Starting a website.... advise please

[Ropi Jo]

Has anybody here ever set up there own website?

My wife runs a small non-profit cat rescue based in Essex (non profit??? It costs me a fortune!!). She currently has a Facebook page but it's very limiting and doesn't really fit her needs. It's good for getting local interest and putting her rescue in front of people but she wants to lay out everything in her way. We think having her own website, linked to from the Facebook page, will be a good way to achieve this.

Obviously, as she's self funded, we don't really want to be spending a fortune on this. We also don't want to be paying somebody to set this up.

We've seen some sites on google that offer this and that, but they all seem to be American.

Can anybody offer any advise on how to go about this?

Thanks.

 

[neoretro]

I use GoDaddy.

Probably not the cheapest, probably not the best. But definitely not the most expensive or worst.

It’s fairly simple and the templates are good.

 

[strykr]

I did a combo of wix and godaddy for mine, pretty cheap and easy, plenty of bolt on options if you want all the analytics etc.

 

[Ropi Jo]

I've seen those. I don't know what bolt-ons we would want, if any. I don't know what's already included. Do you get your own name? For example....Annes Cattery.co.uk?

 

[ColinD]

I used godaddy and wordpress if I recall... I have done very little with it since setting up and I'm not very savvy at all when it comes to websites - this has been more of a test.

www.customgamechips.com

 

[Ropi Jo]

Hi Colin. What do you pay monthly for that? And are the ads at the bottom of the page compulsory? Are they ads you chose?

Where does Wordpress come into it?

Ropi Jo2019-05-02 17:23:44

 

[ColinD]

I cant quite recall.... cost about £25 to setup for 2 years with the .com ? - I just set up a free wordpress site and get godaddy to redirect. https://cgchips.wordpress.com/

I guess you could just use wordpress and set up a site totally free if you don't fancy registering a website domain ?

The 'free' wordpress site adds the advertisements.ColinD2019-05-02 17:40:35

 

[Ropi Jo]

Now I'm looking at your site from my home PC, not at work, I'm not seeing the ads. That's probably because I'm running Ad-Block Pro.

So... you made the site with Wordpress. Now I'm confused even more. So where does Godaddy come into it?

 

[pobtastic]

GoDaddy lets you buy the domain name (i.e. annes-cattery.co.uk) and WordPress is an online content-management-system ~ usually, it'd host the site on an address relating to WordPress, e.g. https://annes-cattery.wordpress.com, but you are able to set it up to utilise the domain name you bought from GoDaddy so it responds to that instead.

This is all well and good but there are costs involved, and also if the page you want to have is just an advert ~ then there's no need to go to the effort of utilising a "bells and whistles" content-management-system. If you have like a brochureware page, and not something you need to keep on updating ~ then you have a different set of options.

Maybe let us know about your requirements?

pobtastic2019-05-02 20:28:19

 

[Ropi Jo]

Ok.... starting to sink in a bit now.

The initial requirements will be....

We have an ever updating list of residents (cats) coming into our rescue. Our primary cause is socialising and rehoming strays off the street. On the home page we'd want some info about the rescue, and a pic with short description about each cat in the rescue. Each pic would ideally be a clickable link to more pics and videos of that cat. We'd want 'contact us if your interested in this cat' links for each cat on the site, and we'd undoubtedly make up more as we go.

We have around 1000 followers (and growing) on the facebook page (we've only been going for a year and a bit) so we'd put links to the website on there.

I say "We". Really it's "She".

Ropi Jo2019-05-02 21:18:33

 

[pobtastic]

Hmmm okay, so it does sound like WordPress might suit you then? It is primarily a blogging platform but you can build pretty much anything with it really ~ it's pretty adaptable. There is another CMS (content-management-system) called Drupal which is far more flexible but ... it has such a steep steep learning curve, you'd really need someone to set it up for you... and that can potentially be quite a cost.

You wouldn't need anything larger than the "startup" or "basic" packages on one of these;

https://uk.godaddy.com/hosting/wordpress-hosting

https://wpengine.com/plans

https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/web-hosting/wordpress

If you did decide that you fancied trying out Drupal, these guys do offer a free trial;

https://pantheon.io/plans/pricing (again, if you did want it ~ the "basic" package is all you'd need)

I can assist a little with your set up if you like, but I do have two jobs and work 14 hours a day ... so I'm not especially readily available

 

[Bensonrad]

My wife has been starting up her own business and over the past couple of days has been making a website and signing up to all the social media sites, she used Wix, it looked pretty easy to use from what I've seen of it so far (not gone live yet though).

 

[pobtastic]

I've not used Wix but yeah, judging from the adverts everywhere ~ that does also seem like a good alternative. Here's another I'm aware of https://webflow.com although I haven't used either of them...

 

[Ropi Jo]

Thanks for the advise. Much appreciated. It's all slowly sinking in. This site seems the most helpful at busting the jargon and also recommends Wix. It suggests Wordpress may push me a little out of my comfort zone... http://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/building-websites/

 

[Flinnster]

I registered my domains with 123-reg. Then I wrote my own html in notepad.. I appreciate that's probably a step too low for most.

Having used wordpress I found it an utter slog that made an incredibly long winded deal of everything. I found it quicker to search 'html syntax' in google and learn how to do it myself.

 

[Ropi Jo]

I registered my domains with 123-reg. Then I wrote my own html in notepad.. I appreciate that's probably a step too low for most.

Having used wordpress I found it an utter slog that made an incredibly long winded deal of everything. I found it quicker to search 'html syntax' in google and learn how to do it myself.

What language is that???? Way over my head.

 

[Flinnster]

html? It's what every web page on earth is being read as since the dawn of t'interwebs.
(With a few knobbly add-ons nowdays).

 

[Ropi Jo]

You have to take into consideration that I am Betamax Man. I thought you were speaking Greek.
Ropi Jo2019-05-03 13:17:39

 

[Shinydaz]

I used to build websites years ago in VBScript/ASP but age has made my memory like a sieve, so I'm little use. I think wordpress might suit your needs. Hope you get it sorted soon and get them cats a new home, respect to you guys.

 

[Ropi Jo]

Thanks Shiny. Cats are our passion. Too many strays around here. Not enough prospective adopters. Unfortunately the high number of tenants on short lease leads to unprecidented numbers of cats being abandoned when they move to new tenancy without permission to keep pets. Strange though that they always take the dog. And bad owners in general... not neutering or spaying. And don't get me started on breeders!!!!!

Enough ranting.

The little I've read up on Wordpress I do think it will be too much for me to take in. I'm looking at Wix ATM and think that will be simpler. Looks more 'drag and drop'.

VBScript/ASP????? There you go with that Greek!