Web site build help

Gregster6

Gregster6

Gregster6

Associate
Joined
25 Sep 2006
Posts
136
Guys,

I’d appreciate a spot of help.

My folks have a bed and breakfast and would like to quickly create a simple, website to support their sales and marketing. Their requirement is to be able to:
- describe the place
- show some pictures of rooms and exterior
- give some directions / rates / contact details etc
- have ability to update content every now and then

I have some time on my hands between now and Christmas and have offered to help out. I’m fairly handy with a PC (mainly office stuff) but am no professional designer or programmer. My working assumption right now is that I’m going to have a crack at this myself.

I’ve had a quick sniff around and think that before I start I need to:
- choose, register and pay for a domain name
- select a hosting service
- download a website building tool (or whatever you call it...was thinking of Wordpress

I'd be super grateful if knowledgable guys out there could give me some pointers with this stuff. My questions for now are:
  1. Am I stupid to try and do this myself?
  2. Are all cheap domain registration and hosting services much of a muchness or do some stand out as being better than the crowd? If so which ones?
  3. Is Wordpress a good place for a noob to start out or are there better / easier to use free or cheap development tools?

Thanks

Greg
 
1) No, not stupid to try and do it yourself. But you don't have much time and as such the quality of the site may suffer.

2) Much of a muchness for a registrar, but hosting is a different story. I'd get it all in one package from either Vidahost or TSOhost.

3) WP is fine as a starting CMS. I imagine Vida and TSO offer easy installations of WP which would get you up and running faster. Then think about buying a nice theme (themeforest.net) or maybe using a free one. And get your content uploaded.
 
Another nod for Vidahost. The guy who runs it is on here, and they've helped me out quite a bit with some server issues in the past.

Wordpress would be a good platform to build on because most of the complex stuff will be hidden. If you want to build yourself a custom design for it, that might be jumping in at the deep end somewhat as you'll have to be messing with PHP too, but if you can find a template you like in Wordpress's selection, you're laughing.
 
Joomla is definitely worth looking into. It's also free, and there is loads of support for it. I have done a few websites with it now, and there are some nice themes available for it.

Have a play with a few, see which one you take too most comfortably and use it.

It's easy to install through your control panel when you register and pay for hosting and a domain.

try "5 quid host" Their support is second to none. UK based, they respond within the hour to any problems and often fix issues for you personally by logging in as you. Only cost's £2 a month for you to run a basic site like you requested.
 
I'd go for Wordpress personally, but that's just me. Plenty of themes, plenty of plugins, pretty damn stable as well now. Vidahost or Tsohost are the 2 recommended hosts on here.
Gimme a shout if you need any help, it's no probs!
 
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