Starting a Website

Oops, sorry Deborah. I've been lurking too long! :oops:

I went ahead and stickied this thread, as it is an excellent question that is relevant to many people...and is then followed up with excellent answers. Please continue the discussion! :D

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Originally Posted by jarradw

I would say yes to all but the Purchase strait from the site. Put some thought into how you want to do this. If you will be using paypal they have some options you can use for buy buttons and what not, but if you are trying to use some thing else you may require a little more coding on your side. You could still add that on to a template site from them though.

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Im also thinking about opening up a website. This thread has answered most of my question. The only thing im not sure about is if I secure my domain name and choose the basic web hosting service from go daddy does that include a shopping cart section for my customers to select products and choose method of payment?

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Originally Posted by nor_cal1980

Im also thinking about opening up a website. This thread has answered most of my question. The only thing im not sure about is if I secure my domain name and choose the basic web hosting service from go daddy does that include a shopping cart section for my customers to select products and choose method of payment?

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If you power your website through wordpress there is a great customizable cart available (you can see it on my website)

It's an easy add-on, no coding necessary to use it, I tweaked it a little to fit the color of my site but it's not hard to do and only involve a little coding.

Was weebly mentioned at all in this thread? Super easy, free and full of great add ons like forms and media

i just want to help anyone who don't know how to design their website.i can help u design one with my favourite web hosting(yola.com) or you can choose what web hosting you like but what i like about yola is they give 1Gb of free space,cheap domain,about $25 a year.here is my website that i design myself in just a week.

bpstudio

if you interested,please contact me

here is what i can offer you:

-complete website design,with all the feature you need
-paypal payment if you want to sell anything
-simple and very interesting design(you can see my website for example)
-i will help you update your website for a year(can be more than that)
-logo design(if you still dont have your own logo)
-complete with your own domain

*about the payment,we can talk about it later(you can pay me money or you can pay me with ball python...lolz.......

go with godaddy.com great site real helpful and easy to use :)

Lance

It should be noted - When you purchase your annual domain through GoDaddy they now include a limited amount of free hosting to get your site up and running, then allows you to upgrade as needed later on. You'll find for small business that don't push a ton of traffic or host a ton of images / media (use youtube for videos and that takes a HUGE chunk of your hosting worries away) it works great. I think it's around 10 GB of space and 1 GB of Bandwidth per month. There are certain limitations, but it works great with FTP hosting / editing using with Microsoft Expressions or Macromedia Dreamweaver.

year and a half bump not bad....

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Originally Posted by granitestate

Was weebly mentioned at all in this thread? Super easy, free and full of great add ons like forms and media

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Weebly is a great resource but so far as I know you cannot get it to be without the yourdomain.weebly.com without paying for it. I use Weebly to drive traffic to my site. Works great!

+1 to Wordpress.

I have set-up/maintained dozens of Wordpress sites and it's truly an awesome CMS. If anybody needs help setting up their site, let me know and I'd be happy to help out. Here are some tips though...

1. Domain & Hosting

I often find it is best to get your domain name when you pay for hosting. The majority of hosting providers give you a free domain name when you sign up. Personally, I love FatCow hosting. Been using it for years with maybe 1 or 2 total hosting-based problems w my site. Go Daddy is great but I can't stand the amount of extras they try and add on when buying. FatCow is nice and simple, pretty much unlimited everything for your doman, etc etc.

2. Installing WordPress to your site

I highly recommend using an FTP client if you are going the WP route. Adding images/files is super easy this way, as is linking photos for places like here. I have a Mac so I use CyberDuck as an FTP client (Free..everybody likes free). When you open the FTP for the first time you will have to enter your website info to connect the FTP account. All of this info can be found on your hosting dashboard (at least for FatCow it is all right there). Just plug in the appropriate fields, click connect and you should be linked up.

Once your website is linked up go to Wordpress.org and download the latest version of Wordpress, unzip the file and drag and drop the folder into your FTP client.
NOTE: Make sure you are looking at the files for your website inside the FTP and not looking at the name of your site only. You want to actually be INSIDE your site installing this.
Once the transfer completes WP will be installed on your site and you will then need to set up your admin panel. (www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin brings up your admin log in screen)

3. Making The Site Look Professional

You want your business to do well, right? So you don't want a website looking like its straight out of the 90s. All modular, everything just looks like a stylized Excel table... You want a certain mood, message, feeling to hit the visitor in the face when they enter your site. "We are professional" "We are in with the latest trends" "We care about our animals more than ourselves" Whatever it may be... lol

I highly recommend Mojo Themes for premium WordPress themes. I bought my last 3 themes from them and have been satisfied everytime. Once you buy a theme you get all of that theme's future updates for free.

Once you've chosen the theme you want, purchased and downloaded you will want to unzip that as well and go to your FTP account again. Your site -> WP Content -> Themes -> Paste new theme folder here.

Then go back to your websites control panel (Yourdomain.com/wp-admin). Reload the page and go to Appearance -> Themes and Activate your newly installed theme. OR On the Dashboard when you log in to your WP Admin you will see text reading "Theme _______ With # Widgets" If you click on the theme name there it will bring you to the theme page as well.

There you go! You're website is all set up! If you would like more help on anything regarding setting up and more importantly organizing a WordPress site, let me know. Web Design and SEO are my business :D