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where do you start if you want to create a web site?

I

Icey101

Jun 22, 2011
492
10
Australia Victoria
#1
one of my mates asked me to help him start a web site, he has just gone into business for himself and thinks i am some IT guru....well little does he know all my grand knowledge just comes from here :)

He wants something semi professional, are there sites i can go to DIY style? Are there charges?
 
#4
The first step I took when figuring it out from scratch last year was learning Joomla!, which is open source content management web-design software that doesn't require coding knowledge for most of its functions. I went the Joomla! route because the site I had to design needed to have multiple user accounts each posting content and that kind of functionality is built in.

I think most people should probably go the wordpress route instead if that need isn't part of their first website. It's similar software with a slightly smaller learning curve and a larger network of people making free plugins for it. Go check it out; it was designed as blogging software, but the free plug ins available mean you can format it as any kind of webpage you can imagine.

Both are free, open-source software and both have giant communities of contributors making all sorts of plug ins and very adjustable templates for them. Some offered for free, some very nice ones you can pay (IMO as a newb to the industry) reasonable prices for.
 
#6
+1 to everything dullsilver mike said, with joomla and wordpress. -1 to Godaddy templates, because if you decide to change hosts, or if your design needs and abilities expand, you are hosed and have to start from scratch. With open CMS you can start with free templates, and the only limitation is how in depth you learn to write their code.

Also it is good to have a grasp of html and css; check out the many good primers such as the one at maricopa.edu .
 
#7
dullsilver_mike said:
The first step I took when figuring it out from scratch last year was learning Joomla!, which is open source content management web-design software that doesn't require coding knowledge for most of its functions. I went the Joomla! route because the site I had to design needed to have multiple user accounts each posting content and that kind of functionality is built in.

I think most people should probably go the wordpress route instead if that need isn't part of their first website. It's similar software with a slightly smaller learning curve and a larger network of people making free plugins for it. Go check it out; it was designed as blogging software, but the free plug ins available mean you can format it as any kind of webpage you can imagine.

Both are free, open-source software and both have giant communities of contributors making all sorts of plug ins and very adjustable templates for them. Some offered for free, some very nice ones you can pay (IMO as a newb to the industry) reasonable prices for.
Click to expand...

I'm with Mike too.

I just built a WordPress site. It took me a while to understand how to use WP but after I did, it was quite simple actually. It will still take work though. I started with a template from www.themeforest.net and worked around the pages I liked. You will want to use a "responsive" theme, which adjusts the site you build for different platforms, like tablet, cell phone, laptop and desktop. It will make it look nice no matter where it is viewed. I am now building my second site. WP is great. If I needed help, I just googled it - for example, I needed code to add google directions and a map to my site, and I basically cut and pasted it into the page where I wanted it, sans changing the easily identifiable details.
 
#9
We have pulled all our stuff from GoDaddy - they became a PITA to work with. We use 1&1 for all our hosting - great, stable company to work with, very easy to use web site builder with tons of templates. Cheaper, too.

For a REAL site - the key is to learn to use WordPress as mentioned above. This is a real web site creation platform with zillions of customizable templates available, both free and paid. If you choose a paid version, the makers will help you customize it.
 
#10
Bassamatic said:
We have pulled all our stuff from GoDaddy - they became a PITA to work with. We use 1&1 for all our hosting - great, stable company to work with, very easy to use web site builder with tons of templates. Cheaper, too.

For a REAL site - the key is to learn to use WordPress as mentioned above. This is a real web site creation platform with zillions of customizable templates available, both free and paid. If you choose a paid version, the makers will help you customize it.
Click to expand...
Agreed on Godaddy, they are the worst I've experienced in 17-18 years of buying hosting services. Impossible back-end, predatory billing practices, high pricing and uncooperation if you try to pull away from them. There is a reason thousands of people cheered when Anonymous attacked their servers twice last year.

Wordpress is great, huge community, lots of help and free code. But don't grab plug-ins(helper modules) willy-nilly, look for ones with 4+ stars, lots of downloads, a continuous history of upgrades/tweaks by the developer. Since everything resides on the host server I can actually do minor tweaks on the cell phone.

For bands you can grab the Reverbnation widgets and have your music, a fan collector and an event notifier up and running in a few minutes. I'd recommend Woo Commerce (Wordpress plug-in) for setting up a store....you can be accepting paypal in less than an hour for both physical and downloadable products.
 
#11
I just built our site on Amazon S3. That with route53 for dns costs only 51 cents per month. The only thing you don't get is server side scripting, but I tied into reverbnation for all their widgets. To save on bandwidth charges I am planning on tying into Facebook for photos.

Please have a look, and I would be happy to answer any how - to questions!

Link Removed
 
#12
edpal said:
I'd recommend Woo Commerce (Wordpress plug-in) for setting up a store....you can be accepting paypal in less than an hour for both physical and downloadable products.
Click to expand...

I used Woo Widgets on my site. It allowed me to switch out different widgets to the sidebars, when usually you can't because of the CSS (I think this is the reason).The fact that you posted this tells me their other stuff is probably good too.
 

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