Basic website designing and hosting advice
Discussion
I'm involved with a small local charity that currently has a very simple website. The person currently looking after the website is leaving us and I'd like to get to grips with it myself. It hasn't been updated in forever and regular updates is something I'd be happy to do. For various reasons I'm not in contact with this person directly so I can't have a chat with him about how to go about all this. I know the site is currently hosted on GoDaddy. I'd like to keep the URL for continuity and he is happy to sign this over.
I'm ok with computers but know nothing about website design or hosting. Something like Squarespace seems to offer what I want but comes at a price that represents a good portion of our overall operating costs.
It needs to be absolutely nothing fancy, no e-commerce, email addresses etc. Just a basic website to show a few pictures, a contact form, maybe a Facebook feed would be nice.
Cheap is the main aim of the game here. We are a very small group and keep operating costs to an absolute minimum.
Any suggestions on what service to use and advice on how to use said service would be most welcome.
I'm ok with computers but know nothing about website design or hosting. Something like Squarespace seems to offer what I want but comes at a price that represents a good portion of our overall operating costs.
It needs to be absolutely nothing fancy, no e-commerce, email addresses etc. Just a basic website to show a few pictures, a contact form, maybe a Facebook feed would be nice.
Cheap is the main aim of the game here. We are a very small group and keep operating costs to an absolute minimum.
Any suggestions on what service to use and advice on how to use said service would be most welcome.
https://carrd.co/
Should do everything you need on their pro version for $19 a year.
It’s really easy to use (I never got on with Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix etc).
I created www.rightcruise.co.uk on there in a few hours but you could probably knock up what you’re after in less than a couple of hours, genuinely.
The support is good too and very easy to follow.
Should do everything you need on their pro version for $19 a year.
It’s really easy to use (I never got on with Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix etc).
I created www.rightcruise.co.uk on there in a few hours but you could probably knock up what you’re after in less than a couple of hours, genuinely.
The support is good too and very easy to follow.
You need three things, which can be supplied by the same company, or totally independent.
- The domain name, typically inexpensive, needs renewing from time to time, don't loose it if it valuable to you! You can move them to different registrars but there is limited reason to do so.
- Hosting, a bit of space on a server somewhere that holds the site and let's people view it having being directed there by the domain name. Reasonably easy and common to move around as needs/offers change. Cost based on physical size, and the amount of bandwidth or traffic.
- Page content/editor, data created in a format suitable for uploading to the host account, the actual website itself per se.
There are so many good template based WYSIWYG editors these days, the especially in the world of mobile/tablet/pc use coding your own site, or even using a templateless editor is just not sensible for a small site.
So you can use wordpress/squarespace/drupal etc and upload it, or you can use a combined service such as Wix who provide the editor and hosting as one. If the site is small, looking old, and needs new content anyway, likely as easy to re-make from scratch than try and migrate.
It was six years ago, but I've made a basic site in Wix, using their free service in literally a few hours one evening and it works. My domain points to it, but you can see its actually at another address. You can then pay an amount to make it properly look like it is at the domain address, and to remove the advertising strip.
www.absolutelyoutrageous.co.uk
Daniel
- The domain name, typically inexpensive, needs renewing from time to time, don't loose it if it valuable to you! You can move them to different registrars but there is limited reason to do so.
- Hosting, a bit of space on a server somewhere that holds the site and let's people view it having being directed there by the domain name. Reasonably easy and common to move around as needs/offers change. Cost based on physical size, and the amount of bandwidth or traffic.
- Page content/editor, data created in a format suitable for uploading to the host account, the actual website itself per se.
There are so many good template based WYSIWYG editors these days, the especially in the world of mobile/tablet/pc use coding your own site, or even using a templateless editor is just not sensible for a small site.
So you can use wordpress/squarespace/drupal etc and upload it, or you can use a combined service such as Wix who provide the editor and hosting as one. If the site is small, looking old, and needs new content anyway, likely as easy to re-make from scratch than try and migrate.
It was six years ago, but I've made a basic site in Wix, using their free service in literally a few hours one evening and it works. My domain points to it, but you can see its actually at another address. You can then pay an amount to make it properly look like it is at the domain address, and to remove the advertising strip.
www.absolutelyoutrageous.co.uk
Daniel
droopsnoot said:
A post on another forum suggested Sharkhosting for hosting, as they do a package that seems plenty for my local club, for £6 per year. Anyone used them?
That's astonishingly cheap. £6 a YEAR. i thought you had typo'd that at first. I'm paying twice that every month with a company called Skystra, they are full featured and i have multiple sites with them but still. That's tempting.
I moved away from TSO after GoDaddyfeatured bought them and the service plummeted. Mail servers started getting blacklisted and the support vanished.
Skystra are superhelpful and they provide SSH for an old fart like me who still prefers to do a lot at command line but they have a fully featured web based panel too.
I can't see past Wordpress for smaller sites really. THere is a learning curve but they are making some serious updated that allows for really easy web building. It's annoying though that the platform is constantly targetted by hackers. I've had a few sites compromised and ended up with redirect scripts sending visitors away to russian scam sites. Good backups are key here and access to support to help you fix things is important, to me and the owners of the sites i manage anyway.
droopsnoot said:
A post on another forum suggested Sharkhosting for hosting, as they do a package that seems plenty for my local club, for £6 per year. Anyone used them?
Agree that sounds cheap for the amount of times is says 'unlimited' but prices have come down alot, and it appears not to have an databases with it etc, which will be fine for small static sites but rule out any forums/blogs/e-commerce type sites and hence largly self limit. Appears to have been going five years and be ok, not the best support, but fine. Daniel
Thanks to all for info so far.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you have designed a free website with Wix (which they hose for free?) but continue to pay a registration fee to someone else for your address?
To get your address to appear in the address bar, you could pay ~£12/year to Wix and they then become the registrar?
As I've got to create an account somewhere and transfer the domain from him to me anyway, it seems to make sense to use an all in one service.
I'm also aware that if someone even less tech savvy than me takes over at some point then it needs to be simple!
Carrd seems possibly a little TOO simple. The website in question is very similar to dhutch's in content and layout with "home", "about", "contact", "gallery" sections. As said, a Facebook feed would be nice to add to save doing weekly Facebook posts as well as separate website updates for those that don't use FB.
dhutch said:
Lots of helpful stuff
Your website is almost exactly what we currently have and I'd like to aim for a similar structure. It is an old design and as you say, it'll be much more convenient to just design from scratch (using a template).If I'm understanding you correctly, you have designed a free website with Wix (which they hose for free?) but continue to pay a registration fee to someone else for your address?
To get your address to appear in the address bar, you could pay ~£12/year to Wix and they then become the registrar?
As I've got to create an account somewhere and transfer the domain from him to me anyway, it seems to make sense to use an all in one service.
I'm also aware that if someone even less tech savvy than me takes over at some point then it needs to be simple!
Carrd seems possibly a little TOO simple. The website in question is very similar to dhutch's in content and layout with "home", "about", "contact", "gallery" sections. As said, a Facebook feed would be nice to add to save doing weekly Facebook posts as well as separate website updates for those that don't use FB.
Davie_GLA said:
That's astonishingly cheap. £6 a YEAR. i thought you had typo'd that at first.
Even though I was also amazed at the price, the first time I typed the post I put "per month".dhutch said:
and it appears not to have an databases with it etc
It does say that it includes "MySQL database / remote connections" but I can't see where it talks about capacity. It does talk about "unlimited" a lot, so presumably that covers it.I've certainly got it bookmarked for when my next 1&1 special offer comes to an end.
Edited by droopsnoot on Sunday 23 August 18:52
droopsnoot said:
It does say that it includes "MySQL database / remote connections" but I can't see where it talks about capacity. It does talk about "unlimited" a lot, so presumably that covers it.
I've certainly got it bookmarked for when my next 1&1 special offer comes to an end.
so it is per year? I've certainly got it bookmarked for when my next 1&1 special offer comes to an end.
Edited by droopsnoot on Sunday 23 August 18:52
Nimby said:
Hugofox offers free hosting for registered charities.
Do they now? It just so happens the reason I'm enquiring is that the main site i maintain is for an animal charity. Edit: I had a look. There's a free option here for non-profits and although not a great deal of disk space, 15 domains can be useful, but I'm not sure if that would translate to 15 different sites.
Edited by Davie_GLA on Sunday 23 August 22:45
Davie_GLA said:
Nimby said:
Hugofox offers free hosting for registered charities.
Do they now? It just so happens the reason I'm enquiring is that the main site i maintain is for an animal charity. Edit: I had a look. There's a free option here for non-profits and although not a great deal of disk space, 15 domains can be useful, but I'm not sure if that would translate to 15 different sites.
Edited by Davie_GLA on Sunday 23 August 22:45
I guess I just need to pay to keep the domain registered and Hugo fox takes care of the rest for free?
On the "15 domains" point. We have a .co.uk domain. Do .co.uk/about, .co.uk/gallery etc count as separate domains?
Many new terms to get to grips with and all the different hosts don't seem to offer a good explanation for exactly what they are offering.
samdale said:
On the "15 domains" point. We have a .co.uk domain. Do .co.uk/about, .co.uk/gallery etc count as separate domains?
no but yourdomain.com, yourdomain.co.uk, yourdomain.org woudl be 3.Then if you started to add other domain names to it that may be relevant numbers can build without really realising it.
samdale said:
dhutch said:
Lots of helpful stuff
Your website is almost exactly what we currently have and I'd like to aim for a similar structure. It is an old design and as you say, it'll be much more convenient to just design from scratch (using a template).If I'm understanding you correctly, you have designed a free website with Wix (which they hose for free?) but continue to pay a registration fee to someone else for your address?
To get your address to appear in the address bar, you could pay ~£12/year to Wix and they then become the registrar?
I then pay separately for the domain name (few quid a year), which just points at the wix URL, so the paid for domain works, but then shows as a wix domain site.
You can 'connect' the domain so it appears properly an seamlessly as normal domain+hosting site, the most basic being £3/month inc limits and adds, £6/month without adds, more for more storage/bandwidth. Domain remains with current registrar.
You can also transfer the domain and have it all under one roof.
Daniel
samdale said:
I'm involved with a small local charity that currently has a very simple website. The person currently looking after the website is leaving us and I'd like to get to grips with it myself. It hasn't been updated in forever and regular updates is something I'd be happy to do. For various reasons I'm not in contact with this person directly so I can't have a chat with him about how to go about all this. I know the site is currently hosted on GoDaddy. I'd like to keep the URL for continuity and he is happy to sign this over..
I did very similar with my village website - the chap that was looking after it lost interest and it fell into disuse and 'old info'. I arranged to take over the domain and web hosting (2 separate companies - Go Daddy and TSO Host - yes I know they are both part of the same group now I think) and he made admin accounts for me so I could control and administer them (removing his access once I had full access). Why can't you just take over what is already there?MikeLowry said:
Sorry to hijack the post, but could someone please explain what a WordPress website site?
Wordpress, in a nutshell, is a Content Management System. You create content, via pages or posts full of words and pictures, and Wordpress makes web pages from that content.The styling (what the site looks like) is seperated from the content, so when you write a nice shiny new post or page, Wordpress makes it look all lovely (or not, based on whatever theme you have chosen).
Wordpress is free, it drives vast amounts of the internet, and has been around for many years. There are literally millions of plugins for it, bit of software that build upon the basic functionality, so if you want a shop, or something to show a Twitter feed, or a nice photo gallery, you've got it covered.
There is a learning curve, but in my opinion it isn't steep.
The advantage of Wordpress over Wix etc. is that it can run on any web host (pretty much) and if you want to move elsewhere, it is easy to do. Wix on the other hand has you locked in. You could create a great site on Wix, but only wix can run it.
Negatives? Well it needs to be kept updated, but this can be automatic. It might also be regarded as overkill for simple sites.
Personally I love it, and with a decent host (Krystal) and a decent template (Virtue by Kadence Themes) the world is your lobster.
HTH
MikeLowry said:
Sorry to hijack the post, but could someone please explain what a WordPress website site?
https://wordpress.com/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress
What do you want to know.
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