Starting a Website

[Mary]

I need advise and help setting up my website. I went with Godaddy and I'm figuring things out slowly, this is all new to me. But I can't upload my own pictures. I go through the steps, I hit open and it just won't download.

My question is, how many of you have set up your website by yourself and should I keep at it or break down and hire someone to help. My level of tech ability is very low and I'm getting frustrated.

[[deleted user]]

I would advise to keep at it yourself. I've always believed if you need a tool or skill just once, rent it or contract for it. But if you will need it again and again in the future, it is best to learn to do it yourself.

A website has to be kept fresh and up to date. You will have new products or new marketing campaigns you wish to advertise. You will periodically want to revamp the whole thing several times as your business grows. And relyIng on someone else to make changes for you is expensive and often frustrating.

I have four websites for my teaching and my books. Maintenance and new pages are quite simple. First, I've opted to do all the work with a generic web package rather than relying on templates or proprietary software that is offered by any one hosting company. I bought Dreamweaver and use it now for everything. You don't need a new copy, so ask around or look on eBay. My version is an old CS5. I got it with a student discount.

Secondly, think about taking a course to learn Dreamweaver and to build up a group of friends you can ask for help when you get bogged down. Classes are offered at community colleges and at some Adult Ed programs.

[Mary]

Thanks for your advise. I will look into Dreamweaver and look for help with doing myself.

[Regina]

I have a couple and they're all on Blogger. It's easy, it's free, and I can set up and release posts from my phone if I need to. Has all kinds of widgets, you can link to FB from it, easy to post pics, visitors can post comments, etc.

I've used Dreamweaver, but found the hassle of updated a Dreamweaver blog made me put off updating because I didn't feel like messing with it.

You can set up a nice looking site in Blogger inside of five minutes. Seriously.

[Mary]

Thank you for the suggestion.

[Jessica]

This is awesome. I was having the same issues, just about to give up myself. Thanks too, and you also Mary for asking the very same question I was going to be bringing up.

[Glen]

I have several websites running for different things, all created with Joomla. However, you do have to know what you are doing. For a blog type website I would recommend either Blogger or Wordpress.

[SolaFide Publishing]

I would suggest wordpress. It's just very easy to use and there are tons of free pluggins that allow you to receive professional looking capabilities on your site with just a click of a button. And with the right caching pluggins, the sites are actually really fast.

[Patti]

Wix is super simple and starts at free. Its a very simple "What you see is what you get" platform. No coding required. Simple drag and drop. I am moving my bookstore website there even as we speak. It won't be live until tomorrow - www.gulfcoastbookstore.com .

[Teresa]

I have a wordpress site that is hosted through bluehost. I have little tech savvy as well. Getting it set up isn't that hard but if you really want to personalize and make it pop things get a bit trickier. If you do go with wordpress and you have questions feel free to PM me and I'll see if I can help. Good luck.

[TyCobbsTeeth]

I find Wordpress has a fair number of free templates to setup a good blog site and is easy to use, but for my website I use weebly. Free, plenty of templates, and simple to setup. It's somewhat customizable for those who have a little more experience and want to trick things out a bit.
Best of luck!
Rob