# Looking to build a website....need help



## DEFEATEST (Jul 19, 2014)

Hey Guys, Ive been wanting to start a website for myself for sometime now. Its an artists website. I know there's lots of do it yourself ways and sites that help you and all that good stuff. But I want to know what  you guys think is the best way for me to do it myself. I want a .com website thats very simple just photos of my work and contact info. Where would I begin? I dont need the monthly cost of it to be free , but I would like to build it myself for free if possible. I remember looking into this some time ago and it seemed daunting when you google "free Website maker". Where should I go? and what to avoid?

thanks!


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## Kursah (Jul 20, 2014)

Well take notes of what you want. I used Wordpress as the backend for my last businesses' site. Works very well and layouts are easy to modify.

Learn some HTML and CSS.

I used GoDaddy for a domain and host, was pretty affordable at the time. I'm sure there are plenty of free hosts you could use too. Wordpress has a very easy to use and upload-to image gallery setup that would work well to get you going.


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## remixedcat (Jul 21, 2014)

Avoid godaddy at all costs.


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## DEFEATEST (Jul 21, 2014)

I would imagine I dont need to know HTML or CSS do I? I mean isnt there a ton of do it yourself websites that help you and walk you though it?


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## remixedcat (Jul 21, 2014)

You can start with a template and mod it if you are short on time.


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## Kursah (Jul 21, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Avoid godaddy at all costs.



Meh...I have no real complaint after almost 4 years and there are far worse. But one place I would highly recommend against out of experience is Networksolutions... talk about HORRID experiences and don't try to transfer your domain...that's a whole new can of worms in nightmare-ville. 
With other good options that I have used with my clients such as Enom and Hostgator, I'd say either of those and definitely GoDaddy are all better than Network Solutions. I do believe Networksolutions was the original domain host back in the 90s...but man wait a pain in the ass to deal with!

Wordpress makes templates easy, you don't NEED to know coding right away but it helps in the long run and makes troubleshooting anything easier. W3 Schools is your friend.

Plus if you know absolutely no coding, what you can and can't change with a template becomes a strict limitation. Also I recommend using "child" themes, or copies of a main theme so you don't accidentally apply an update to that theme and ruin your coding work. 

That also leaves me to recommending a utility like Filezilla for an FTP client and backup your stuff regularly. This is just my suggestions from experience, there are others with far more experience than I...but if you get Wordpress or even Joomla up, get a template you like, set what you can via UI, apply a picture gallery to it you'll be off like a herd of turtles and have something simple and easy to maintain. Well simple enough. And as you learn coding and how to modify and make changes, you'll be surprised how easy it is once you learn what the calls and sections of coding mean and really do. Take it slow and easy...and you'll be fine.


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## remixedcat (Jul 21, 2014)

Godaddy supported sopa/pipa/cispa/etc. They also personally screwed a client over. (he allready had hosting with them and I  made a site for him back in 2006) horrible amounts of downtime, borked permissions where I can had to call them to get them to change permissions for certain files, long hold times of doom for account issues, a domain panel that is 9001x more complicated then it should be, no proper backup/restore... I can go on.

Namecheap on the other hand is a world apart they are much nicer, have a very easy domain panel, have fast support, and no BS. They fought for internet freedom against sopa/pipa/etc... can't speak for their hosting though since I've only used them for domains. 

For VPS hosting TMZVPS has been great.


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## DEFEATEST (Jul 21, 2014)

I basically want something like this....   http://www.shaynedark.com/


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## remixedcat (Jul 21, 2014)

Looks to be some jquery and other stuff


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## m&m's (Jul 21, 2014)

Take a look at Bootstrap. It's fantastic.

http://getbootstrap.com/

Examples of what can be done with it.

http://expo.getbootstrap.com/


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jul 21, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> Avoid godaddy at all costs.



I strongly disagree.


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## Asylum (Jul 21, 2014)

I recently swaped to ipage and they have all the tools the other guys have and about $45 for a two year sign up.
They have a drag and drop website builder you can use and add forums to your site by adding a link on your home page.
I html and css code myself but you can use the above if your a newbie.
http://www.ipage.com/ipage/index.html


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## remixedcat (Jul 21, 2014)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> I strongly disagree.



So you'd support them when they supported sopa/pipa/etc and also treat so many customers like crap and are very corrupt? Also their hosting is slow. very slow. 

They are a JOKE in the hosting industry and No true professional would even go with them.

They let people steal domains, they have lots of security holes, and they take advantage of people.


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## ste2425 (Jul 21, 2014)

DEFEATEST said:


> I would imagine I dont need to know HTML or CSS do I? I mean isnt there a ton of do it yourself websites that help you and walk you though it?



I think the OP is after one of them GUI based services, where you drag and drop content without actually having to write any code. I'm afraid I know they exist, seen adverts, but haven't paid attention to their names. Plus I imagine there will be different service providers here to where your at.


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## RCoon (Jul 21, 2014)

remixedcat said:


> So you'd support them when they supported sopa/pipa/etc and also treat so many customers like crap and are very corrupt? Also their hosting is slow. very slow.
> 
> They are a JOKE in the hosting industry and No true professional would even go with them.
> 
> They let people steal domains, they have lots of security holes, and they take advantage of people.



We've also had nothing but trouble with godaddy, we've been hosted by them for about 7 years, and somehow every time we renew they try to screw us over to the tune of about £4,000. Would not recommend.


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## Devon68 (Jul 21, 2014)

> I think the OP is after one of them GUI based services, where you drag and drop content without actually having to write any code. I'm afraid I know they exist, seen adverts, but haven't paid attention to their names. Plus I imagine there will be different service providers here to where your at.


Then this might be what he want's but haven't tried it so I don't know how it works.
http://squarespace.com/tour/overview/


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## DEFEATEST (Jul 22, 2014)

The Squarespace one looks pretty nice and they have a template for what I want. What about getting my .com. Where on earth should I buy that? ......total noob here.  registering a com seem like typing "cars" in google to me. Absolutely endless...


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## remixedcat (Jul 22, 2014)

namecheap is a good registrar


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## DEFEATEST (Jul 24, 2014)

Been playing with Square space and I like it, 14 day free trial....offline of course but you can build it during that time and if you like you pay. I'll look into registrar . Thanks for all your help guys! I'll show results soon.


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## Asylum (Jul 24, 2014)

It says you get a free domain if you buy one year subscription.

"Squarespace makes adding your custom domain simple, and every annual account receives a free custom domain."


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## DEFEATEST (Jul 24, 2014)

Good to know! thanks for spotting that.


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## remixedcat (Jul 24, 2014)

Thing is I prefer having a separate registrar because if you outgrow SS you won't have to transfer the domain. Some of those also lock your domain so you can't transfer it so READ THE FINE PRINT!


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## Aquinus (Jul 26, 2014)

m&m's said:


> Take a look at Bootstrap. It's fantastic.
> 
> http://getbootstrap.com/
> 
> ...



Best comment so far and I second this. As a developer I hate design, I'm not good with colors and can basically only get proportions correct so something like Bootstrap makes it really easy for me to just write some HTML and have it look beautiful out of the box.

This is a great example of what kinds of things bootstrap provides: http://getbootstrap.com/examples/theme/


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## DEFEATEST (Aug 1, 2014)

http://www.frankdesa.com/

This is it so far. Still needs work and I have to chat with them to figure out how to do text the way I want it and all that but were up! Thanks for all your help guys. Don't know where I would be without Techpowerup!


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## Kursah (Aug 1, 2014)

Nice start man! Look forward to seeing the page improve as you become more skilled.


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## remixedcat (Aug 1, 2014)

.... so you did go with SS. Hope they work out good then


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## Aquinus (Aug 1, 2014)

I would stop with styling right now and try using Bootstrap. It will take care of all the initial design decisions and will look clean pretty quickly. It will also force you into some decent HTML conventions. It shouldn't cause any issues with JS you have running already but could make the page look 10 times better..


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## remixedcat (Aug 1, 2014)

How compute intense on the server side is it? Wondering how it would be for an azure deployment. Azure bills by compute so the compute has to be low as possible.


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