Site building

[RIFF-RAFF]

Hi everyone.I've been doing a lot of reading in the Newbie forum in the past couple weeks and have decided that its now time to take action.I've already decided on a niche and am ready to create a website with articles and product comparisons with links to merchants.
Anyhow,I stumbled across Yahoo! SiteBuilder and am wondering if anyone has any past experience with it and what they thought of it.Thanks.

Frank

 

[imwebdev]

Hi There,

I had a client who used the Yahoo site builder a while back, and they had nothing but trouble! I tried to make changes to the site, but found it quite difficult. I am a web developer, so if I am having problems, I am sure newbies will not find it very easy. I do not know what it is like now as this was about a year ago!

I create my websites in Joomla, which is a Web 2.0 content manager, but the learning curve is a little high if you do not have any experience with it!

My recommendation would be Word Press! WordPress › Blog Tool and Weblog Platform
The good thing about Word Press is you can sign up for a free account, or download the software and put it on your own domain!


Hope that helps!

 

[RIFF-RAFF]

Geez,maybe I should have posted this before downloading Sitebuilder.It seems rather easy to use and comes with many templates and has tutorials and help tabs along the way.This is my first shot at building a site,is there any free or reasonably priced site building software for a super newbie like myself?
Thanks for the really fast responses guys...its very much appreciated.


Frank

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Frank,

If you took a vote I think the majority of people here would recommend
WordPress like imwebdev suggested. It's free and easy.

(Thanks imwebdev)

If you'd like to just try it and see what it's like here's a demo you can play with.
basically after you get it installed and set up the way you want it, then adding
new pages is about as easy as a word processor.
WordPress - OpenSourceCMS

I've never tackled setting up a WordPress blog myself, I always pay someone to do it
because I don't have any spare time and I'm not that technical. But everyone says it's pretty easy.

 

[imwebdev]

HI Frank,
Yes I do suggest having a plan with Word Press! It is easy to setup on your own domain, or you can setup an account and get started without downloading the software ( I Believe).

I usually install the software for clients on their own domain.
I have a little bit of experience with Word Press, so ask away if you have any questions.

Cheers

 

[RIFF-RAFF]

Does this software allow me to build on my computer and then upload to my site?Do they have templates available to help make this easier for me?Thanks for the leads and thanks for the patience everyone,I'm really struggling to learn and make this work.

Frank

HI Frank,
Yes I do suggest having a plan with Word Press! It is easy to setup on your own domain, or you can setup an account and get started without downloading the software ( I Believe).

I usually install the software for clients on their own domain.
I have a little bit of experience with Word Press, so ask away if you have any questions.

Cheers

 

[imwebdev]

Hi Frank,
This software allows you to build your site directly from your web browser.
There are ways to download it and do it on your computer, but for a newbie I would not recommend it, as it entails setting up a server, which in itself can be a bit of work!

What I do recommend - though you should ask others on the forum, is to get your site live as soon as possible, even if it is not finished! The reason I say that is that it can take some time for your site to show up in search engines. And if you wait until your site is perfect before you launch it, you may find that if you are not promoting it right, you will get no traffic for some time.

That is what I have read, and experience in the past anyway.

Wordpress has a lot of templates available for free. But if you want some created, they can also be created for you.

Check out the Wordpress theme viewer for some templates:
Theme Viewer

Hope that puts you on the right track!
Cheers

 

[RIFF-RAFF]

Thanks imwebdev,I appreciate the help.I'm going to have to think of a domain name,select a host and get a live site up.This will be my first real commitment......exciting!Thanks again.

Frank

 

[greenflash]

Have you thought about Squidoo.com?? I know I talk about that alot, but it's sooo easy to just dive in - almost like a website with training wheels....

and you can make an unlimited amount of lenses about unlimited amount of topics

I've never used a Yahoo builder - but if its' free, I'll try it.

Wordpress.com has been a blessing for me too


Doug

 

[RIFF-RAFF]

Thanks for the lead greenflash.I've been playing around with a couple different programs myself.Yahoo Site builder doesn't seem so bad and another that I've discovered is Nvu.I'm in the process of planning a website layout,creating my site headers and writing some articles.I've literally been glued to my computer for the last 3 days trying learn all I can about building a site.Suffice it to say,I'm very slowly getting the gist of whats going on.It may take me a while but I'm getting there.I'll look into that Squidoo.com.Thanks again.

Frank

 

[Publisher-For-You]

I've never tackled setting up a WordPress blog myself, I always pay someone to do it because I don't have any spare time and I'm not that technical. But everyone says it's pretty easy.

This is just one more way to look at it, but I think most folks, newbies especially, would be best to focus on content, traffic and sales, and steer clear of technology as much as they can.

Messing around with installs and servers and other technical issues is a big distraction from being a sales person. Being a sales person is hard enough all by itself, eh?

So hiring someone to do a WordPress install makes sense. A better solution perhaps is to hire someone who will both set everything up AND then be fully responsible for how the website/sitebuilder operates thereafter. In other words, the sales person is now out of the technology end altogether, once and for all.

Newbies will often shy from this because of the small expense, but that's a false savings, imho. This decision perhaps shows a lack of faith in their project, an assumption that it won't make money. And also, perhaps they just never meet anyone who advises them to steer clear of technology, and focus fully on making money. There's LOTS of info out there, it's easy to get confused.

Imho, the only people who should spend much time learning technology are those who plan on learning enough that they can then sell that skill. And that's a lot of learning.

Sorry to ramble on, I've spent a lot of time thinking about these kind of issues.

 

[fbeater]

Linda is right - the best way is to start with a free WordPress.com blog template, editing which is not harder than editing an MS Word document. You will never have to worry about hosting, bandwidth, or any related matters, and you will be able to easily point it to any domain name you own.

 

[RIFF-RAFF]

Well,deciding on a niche that I wanted to sink all my time and effort into has thus far been the hardest part.I am now the proud owner of 3 domain names and 2 years worth of hosting as of last night.I just finished building my header and am ready to start amassing content.Now I'm just waiting for my host to finish processing my account and some free time from work so I can get to work on my site.Very exciting.Thanks for all the input everyone.


Frank

 

[Publisher-For-You]

Well,deciding on a niche that I wanted to sink all my time and effort into has thus far been the hardest part.

Amen to that. I know I work REALLY hard on things I'm interested in, and I'm a lazy BUM on things I don't care about. So picking a niche was tough for me too. Why? Most of the things I'm really interested in don't have a lot to do with stuff you can sell.

I resolved the issue by creating my own stuff to sell, and then the power of ego pride ownership kicked in, and nobody has invented a better motivator than that.

I just finished building my header and am ready to start amassing content.

I'm ready to start amassing content too, and I mean a MASS of content. My current goal is to have a 100,000 page site that makes $1 per page per year.

Where will 100,000 pages come from? Even somebody who loves writing as much as I do can't type that much.

We might discuss the process of promoting ourselves from writers, to publishers. This is a conceptual leap that many of us can make, even newbies.

That is, instead of working ourselves in to exhaustion writing our own content page by page by page, work smarter by learning how to grow and manage the writings of others. This is an especially promising idea for those who just aren't naturally comfortable with writing, as many people aren't.

Being a people manager is a whole different ball game than being a word manager, and for those with the gift, it's a ball game that might have much bigger horizons.

Anybody here thinking along these lines? If so, please share your thoughts.

 

[Niche48]

Loads of free good html editors available online. NVU as mentioned above is good. So is Mozilla suite. You can opt to build a blog using wordpress or blogger. Problem is the options are so many, it's difficult to choose

 

[RIFF-RAFF]

You can opt to build a blog using wordpress or blogger. Problem is the options are so many, it's difficult to choose

Very true.The selection is overwhelming and all the differing opinions makes it that much harder to make a choice.I want to be certain that I choose whats best for me.

Frank

 

[imwebdev]

Hi Frank,
Yes I agree, choose what is best for you!
In terms of all the plugins, what you could do is sit down and plan out the plugins you will require (like a wishlist) before you start looking online for them!

The reason why I say this is because you can easily get overwhelmed by all the plugins available. For example, Word Press is a fantastic blogging tool, and it has over 2500 plugins available!!

if you are not sure what plugins you require, you can literally spend hours on end on the site searching for 'cool' plugins which will in the end serve you no purpose at all. Believe me I have done this before, and wasted precious hours when I could have been using them to write content or put my site together.

The moral of the story.. Make a PLAN!

Hope that helps and doesnt confuse you at all!
Cheers

 

[Publisher-For-You]

Frank, here's another perspective, I hope it might be helpful.

Back in 1995 the only way to make a website was with a plain text editor and an FTP program. This was very primitive compared to today, but....

It did force the webmaster to focus on what really matters, the content of the site. There was nothing else one could work on.

You know how your VCR has 17,000 features, and it's all very confusing, and gets in the way of the one or two things you do want to do with your VCR? Everything in our culture is way over designed these days.

The web is like that too. 17 billion features, few of which really matter when you get right down to it.

What matters is creating content that is so good that your visitors will naturally talk about it, and link to it. Content that will inspire your visitors to remember you, like you, trust you, and listen to your purchase recommendations.

It's the nature of webmaster culture to get all wrapped up in gizmos and plugins etc, because that's easy, and fun.

It's quite challenging to create a site that jaded net users will actually be enthusiastic about. We don't see this discussed so much, because it's hard.

If you don't have web technology skills, consider getting the simplest page builder you can find. Sweep 98% of all the options off the table, for now. Focus on your content, worry about that, it's a big enough job to keep you busy for some time.

Best of luck!

 

[RIFF-RAFF]

If you don't have web technology skills, consider getting the simplest page builder you can find. Sweep 98% of all the options off the table, for now. Focus on your content, worry about that, it's a big enough job to keep you busy for some time.

Best of luck!

I really have no web tech skills so its important for me to use an easy to use html editor.I did find one that works well for me and it was free (NVU) ,unfortunately though,I'm having trouble trying to figure out why it won't publish my items to my site.I do find that the more I learn, the further I get and the more hurdles I get over,the more addictive this becomes.Thanks.

Frank

 

[PPCguySCOTT]

building a free site

I recently came across a new site builder called synthasite and can be found under the same URL. I typically hire out my site building, but this one is so easy even I can put up a basic site in less than 30 mins. It has a decent video tutorial as well.