Making a website?

[Ayla of Duluth]

Hi mers
I've been having a graphic designer make me a logo for business cards, and when I told him the email address I wanted on the card, [aylaofduluth@aol.com] he suggested making a website for myself so my email would be something like ayla@aylaofduluth.com.

How do I do this? Mostly what I'm wondering is, is it free to make my own website? I'm kind of on a tight budget, but I also want to look as professional as possible.
What are some sites I can go to to start said website?

Any advice you guys have would be awesome. :)

[Mermaid Sirena]

Do Not Use Wix, I would suggest Flavors.me or wordpress. A website can be free however to get your own domain & email (ayla@aylaofduluth.com) is not free, the cost can vary a bit so do a little research.

[Merman Dan]

While not free, a WordPress site hosted by Network Solutions is reasonably priced.

[Mermaid Saphira]

Vistaprint offter websites, I never tried it but it looks okay

[Ayla of Duluth]

hmm, the wordpress thing is a bit confusing, but vistaprint looks reasonable. How do I know if they'll let me have my own domain name? I can't seem to find anything anywhere

[Mermaid Saphira]

I'm not really sure, I think they do. Maybe you could ask?

[Mermaid Sirena]

Domain names are an interesting dance between being attached to the web host (the site that has your site) and being separate. Perhaps this will help (http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/02/27/how-to-buy-domain-names-like-a-pro-10-tips-from-the-founder-of-phonetagcom/)?

[Raina Matthews]

Most Hosting provides will help you get setup with a Domain as well as web space. So for example if you go to GoDaddy (which I don't recommend personally (had horrible experiences), you can purchase the domain name for say $20 a year, and then they'll offer you a hosting package as well for day $15 a month.

Once you get the hosting setup though it can be quite a different story getting content on it. Some hosting providers will provide pre-bundled content solutions (like wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc) while others won't.

Shoot me an IM if you'd like, and I'll be more than happy to answer any and all questions you have (I do web development for a living :) )

[Mermaid Sirena]

^ RM knows their stuff you should defiantly ask them.

[Merman Dan]

A bit more about WordPress Hosting from Network Solutions (http://www.networksolutions.com/web-hosting/wordpress/index.jsp) . I started using WordPress for my D&D game blog ( Squidieval (http://www.squidieval.com/) ) when I learned Apple's iWeb was no longer going to be supported. I hunted for easy to learn solutions and WordPress fit the bill.

[Ayla of Duluth]

that article makes everything sound scary and dangerous :s

[Spindrift]

I've doing web design for 8 years to get me through school and college and stuff. Basically what you can do to get that email is that you can buy the domain name, register the email with @aylaofduluth.com, and then set up a regular email account that is linked to the @aylaofdulth.com address. So, say, if you're using gmail you can just log into gmail and get all the email from ayla@aylaofduluth.com. That's how I've always done it.

[Ayla of Duluth]

I used to believe I was computer savvy...but then I took this thread to the knee.

[Ayla of Duluth]

Um...Raina?... How much would I have to pay you to help me get a website started? :3

[green52]

I know the feeling. Its crazy how much there is to know about the internet. Stay calm, though. The bottom line is that it isn't too hard or expensive to setup a website. I'm not going to go into my personal experience because I'm afraid of misinforming you, but if you'd like to know anything else about what I did to setup a simple website, message me.

[Raina Matthews]

Um...Raina?... How much would I have to pay you to help me get a website started? :3

I don't charge for helping people. if however, you want to make a donation to the 'get Raina a decent tail' fund, then that would be appreciated, but certainly not required :)

[Ayla of Duluth]

Of course. :) how do I donate?

[Raina Matthews]

Of course. :) how do I donate?

well lets do the work first, then we can work out details like that :).
I'll PM you my email :)

[Mermaid Marissa]

Do Not Use Wix, I would suggest Flavors.me or wordpress. A website can be free however to get your own domain & email (ayla@aylaofduluth.com) is not free, the cost can vary a bit so do a little research.

why not wix?

[Spindrift]

Well, I may just be a website snob, but having a Wix site is like advertising that you're not professional and don't know how to handle having a website. :\
Someone else said, "Wix is for people who have graduated from using MySpace as their web site building platform of choice."
Having a Flash-based website is like, one of the worst ideas ever, especially with the advent of HTML 6. And they are annoying to navigate.
Although it's free and has a WYSIWYG building tool, it is slow, buggy, and horrible (but compatible) with search engine optimization (SEO) - you know, if you want to be found on Google and stuff.

Why Flash Websites Suck:

http://glyphobet.net/blog/essay/206
http://www.x-pose.org/blog/85/
http://www.macopinion.com/index.php/site/more/top_ten_reasons_why_flash_sucks/
http://flashsucks.org/ ****** Read this one if you're only going to check out one of the links!
Wix hate: http://amplicate.com/hate/wix

But, if all you want is just a simple website, Wix may be the One for you.
In my job as a professional web designer, I refuse to build Flash websites for my clients, although I've been asked many, many times. After explaining to them why, every one of them agreed.

[Mermaid Marissa]

What would you suggest for a website? Since I am still in highschool I can't pay a web designer :(

[Spindrift]

What would you suggest for a website? Since I am still in highschool I can't pay a web designer :(

How much coding experience do you have? It also depends on what features you want on it. There are a lot of ways to do it, depending if you understand what's going on or not. You can use a free template, or buy one, and upload that to your host+domain, and then edit it to suit your needs. Or you can use FrontPage or Dreamweaver and design it yourself from scratch. Or you can use Wordpress, Blogger, or a ton of other sites similar to that. If you are including extra features like a store, you might want to consider a CMS-based approach (Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress), but you have to make sure that your host is compatible and will host those kind of websites (MYSQL, PHP, etc). It also has to have the bandwidth and space to support it.

There are also a ton of other ways to approach this, so you should definitely look around for more ideas! :)

[Ayla of Duluth]

It's like people are talking in some strange language @,,@

[Raina Matthews]

The last things you really want for a professional business website are
1. a site that looks exactly like a ton of other sites out there
2. a site some people can't even see! :)

both are areas where Wix falls down.

Being a template driven site the 'originality' factor becomes harder to achieve, since there's a finite number of variations available on the site. Certainly the same argument could be made with things like wordpress, but you also have the ability to generate your own custom templates for that, and so you need not rely on the default templates provided.

Also as Spindrift alluded to, flash is quite possibly the worst thing in the world to use for a website. why? well go take a look at any flash site on an iPhone/iPad for starters. They don't even support flash and so will end up showing nothing. not a good thing, if you're trying to promote a business and your customers can't even see your site.

[Merman Dan]

A sampling of free ocean-themed WordPress themes:

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn214/WP-Themes/10320-1-1_640_480.jpg

http://imgsvr1.wplayout.com/free-wordpress-theme-fishing-catfish_600x.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1gJ3zczp9tc/TnYuSpbRAKI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/6rK9IKBgLFk/s1600/ocean_joomla_template.jpg

You can lose hours, scouring the internet for themes ;)

[Angel the Little Merman]

Now I'm nervous cause I sign on to Wix to make my website but if I'm hearing that it's crappy then I should be giving second thoughts. Well at least it's not publish yet maybe I should try something else. Well I guess I should use WordPress.

[Lyna]

websites and domains aren't free, but they aren't too expensive either. some are like 10$ per year. you can always make a facebook page. that's free. and you know it will get seen. people are addicted to that site. and it's so easy to search. normally the first place i look for something after wikipedia.

[spottedcatfish]

If you have a google account you can create a free website using their website service. However it is linked with google and your account. So you would not have your own domain name or space, and the email that you would have would be with google, or whatever email you have on your account. I'm not sure about the website functionality, but if you wanted a personal website for free, this would be a good suggestion.

Here is the website to get to the Google sites:
https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.c om%2F&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2F&service=jotspot&passive=true&ul=1

[Ayla of Duluth]

See mine doesn't need to be free. I can afford the suprisingly reasonable fees. And I need my own domain name to look more professional. But that's where building the site gets hard. Once you seperate yourself from a host like google, you're on your own for figuring stuff out.

[Mermaid Arianna]

try weebly! looks more professional then wix and its really easy. and i dont think a domain name is super expensive, just upgrade your site. :)

[Mermaid Momo]

yeah weebly is an awesome site maker. i believe there's another free site maker/host at moonfruit.com though i've never tried it. there's also a wa to get a free co.nr web adress a good example is here: http://www.dreammanga.co.nr they only ak that you have a link to their page on your's (as you can see on the dream manga pages) and the neopets website has a super easy coding/HTML tutorial page.

[Mermaid Momo]

i got the adress wrong, its actually http://www.dream-manga.co.nr

[Spindrift]

Just going to leave this here: http://gmailblog.blogspot.hk/2010/05/10-tips-for-using-gmail-at-work.html (one way to get that ____@mermaidwhatever.com email address).

[Raayvhen]

Ayla, what if you still used something like wordpress but paid for the domain through them? Its VERY user friendly and the benefits of a paid subscription. Its only about $8.25 a month. I suggest you take a look and if you need any help I'm more than willing.

[Ayla of Duluth]

Raina Matthews is throwing together a website for me and I believe she's using wordpress. I've never made a website before, never knew even the most basic things about it, so everything is just easier to have an experienced person do it. However, I'm going to be updating my site frequently with events and announcements, so I'm going to learn how to at least do that eventually. Maybe I'll take a community Ed class on website making.