New Website Questions

wildest_jjk · 22 Mar 2015 at 11:22

Hey guys,

I've just been asked by a friend if I could create her a website for a business that she is trying to start up. I'm interested in doing this because I have a bit of experience creating websites normally just from HTML.

For this site I was thinking of giving wordpress a go to try and make the site look professional whilst making it easy for her to make changes when needed. Does that sound reasonable? I just want to make sure before I get into it.

Also does anyone have any suggestions about how to do this on a budget? It's her first website so she is not wanting to spend loads. I think she might want her own domain name but in terms of things like hosting where are good places to get a basic website hosted either for free or very cheap?

Thanks

Aston998 · 22 Mar 2015 at 11:35

Hello,
There is a couple of things you could do. You could Wordpress as you have said, the problem with it is that sometimes you can't arrange like you want too. What i would do if i was you is find a free template from a website and change it to your friends needs, I am doing a computer degree at the moment and have made many website either from a template or from blank, I am more than willing to give you a hand or advice.

Cheers
Aston

wildest_jjk · 22 Mar 2015 at 11:45

Aston998 said:
Hello,
There is a couple of things you could do. You could Wordpress as you have said, the problem with it is that sometimes you can't arrange like you want too. What i would do if i was you is find a free template from a website and change it to your friends needs, I am doing a computer degree at the moment and have made many website either from a template or from blank, I am more than willing to give you a hand or advice.

Cheers
Aston

Thanks for the response and the offer

I was thinking in a similar way to what you have posted. For example I had a quick look at templates because I have gone down that route before however it hasn't always been easy for the person who it's for when they come to edit things.

I looked at this website as an example: http://www.html5up.net/

There are a couple of nice HTML5 templates which I could modify I just don't know if it's the best outcome for them. The other problem is hosting as well if I go down that route.

Thanks again

Aston998 · 22 Mar 2015 at 11:56

Are you looking at putting in CSS too? or just HTML?

Your welcome for the offer,

Regarding hosting, hosting and domain names don't cost that much, It up to you at the end of the day. but i'll say either build it from blank or find a template and change it as needed. If you are looking at hosting then GoDaddy does it, Its £4.99/month and that has 100 GB Storage,Unlimited Bandwidth,100 Email Addresses. I am more than willing to help you if you go down that route.

http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/ has some good free templates.

Cheers
A

xbenjiiman · 22 Mar 2015 at 13:14

The hard part is, if you're creating a template for Wordpress then it's not just plain-sailing HTML. There's a lot of PHP and logic that goes into the templates to render the content.

Si105 · 22 Mar 2015 at 14:07

Bootstrap framework has a lot of free and pay for templates. If you don't have experience with server side languages then you should stick to a CMS like Wordpress.

Aston998 · 22 Mar 2015 at 14:21

xbenjiiman said:
The hard part is, if you're creating a template for Wordpress then it's not just plain-sailing HTML. There's a lot of PHP and logic that goes into the templates to render the content.

Very true but i was saying if he wanted to build it from blank! i have used Wordpress in the pass, i know how to use it but i am not a great fan of it.

Randomface74 · 22 Mar 2015 at 14:27

I'd send her to squrespace.com or equivalent.

It probably won't be worth your time to take this project on.

radderfire · 22 Mar 2015 at 15:23

I would imagine that Wordpress is a bit of a learning overhead, but of course it is useful to understand it. It powers millions of websites worldwide. It just depends how much learning you want to do just to build a small site. If you've got the time and it's worth it for you, then learn Wordpress. If not, keep it simple with a basic HTML site that you create yourself. These resources might be useful:

http://webref.eu/web-design-tutorials.php

Aston998 · 22 Mar 2015 at 16:29

I agree with the above post, You could also use W3School too.

cats_five · 22 Mar 2015 at 18:37

A simple site with Wordpress is very easy so long as you can find a template you like, and keeping it up-to-date is easy as well which matters.

Aston998 · 22 Mar 2015 at 21:24

Yep very true point

But i stil would prefer to start from blank.