Basic website advice!

[mountrecruitment]

Hi I know there are people on here who can help me!

I have a family friend who wants to create a content / article heavy website which would be a resource for others rather than commercial.

They have zero experience in web development and just need an easily adaptable professional looking template that they can alter in a wysiwyg editor and will suit a site that steadily increases the amount of content.

Funds will also be an issue so would they be best using Wordpress for example?

Also considering adding adsense as well...

Any help appreciated
Grant

[davezzr]

have you looked at windows live? they give a free website with ample tools to build your wysiwyg pages and 500mb web space

[matt.chatterley]

Hi Grant,

It does sound as if wordpress or one of the other blogging engines might be best - probably a good place to start looking, anyway. Is it going to be more an article index, or closer in nature to a traditional blog?

[GeekSRV]

Wordpress or Joomla would fit your needs quite nicely :)

[faultydesktop]

Wordpress - Yes you could use this as a Blog at the front and then web pages behind! Something like mine - If you look at the link below.


Using Plugins such as

All in One Seo : XML Sitemap

Your website will rank quite quickly.

[mountrecruitment]

Thanks guys.

I thought Wordpress might be the answer and Geoffrey i think your site is a very good example of what we are looking at. It will be articles & advice provided for a niche area that seems poorly catered for.

Does anyone know any good templates or sites we should be looking at?

Also as it won't be selling anything i thought adsense or some other affiliate adverts may help, any reccomendations / comments?

Cheers

[mountrecruitment]

have you looked at windows live? they give a free website with ample tools to build your wysiwyg pages and 500mb web space

It was mentioned but the opinion was that it didn't seem professional enough. Thanks though!

[faultydesktop]

Thanks!

Google Ads? Yes and No!

What I think you need is Viral Marketing! There is a few things that might help you! Ill pm you!

[crossdaz]

Does anyone know any good templates or sites we should be looking at?

Also as it won't be selling anything i thought adsense or some other affiliate adverts may help, any reccomendations / comments?



When you have installed wordpress you'll see an option to update the theme. There are plenty of templates to choose from - avoid external template sites unless they have a good reputation as a lot of third party templates get hacked with all manner of nasties.

Adsense is ideal for a content rich site - look at a rough rule of thumb 2% click through. Earnings will very much depend on the content of the site - educational stuff tends to get very low earings per click - technology quite high.

The more natuaral the ads look the better the click rate - so optimise to match the colours of your theme.

[tradedemon]

Wordpress, Wordpress, Wordpress. Well that's my personal recommendation. A solid platform for building any type of content site. We've built loads of info sites with wordpress.

The most recent two are below (both show that using wordpress doesn't have to look like your typical blog)

http://www.animemb.com
http://www.nintendocity.com

Oh and yes adsense would slot in perfectly for your revenue generation.

[mountrecruitment]

Wordpress, Wordpress, Wordpress. Well that's my personal recommendation. A solid platform for building any type of content site. We've built loads of info sites with wordpress.

The most recent two are below (both show that using wordpress doesn't have to look like your typical blog)

http://www.animemb.com
http://www.nintendocity.com

Oh and yes adsense would slot in perfectly for your revenue generation.

Thanks!

With regards to adsense i take it from the site that Wordpress charge you if you want to insert your own adsense...ads and remove theirs? Is that right?

Cheers
Grant

[mountrecruitment]

Registered blog with Wordpress.com and thought i would look at reccomended plugins. Am i right in thinking that i should have registered with wordpress.org? .com offers no download whereas .org seems to be a downloadable program.

Help!

[crossdaz]

Registered blog with Wordpress.com and thought i would look at reccomended plugins. Am i right in thinking that i should have registered with wordpress.org? .com offers no download whereas .org seems to be a downloadable program.

Help!

Yeah, you can have a free blog as a sub-domain of wordpress.com or download to host on your own web server with your own domain.
A lot of hosts have something called fantastico which allows you to install wordpress instantly - the manual way can be a bit of pain.

[mountrecruitment]

OK so the next question is which hosting company would you guys recommend?

Sorry for the hand holding questions, you are all being very patient!

[crossdaz]

OK so the next question is which hosting company would you guys recommend?

Sorry for the hand holding questions, you are all being very patient!

I would recommend:
http://www.webhosting.uk.com/

I have a reseller a/c on there which costs less than £10 a month (I think the price now is £14). Not had a problem. I guess for one site it would be less than a fiver pm?

There is someone from a similar named co on this forum - make sure you use the one above - (no reflection on him but I don't know anything about their service).

I have an account with another host who costs 3 times as much and is 3 times more unreliable so don't assume more money = better.

[nextec]

We offer a free hosting account for non profit organisations and have a one click install for Wordpress.

If it is likely to be a large site I might need to up the disk space offer on the free account for you.

Let me know if this is of any interest to you.

Thanks
Richard

[webhostuk]

OK so the next question is which hosting company would you guys recommend?

Sorry for the hand holding questions, you are all being very patient!

I dont think you will need Reseller account for one site..try to start with shared account to reduce the expense on your site.

Later if required you can upgrade.

[faultydesktop]

Free Hosting - No probs - Check out

http://www.000webhost.com/

[mountrecruitment]

Free Hosting - No probs - Check out

http://www.000webhost.com/

Cheers but the free plan doesn't include a chosen domain name. I have seen a couple at around £30 pa that seem pretty good though.

Thanks again!

[faultydesktop]

A domain name only costs £5 tho lol! All you have to do then is change the DNS settings and A record! All FREE!

[MH-Nick]

OK so the next question is which hosting company would you guys recommend?
If you don't mind self promotion, we do hosting from £3.99 per month. This includes automatic Wordpress installs (via Fantastico). If you've already started working on your blog, we'll migrate it over for free :)

[mountrecruitment]

A domain name only costs £5 tho lol! All you have to do then is change the DNS settings and A record! All FREE!

Is that easily done and does it impact anything else?

Cheers
Grant

[faultydesktop]

Not at all! Why should you pay for services when you do not have to!

People are always out for the pound! When you register your domain let me know and ill guide you free! You can call me any time on 02895812705 or 07518437453



Regards

[mountrecruitment]

Not at all! Why should you pay for services when you do not have to!

People are always out for the pound! When you register your domain let me know and ill guide you free! You can call me any time on 02895812705 or 07518437453



Regards

That's very kind of you. I will take you up on that offer!

[faultydesktop]

No problems!

[GeekSRV]

Not at all! Why should you pay for services when you do not have to!


I can think of a few reasons after looking at their whois information and what they are offering :)

[faultydesktop]

Yes but whta I am trying to put across is

If a service is FREE why should you have to pay?

[StudioCart]

I would suggest Joomla! 1.5 and you can buy templates very cheap if money is an issue.

Thanks Che

[NextPoint]

Free is not always the best route. You should consider what the benefits of any costs are and what you get in return. If I were to go to court, I could represent myself for free, but hiring a solicitor will increase my chances of not going to jail or being fined. It's also the same with websites - you can get something for free or very cheap, but will it do the job?

I would rather pay £1,000 on a website that earns me £2,000 than spend £50 on a website that either doesn't make me anything or even worse loses me money - like if the designer took shortcuts to keep their costs down due to the low budget and used copyright pictures that would get me a fine of £2,000 of Getty Images. I'm sure we've all heard of people this has happened to - I know at least 2.

[faultydesktop]

Next Point

Fair Point!

But I do have my own Dedicated Server, Shared Server even tho I still use 000webhost for several things.

Fantastic Service and also Customer Service.

Just a way to save a few bob!

[GeekSRV]

Yes but whta I am trying to put across is

If a service is FREE why should you have to pay?

To help cover running costs?

[faultydesktop]

Sometimes on forums I think helping people is a waste of time and effort because there is always someone trying to run you down.

Someone always is trying to sell something when literally you can get it for £0-00

[stugster]

http://www.equiphase.net/services/wordpress.html <-- sexy templates ;)

[NextPoint]

It's always good to give advice, but there is a point where people choosing the free option hurts us all. It takes someone time to develop things like web software and templates, which means if you're not paying them, they can't buy from you or others. I think a days pay for a days work is always the way forwards - treat others as you expect to be treated and everyone will be happy. Would you give away your product and service for free? Would you be happy if someone expected you?

[faultydesktop]

Yes But Think about it! If you are making quite a bit on other prdoucts is it not nice to give something away for FREE?

I know i would!

[NextPoint]

Rewarding clients and customers who have bought from you is a good idea, but giving services and products away to those who have never bought from you is commercial suicide.

[faultydesktop]

Maybe thats why Google own 000webhost! :D

[NextPoint]

What you miss is that although Google appear to give away things for free, it's not free as in a free lunch or beer. If you're not paying Google to use their services such as Google Maps and hosting, they are using you to deliver advertising or to snoop on you to gather statistics that they then sell on. If you are happy with that, feel free to use Google - but don't confuse cash free with free as in free beer.

[NextPoint]

Plus Google use a loss leader strategy - they make a loss on many of their products until they get the number of users required to enable a profit to somehow be made - usually through advertising. For those of us who aren't multi-billion dollar organisations, we'd go bust before we had the opportunity to make a penny with this type of strategy.

[MH-Nick]

Maybe thats why Google own 000webhost! :D
Where did you hear that?

[nextec]

Rewarding clients and customers who have bought from you is a good idea, but giving services and products away to those who have never bought from you is commercial suicide.

I have to disagree with you.

We offer a free hosting package to private individuals and not for profit organisations, the amount of business this has generated in referrals and hosting upgrades has more than covered the cost of giving away the free accounts.

I did offer a free account to the OP of this thread but didn't hear anything.

Richard

[jamesdoran]

use wordpress but a domain from webhostinguk.com

[jamesdoran]

Its gotta be wordpress - closely in 2nd by Joomla and then when your up there Drupal

[NextPoint]

I have to disagree with you.

We offer a free hosting package to private individuals and not for profit organisations, the amount of business this has generated in referrals and hosting upgrades has more than covered the cost of giving away the free accounts.

I did offer a free account to the OP of this thread but didn't hear anything.

Richard
I can agree with you to a point - I never profit from work done for charities - I either provide the solution for free or only charge to break even. Hosting is different from providing web development services because it doesn't cost any time to provide the hosting - maybe only support, which is usually minimal. Offering an introductory offer is good - offering anything free should only be limited to anything that doesn't cost time. I do this myself with my new applications platform:

http://www.worskcapetools.com

Offering a free taster of a product is different to providing a free service though - time is money.

[faultydesktop]

There is no winning with people!

[mountrecruitment]

I have to disagree with you.

We offer a free hosting package to private individuals and not for profit organisations, the amount of business this has generated in referrals and hosting upgrades has more than covered the cost of giving away the free accounts.

I did offer a free account to the OP of this thread but didn't hear anything.

Richard

Hi Richard,

Sorry i didn't get back to you things have been a bit hectic (baby on way!). I appreciate the offer but this site is going to be running adsense and may have some sponsored ads so i assume wouldn't qualify for your generous offer.

Thanks again though
Grant

[nextec]

Hi Richard,

Sorry i didn't get back to you things have been a bit hectic (baby on way!). I appreciate the offer but this site is going to be running adsense and may have some sponsored ads so i assume wouldn't qualify for your generous offer.

Thanks again though
Grant

We try to draw a sensible line between sites that use sponsorship and adsense to cover the costs / time spent maintaining the site and those who create a site specifically to make money from advertising on the site.

It is usually fairly obvious which side of the line a site comes down on. If a site has very little content and a large number of banner adverts and adsense all over it then it is usually clear what the intention is. If a site offer a good amount of informative information and a small amount of advertising then we are happy with that.

I am more than happy to offer you the free hosting provided that the sponsership / adsense are there to predominantly cover your costs and time.

Having said that if we decide that a site has crossed the line where the amount of advertising is concerned we will ask them to upgrade to one of our business class packages, which as they start from under £20 per year including VAT is not a big ask for a site that is making good money from advertising.

Thanks
Richard

[rusty1001]

wordpress for general blogging style - timebased articles, more control, add ons need like ecommerce later then I reckon joomla 1.5, but wordpress has some great oddons and lots of good stuff free,

[scammer_are_loosers]

I agree with you.
You give them free advice, earn their trust and in the end SCAM them!

Guys, be aware of people who pretend to help but actually plans to loot you.

[nextec]

I agree with you.
You give them free advice, earn their trust and in the end SCAM them!

Guys, be aware of people who pretend to help but actually plans to loot you.

I assume that was aimed at me!!

If so I resent the implication, I have never scammed anyone in my life.
Unless you can back the remark up with any detail, then I would ask you to not make potentially damaging posts on threads that could effect someone's business.

Richard

[Place of design]

Hi I know there are people on here who can help me!

I have a family friend who wants to create a content / article heavy website which would be a resource for others rather than commercial.

They have zero experience in web development and just need an easily adaptable professional looking template that they can alter in a wysiwyg editor and will suit a site that steadily increases the amount of content.

Definatally use Joomla

The structure it offers to organising lots of articles is a godsend, especially when multiple authors, sections, categories are thrown in the mix