Here is a link to the website I built. It's not extremely sophisticated or anything, but I just used a free template for it. The process of building the site is very quick once you've got your content ready, and there are a lot more really nice looking templates that you can find with either Concrete 5 or Joomla if you're willing to drop a few bucks.

[Barnes]

http://www.squarespace.com

[Starfishy]

Originally Posted by Barnes

http://www.squarespace.com

Wow, that site is pretty nice. I just checked it out and it looks super easy. I fired up the free trial, and my site is 123company.squarespace.com. How can I get it to be 123company.com. I realize this involves hosting my own domain, but can I move my squarespace.com to my own host?

Thanks,

[DownInFlames]

There's a setting in the squarespace controls to use a custom domain. You'll have to tell your registrar to point your URL to squarespace, but they have tutorials to show you how it's done.

http://manual.squarespace.com/domain-setup/

[Deegee]

I have always used notepad for creating websites. It's free and fairly flexible in what you can do.

[llama64]

Originally Posted by Deegee

I have always used notepad for creating websites. It's free and fairly flexible in what you can do.

If you're going to build it by hand in straight HTML, get a decent text editor at least. Something like Notepad++

To the OP - assuming they just want a simple website, maybe a couple pages with some contact info on it, install Wordpress and go buy a premium theme for it. You'll find this is the most adaptable solution out there for a small site. I highly recommend Dreamhost for this type of setup - hosting is a breeze, support is awesome and it's cheap as heck.

If the company is larger then 2-3 people and you want to use your website as an actual marketing tool, go hire a professional to build it for you. An amateur website is a marketing liability. Just be sure to do your due diligence when picking a web developer/designer/company.

Edit: and for the love of all that is holy and right in the world, do not use Dreamweaver/Frontpage or any other desktop WYSIWYG software to build your HTML.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by llama64

If you're going to build it by hand in straight HTML, get a decent text editor at least. Something like Notepad++

To the OP - assuming they just want a simple website, maybe a couple pages with some contact info on it, install Wordpress and go buy a premium theme for it. You'll find this is the most adaptable solution out there for a small site. I highly recommend Dreamhost for this type of setup - hosting is a breeze, support is awesome and it's cheap as heck.

If the company is larger then 2-3 people and you want to use your website as an actual marketing tool, go hire a professional to build it for you. An amateur website is a marketing liability. Just be sure to do your due diligence when picking a web developer/designer/company.

Edit: and for the love of all that is holy and right in the world, do not use Dreamweaver/Frontpage or any other desktop WYSIWYG software to build your HTML.

Good post. I recommend checking out CanadianWebHosting.com as well. $4-$5 per month hosting. I use it for most of my small business sites.

I second the Wordpress recommendation. There are loads of themes out there, you'll find something that satisfies your requirements.

Wordpress is super easy to use. You'll have to set up the database but any host worth a damn will have a cpanel/phpmyadmin type tool that will make that pretty easy.

Of course, hiring a professional will save you loads of time and will produce a better final product.

[llama64]

CanadianWebHosting.com is awesome, especially for VPS type services. The reason I suggest Dreamhost over them or Bluehost is that Dreamhost has a custom control panel that is far simpler to use then cPanel. It also has a one click Wordpress install script that works very nicely.

[Russic]

You sound like a strong squarespace candidate. Love SS.

[Jayems]

Quick question:

I'm looking to get a new website. I'm not good at making websites, nor am I rich enough to pay someone thousands to make me one.

I've started thinking about purchasing a template. THey're relatively inexpensive and are just what I'm looking for.

First, here's the template I'm looking at:

http://www.templatemonster.com/flash...tes/33464.html

My question is, once I buy it, and I load it up in dreamweaver or whatever, I'm assuming they're completely customizable? IE: you can remove that logo in top left, change all the wording, add galleries as needed?

Once everything was all said and done... how do you remove the old website and put that one in? (Super n00b question, I'm sure.. but I had someone do it all for me).

Following that, every time I want to edit the page, add news or new photos, how easy would it be using this type of template to update? Would that all have to be done offline and then just make the changes behind the scenes?

I like the idea of squarespace, but I already have a domain. I assume i could just direct it to my domain.

I like the look of this site, but I can't seem to re-create it in the free trial:

http://www.brilliantshadow.com/

Any tips?

For the record, the brilliant shadow one is something I'm more interested in having as my website. Specifically, the way the galleries look.

Thanks.

[KTrain]

You don't want a Flash template if you're going to be updating it yourself. It's definitely not as easy as a regular html/css theme.

I would suggest looking at Wordpress. There are lots of photography templates (http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wordpr...dpress-themes/). You'd be able to set up your Wordpress site in the "background" while you develop it. Once it's ready you'll be able to make it your "live" site pretty easy.

[Jayems]

thanks, ill look into that.

[La Flames Fan]

Originally Posted by llama64

CanadianWebHosting.com is awesome, especially for VPS type services. The reason I suggest Dreamhost over them or Bluehost is that Dreamhost has a custom control panel that is far simpler to use then cPanel. It also has a one click Wordpress install script that works very nicely.

We used to use Dreamhost, but left after a few downtime periods even on a VPS. Moved over to MT (mediatemple) and love it. We're on just grid service and it's spectacular. In the last three years we've had one downtime period. We often get big spikes in traffic and it performs like a star. They're support is also top, top notch.

CanSpace is our domain registrant...good prices (9.75/year).

[KTrain]

I use Media Temple's grid server as well. Being able to host 100 domains for the same price is pretty awesome. 1000 emails. The admin side is super easy. $20 a month is pretty good deal if you're going to be using multiple domains.

We also host Own This World with Media Temple on a dedicated virtual server. It'd been great as well. We'll be moving up our package soon when we expand the game further.

[llama64]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

We used to use Dreamhost, but left after a few downtime periods even on a VPS. Moved over to MT (mediatemple) and love it. We're on just grid service and it's spectacular. In the last three years we've had one downtime period. We often get big spikes in traffic and it performs like a star. They're support is also top, top notch.

CanSpace is our domain registrant...good prices (9.75/year).

Interesting.. I've used MediaTemple twice (grid and VPS). The Grid hosting was atrocious for me (incredibly slow database server) and I got treated like crap by their support. Their VPS was quite nice though.

Guess that's how it goes with shared hosting - very hit and miss.

@KTrain, surprised you guys aren't using a cloud host for Own This World. Cheaper on a VPS?

[La Flames Fan]

Originally Posted by llama64

Interesting.. I've used MediaTemple twice (grid and VPS). The Grid hosting was atrocious for me (incredibly slow database server) and I got treated like crap by their support. Their VPS was quite nice though.

Guess that's how it goes with shared hosting - very hit and miss.

@KTrain, surprised you guys aren't using a cloud host for Own This World. Cheaper on a VPS?

It's true, very much a personal experience with hosting. Some probably love dreamhost, I disliked it.

Which actually leads me to question...anyone know of a video platform that could potentially be used by clients? Along the lines of flamestv...We'd have to build it from the ground uip, but I'm interested in what technologies are out there to build with.

I've come across mediacore, but maybe there's something else out there.

[Jayems]

Made the jump, went with WordPress. The support community is fantastic with Elegant Themes (which is what I went with). Have found answers to all my problems in a matter of minutes on their support forum.

[Ozy_Flame]

Dot Net Nuke, anyone?

[will26]

I have a business website running and I used a wysiwyg editor. My web hosting provider offers one but their are plenty free out there. Just make sure the html code that the program generates isn't messed up in the end. And always make sure that you site is working with IE and Firefox (other browsers aren't that important).