Hi Charlie

I had a go using vistaprint. I hadnt a clue. The site would not do as i wanted. (im definately not a web designer), i knew what i wanted but to make the pictures go where I wanted them, vistaprint were helpful when i rang them, buy I was pretty useless, so much so i managed to set up 2 and they had to cancel one. Anyway to cut a long story short, i now have a professional site and it only costs me the same as doing it myself. My advice is unless you are good at web design and have experience then leave it to someone who does. You can still change it, but it makes you think about it rather than just chance it on a whim, which is probably a good thing.

Another thing was I'd gone with my site for a few months and got knowwhere, the first day my new website went live, someone saw it and became my first client.

Anyway best of luck whatever you do as Im sure your web designing skills are better than mine. 

Very best wishes 

 

Lainy 

Kris did mine too Amanda, and the first day it went live I got my first client, Im thrilled with mine. Which is your website? Anyway have a great weekend everyone and best of luck charlie whatever you decide to do.

kind regards

Elaine

I bought Serif software. It was about £80 I think. It comes with tutorials and basic templates. I didn't like the templates, read the book it came with and now have a lovely website which is on page 1 of google searches for where I live. It did take me a day or two of really concentrating on it and I spent about £30 on photos to go on it but I'm glad I did it, I have control and don't have to pay for updates. I had always wanted to learn how to build websites as well so I achieved that goal too.

Hi Princess,

Thanks for the reply. Do you think I can have a look at what you've built, I'd like to see what's possible. If you don't want to publish on this site my email is charliechava@Hotmail.co.uk.

Regards

Charlie

Thanks Shaun,

I don't think I ever had Kris down as the shy retiring type

My reply was addressed to Princess.

Cheers

Charle

Hi Moderators,

Can someone please close this thread, it's now too far off the subject. I'll try to ask the question again.

Thanks

Charlie

Serif transfer the name for you for about £5 I think. When you build the site it automatically builds it so that it looks OK on mobile devices as well. I also didn't know where to start but their tutorials are great and it's very easy. Serif's website has youtube videos on how your website might look and you really can build them like they show.

I also used Webnode when I first started. They have many templates which you can use and adapt. But I was kicked down the rankings overnight and my position was never recovered (maybe because they aren't a UK company? who knows) which is what prompted me to move. Someone like webnode is even easier than serif because you just have to pay your money and type in text but they are more expensive. Their wegsites are also mobile friendly.

With Serif you have a one off cost at the start and then pay for hosting annually. I use Heart Internet for hosting (although Serif offer that too which makes it even easier as their software is already set up for it, but it's not the cheapest). Heart have an excellent helpdesk that respond promptly. Again, they take you through everything. You put your hosting details into the Serif software and it publishes it for you at the click of a button. Once set up it's very easy to publish updates. I have also now purchased a few other URLs which I can link to the website.

If you have the time to spend a few days learning the software and building your website then have a go as having the control going forwards will save you money and the sense of achievement is great!. If not then pay someone else to do it for you. I was a complete novice at all of this but I think my website looks better than some designed by a local web designer. One of my clients had done his website and kept having a go at me about my website. He said he would help me if I got Serif. I decided to take him up on his offer after 6 months of reluctance (terrified of the technology!) but actually after getting it I didn't actually need his help.

I've just been learning Wordpress, and it's quite straightforward to put together a pretty decent site. It's hosted by UK Web Solutions Direct, and I installed it using Installatron that is part of the control panel for my web space, although lots of hosting companies use the same system. If you've had an IT consultancy you should find it pretty straightforward. It's very easy to edit and add content, and you could get someone to improve on your work later if you wanted to.

It's not the EPF Solutions one though, if you go searching for that! That one is a free template I found somewhere, and did lots of messing about with to keep my hand in with HTML and PHP, and to learn CSS!

Further to my earlier post, if you've got your heart set of trying it yourself here is some advice from me.  Learn html and css don't use one of the many building tools out there.  A lot of these use techniques to display data, that while the done thing years ago the web has moved on now.  Tables are now reserved for tabular data.  The main reason is the introduction of screen readers.  They read from top left to bottom right and in a table layout that wont always make sense.  The other reason is that with the increase of mobile devices we can no longer design for one screen size.  Websites now need to be responsive and look as good on a mobile as they do on a desktop.  

This leads me to the other failing of WYSIWYG software.  If they do use CSS they tend to use absolute screen references.  This means the page can't shrink.  A hack a lot of us (including myself with some early sites) used was to create a separate site for mobile, but with so many different screen sizes it's now not possible to have a different version of the site for each.  It also means keeping multiple sites up to date.

Current thinking, much of it because of the increase in screen readers and the ease with which changes can be made to a site, is to separate content and layout.  This means that all layout and styling is done in an external CSS file and called by the html file.  This makes a lot of sense if you want to make a colour change in a menu say.  Previously you'd have visited every page and changed the menu colour, now we just make one change in the CSS file and it's cascaded.

This leads to another time saver, templating.  If you use PHP rather than HTML for your code it allows you to call external files.  So you can have a header and a footer that is constant across the site and just change the middle content from page to page.  There is an argument about whether this is still best practice as it makes more calls on the server, but in modern times there is little delay.  Many more modern sites have an all-in-one layout like http://driving.tax-pal.co.uk where content is separated into sections rather than pages.

So my advice if you really want the challenge is: learn HTML, learn a bit of PHP, learn CSS and get a good tool like WebStorm to design in.  Have a look at a youtube channel called 'devtips' it's a good introduction.

Hope this helps,

Kris

"The thread answered the question and meandered along the way.
Thats simply the nature of the site internet

Fixed that for you, Shaun!

FWIW, I agree with what Kris said a few posts down from where you said that.

Registering a domain and getting a suitable hosting package is very easy and shouldn't cost too much - a .co.uk domain name is only a few squids per year, and very basic hosting doesn't necessarily have to cost a lot more than that, but bear in mind you do get what you pay for; for a small, simple set-up look for packages around £30-£50 per year and you should be alright.

(The domain registration can be done by the hosting company - and some will include a free domain with the hosting - and that makes it all very simple because that means the domain name will automatically be set up correctly to work with your hosting package, whereas if you use a different company for the domain registration there's a little more to do to set things up).

With the hosting and domain set up, you should have FTP access to the directory on the server in which your website needs to go. It's using this that you upload the HTML and CSS files that you can create in nothing more than Notepad (though sensible people use Notepad++ or similar - or in my case, StrongED).

If you don't want to learn HTML and CSS, then there's the option of paying someone to design a site for you - but be aware that a lot of professional web designers are expensive, and will happily design a flashy, fancy site that doesn't work in all browsers and on all platforms.

Personally, I take the view that it's the message that's important, and the design is just to make it look presentable, not to dazzle the visitor with silly gimmicks that make you wait for the information, or go to extra effort to find it! You can get people who will charge more reasonable prices to design with that philosophy.

As you might have guessed, I roll my own - though I do use WordPress on a couple of websites. (I don't generally offer my services as a web designer, though I have been known to do the odd one when asked. I find it's sometimes a struggle getting clients to tell me what they actually want, and to provide copy.)

Ah, I see a comment from John/EPF about WordPress. WordPress is actually pretty easy to install by hand - okay, I know I'm a geek and understand these things, but the WordPress peeps do have a quite straightforward step by step installation guide on their website. The hardest part is probably setting up the MySQL database first, and linking WordPress to that.

And Mad Liz: When it comes to websites, there is no such thing as WYSIWYG. It's really WYSIWYMGIOBBNNA-AGLIYTOWSTAW!

("What you see is what you might get in one browser, but not necessarily another - and good luck if you think others will see that as well!")

Charlie

 

I recently used Wix.........I did a search and this was ranked top (at the time.....next day it was 2nd!!).

Anyway, it was really intuitive and I built a site to be (relatively) proud of in less than a couple of days - the content taking up the time. I went from having nothing to having a website with a contact form/map etc and was quite pleased with myself. I do actually agree with getting a pro to do it....especially if you are luck enough to know one......but if money is an issue, then this is fine.

The only downside.....and the reason I haven't published it yet.....is that I already own a domain and the hosting is in place but it requires Wix to host your new website. I have asked a friend to look at this for me but whatever happens it will mean paying Wix something. It's probably not a lot, but free doesn't mean free!!

Non-technical opinion is that it was easy, professional looking and good fun. I can't share link as it is only viewable for now in my Wix account.

Good luck!

R

Sorry the correct link for my site is: http://youpayroll.co.uk,

Thanks Chris

Use wordpress, it's very simple, free/cheap, has lots of features and is completely customizable. I use it for my site howtobookkeep.com

To clarify what 'Howtobookkeep' just said:

Use the .com version of the site if you want to set up a site, using and hosted by Wordpress!

Use the .org version of the site if your name is either Vince or Kris. ;)