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Web-site design?

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nhclone

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Nov 20, 2008
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Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?


PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.
 
nhclone said:
Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?


PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.
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I have a buddy that is building one. He hasn't ever built one before and is just using a "how-to" book. It's been pretty successful, but a lot more work than he had intended.
 
nhclone said:
Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?


PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.
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Do you have some software? Photoshop,Fireworks, Dreamweaver are a good start. As a student of faculty member at most colleges--you can buy for a huge discount.
 
nhclone said:
Anyone here ever started their own website? I'm considering it so I can build some skills with html coding for use with potential future business ventures. It will probably just be a pretty basic blog type website that allows me to spend most of my time tinkering with features. Any tips/advice/stories?


PS. By posting in this thread, you are hereby admitting that the offseason is in full force and boredom has completely set in.
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I do web design for a living, and also do some moonlighting. If you are looking for help, PM me.
 
I have made several websites that are actually Wordpress.com blogs (not Wordpress.org). It requires no coding skills whatsoever.

It costs $17/year for your own URL. If you are just going for a site that just has information, this is the way to go. If you want to sell stuff online, or have some other special features, you're probably better off with a site not hosted/maintained via wordpress.com.

Wordpress.org gives you pretty much all of the tools that Wordpress.com has, except you have more flexibility, and can host it on a different server.
 
colbycheese said:
I have made several websites that are actually Wordpress.com blogs (not Wordpress.org). It requires no coding skills whatsoever.

It costs $17/year for your own URL. If you are just going for a site that just has information, this is the way to go. If you want to sell stuff online, or have some other special features, you're probably better off with a site not hosted/maintained via wordpress.com.

Wordpress.org gives you pretty much all of the tools that Wordpress.com has, except you have more flexibility, and can host it on a different server.
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But then you have a wordpress site like every other dude living in his parents basement. And 99% of the time it looks like a crappy wordpress site.
 
Ames said:
But then you have a wordpress site like every other dude living in his parents basement. And 99% of the time it looks like a crappy wordpress site.
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What's with the wordpress hate? I live in my own apartment with my beautiful wife, thank you very much... and I manage 4 different wordpress websites, two of which are for non-profits.
 
I've made several over the years (FreeLucca.com as an example... was that really 5 years ago?). I always do it from scratch (with a text editor, not a WYSIWYG editor) so that I can control all the layout and CSS usage.

Feel free to PM if you have any questions about playing in HTML code.
 
colbycheese said:
What's with the wordpress hate? I live in my own apartment with my beautiful wife, thank you very much... and I manage 4 different wordpress websites, two of which are for non-profits.
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The hate is they almost always end up looking like a templated wordpress site. Get a real designer to make it look good. Even better yet get a real coder to make it function well.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys. Got it up and running end of last week. Pretty basic for now as I learn more along the way. Not using wordpress for now, I'll see where things go. The beauty of it, I can write about anything I want. The first real article I posted was picking a national champion for college football.....I'm less qualified for that than Steve Deace. LOL

Kind of just going to play around for a while and write articles as topics come to me. It's not in any way going to be a money making blog, but the experience designing the website should help with some business ideas down the road.
 
Ames said:
The hate is they almost always end up looking like a templated wordpress site. Get a real designer to make it look good. Even better yet get a real coder to make it function well.
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Or spend the $70 for a nice template.

HTML websites are static pages, used only to show information.

Wordpress is an open source CMS. Developers will allows be making it better, adding new widgets, designing new templates, etc. Yes, if you use the standard template they give you, then it will look like everyone else's. I paid the $70 for a template and changed the coding as I wished in Dreamweaver.
 
Cyclone1985 said:
Or spend the $70 for a nice template.

HTML websites are static pages, used only to show information.

Wordpress is an open source CMS. Developers will allows be making it better, adding new widgets, designing new templates, etc. Yes, if you use the standard template they give you, then it will look like everyone else's. I paid the $70 for a template and changed the coding as I wished in Dreamweaver.
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Thank you for the lesson on HTML. I didn't realize it was a platform for static info sites only. I had been thinking it was a markup language.

Is your day job stopping by web dev companies, firing everyone, and replacing them with a $70 template and some Dreamweaver coding?
 
I'll second the suggestion of using w3schools. Very well layed out, very good information, and you'll learn how to do things far beyond what any template can do for you.

That's not to say templates are bad though. I've made a few websites, and I generally find a template to work from, and then improve upon it. Saves you from having to do some of the basic work.
 
Ames said:
Thank you for the lesson on HTML. I didn't realize it was a platform for static info sites only. I had been thinking it was a markup language.

Is your day job stopping by web dev companies, firing everyone, and replacing them with a $70 template and some Dreamweaver coding?
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Why would anyone hire a dev company, get charged $75/hr, have them drag on the process for 6 months just to get a website some kid in high school could have done himself?

Odds are, unless you're an ecommerce site or forum or some other specialty site, people are going to your website to see a portfolio of work and contact information. Thats it. Don't need to hire a dev team for $10,000 to design an online business card.
 
Using Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla or another option similar to those is likely the best route to go. Templates (free) are readily available for you to customized however you would like while also learning some coding. The sites also offer up plenty of canned options of widgets, etc. that you can add with very little coding too.

I have my personal website and the Recruit Lists site made with WordPress and I think both of them look pretty good and definitely don't have a canned look to them.
 
Cyclone1985 said:
Why would anyone hire a dev company, get charged $75/hr, have them drag on the process for 6 months just to get a website some kid in high school could have done himself?

Odds are, unless you're an ecommerce site or forum or some other specialty site, people are going to your website to see a portfolio of work and contact information. Thats it. Don't need to hire a dev team for $10,000 to design an online business card.
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Why would you hire a marketing guy when you can just get a high school kid to write some words?

I'm going to go ahead and say most web dev companies know what HTML is. You might want to figure out what HTML is yourself before you give out website advice.

If you are doing a forum that is a case where you should use boxed software. VBulletin is pretty much the standard. It's a case where looking the same and working the same is good. No learning curve for users.

Ecommerce definitely hire a pro.

Info site for a company you should hire a pro. You want a good design so you stand out from your competitors. You want domain, dns, and email setup properly. Setup Analytics properly and more importantly understand what it's saying. SEO gets thrown around too much, but it does need to be done right. You might want Adwords to get more traffic. You need it to look good on every platform including mobile. Most sites fail at good content. Good content and a marketing plan are a must. Too many companies just throw a template site out there with bad content and no plan for marketing. Then they wonder why it's not bringing in sales leads.

A good web dev is charging more than $75/hr; probably $100. If you pay $10,000 then you paid way too much; unless you got a logo, content writing, marketing, or something else done.
 
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