First web site advice

beans101 · 28 Jan 2011 at 19:47

Hi all

Long time reader first time poster.

Basically i would like to go ahead and design my own website for an online business myself as i feel asking a company to design it will be quite expensive. I am a complete Pc newb and have no idea about C+, coding and other jargon.

I belived i needed these items below
For hosting i as thinking vidahost after reading through forums, Website design software and FTP software to upload web design. Do i need dreamweaver too?

For a amateur such as myself instead of designing the site myself would vidahost allow me to design my site, choose templates and maintain a website for me?

All responses and advice much appreciated.

funkyphantom · 28 Jan 2011 at 20:52

Im a bit of a newb myself mate, but i think im right in saying Wordpress is maybe the best way for you to go. http://wordpress.org/

unwashed potato! · 28 Jan 2011 at 20:55

what do you mean maintain the website?

what is the site related to? as much as i like to hear people getting into this and such as do think this is a case of you do what you're good at and let people that are good at this area do this for you. say you're trying to sell clothes online. you'll waste hours and week and months getting the site ready, when instead you could get someone to do something basic and away you go in a couple days you're done.

if it's just a static site then you'll only need to learn html and css (not c++), and maybe a bit of php.

beans101 · 28 Jan 2011 at 21:34

thank you for quicky reply.. no Mammailian the website would be for selling clothes, food so it wont be static. I take your point let people that are good at this area do this for you.

How could i be away you go in a couple days?

gord · 28 Jan 2011 at 22:21

For you, the fastest route to having a web presence would be to get hosting with some sort of easy web design builder included. I believe quite a few offer this and it means you need relatively little skill.

I don't know if you can implement an ecommerce solution with these though. Selling online is another step on from simply advertising and requires data protection and security consideration.

If you want to learn how to do it yourself, you'll need at least 6 months to be any good. I don't like books so get on the tutorial sites like tizag.com and work your way through HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL. Read blogs, look at designs, try to copy other sites purely to see how much you can replicate.

Of course, you can always pay for the skills... but decent web devs are skilled people so as you say.. it can be quite expensive.

Staffy · 2 Feb 2011 at 23:51

If you don't have the budget to pay someone to take care of it for you then take a look at using a cms like Joomla, Drupal, wordpress. Nowadays they are easy to use and modify plus they have active communities behind them which are usually willing to help sometimes for a small fee to cover their time.

Using the above will generally be more secure than trying to code something yourself and there are many companies / web devs who know how to bend them to suit your needs.

Without knowing more info I can't offer more advice than that.

Xerco · 3 Feb 2011 at 00:43

finding a CMS with shop mods/addons is very easy and its become easyer and easyer to get your site how you want it with next to no knowledge at all.

Many cms's have a huge range of free themes available which can be easy to edit allowing you to have the look you want.

beans101 · 3 Feb 2011 at 20:46

Thanks very much guys. After listerning to everyones advice i think for me it would be finding a CMS with shop mods/addons as it would be a consumer website where people could buy household items.