Creating a website

iant79

iant79

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Ian
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Hi,

I'm taking steps towards creating my first website. I've read around online, but always interested to hear thoughts/ feedback from others on here.

The domain(s) I'm after are available - I'm going to get the co.uk and .com - other suffixes (.net/ .org/ .eu) are all still available too, but I wasn't going to bother with the others - I could always buy them up if need be at a later date, but in terms of cost, they're not a priority. I was going to use 123reg - any +/- experiences of this company?

I've also read advice to not buy hosting through the same company as domain is registered with.

In terms of building the site, I'll get onto that as and when; but just want to get the domains registered at the moment. I've had some experience creating web content via a content management system at work, but that's about it. So I'm undecided between going down the DIY route, or getting someone in.

Any advice on any of the above would be much appreciated!
 
I use 123reg for all my domains (about 7). Never had an issue with them.
Dont bother with the others, just get .co.uk and .com.

As to hosting, I cant see why you couldnt go with them, but I have my own server, so never needed to bother with it.

As for the site, to start you could go with someone like smugmug with your domains pointing there, just to get your prescence out there. In the meantime try building your own site and see how it goes.
I gave up doing my own photosites, as its just much easier using the companies out there who specialise in it.
 
There's also the wordpress route. 123-reg are ok for registration. There are people like hostgator or heart internet for hosting. I haven't heard good things about 123-reg hosting. Smugmug are also pretty good for photo hosting. I think you can do quite sophisticated things and customise your site quite a lot if you know how.

http://www.photocrati.com/ I have seen quite a few sites using their wordpress themes.
 
if you want an amateur looking website do it yourself, but if you want something professional get a professional web developer in - its a simple as that - although I'm sure the wordpress crew will be along to tell me I'm wrong any second now
 
Thanks All,

Karlos said:
if you want an amateur looking website do it yourself, but if you want something professional get a professional web developer in - its a simple as that
Click to expand...

This is what I'm thinking - I'll look into prices, but I think it'll be worth the initial outlay. There's no immediate hurry, as I'm not ready to go "live" yet, just putting in some of the groundwork (Facebook and Twitter pages also grabbed).
 
I don't think there is any need to buy every suffix possible.
If you are going to use it for a UK based business then of course get .uk and .com. I would recommend also getting .net and .org but there is no point going beyond that.
 
Karlos said:
if you want an amateur looking website do it yourself, but if you want something professional get a professional web developer in - its a simple as that - although I'm sure the wordpress crew will be along to tell me I'm wrong any second now
Click to expand...

I've seen lots of 'custom' sites built for local business that are nowhere near as professional looking as an off the shelf template based site. Unique menas nothing if it's also cheap and nasty! Unless of course you're planning to be turning over a quarter of a million in your first year, in which cas investing a few thousand on a classy and unique website will be money well spent.

I personally dislike the photo hosting company's so I would recommend looking at Wordpress, preferably with a paid for template. Particularly as you have experience with CMS systems already, you could have a very good quality site up and running in hours.
 
Phil V said:
I would recommend looking at Wordpress, preferably with a paid for template. Particularly as you have experience with CMS systems already, you could have a very good quality site up and running in hours.
Click to expand...

Thanks Phil,

Just had a look at Wordpress. It looks like you can do some good things with it. Will have a better look over the weekend. The reason I was wary of using existing blog-type templates is that I'm really keen to avoid having a web address like www.[mysitesname]@wordpress.com and just maintain my domain address as the address that appears in browsers. If this is possible with the likes of Wordpress, I'll seriously consider that.

I'll get my domains registered this weekend and some hosting sorted out. This is all new to me!

Thanks for the comments, all. :)
 
If you self host wordpress you can have a 'normal' domain name. Mine is www.hughmillerphotography.co.uk and entirely with with WP.

123-reg are ok for domain names, but they are expensive. For hosting I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. I really can't speak badly enough of them. They are over priced & crap. The versions of PHP they were running at the start of the month were 13 versions behind and this caused all their users major issues, and their web security is a joke. Before I left they'd reset my primary FTP password (which you can't set yourself) to 1234ABCD (no joke) don't touch.
 
Roger/ Hugh,

Thanks for the advice. As I say, I've never set up a site before and while I get the principle of domains/hosting etc it's all a bit too abstract for me! Building something involves physical objects as far as I am concerned.

rogermbyrne said:
Hey Ian just for clarity there is a difference between http://wordpress.com/ and http://wordpress.org/ the former is the one with the xy.wordpress.com url that they host for you and the latter is something you install yourself (or automatically through your own hosting).

You can find benefits and pitfalls of each here http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, it looks useful.

boyfalldown said:
If you self host wordpress you can have a 'normal' domain name. Mine is www.hughmillerphotography.co.uk and entirely with with WP.

123-reg are ok for domain names, but they are expensive. For hosting I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. I really can't speak badly enough of them. They are over priced & crap. The versions of PHP they were running at the start of the month were 13 versions behind and this caused all their users major issues, and their web security is a joke. Before I left they'd reset my primary FTP password (which you can't set yourself) to 1234ABCD (no joke) don't touch.
Click to expand...

Cheers Hugh - that site looks great and exactly the kind of thing I had in mind for myself. All the sites I've looked at for domains look fairly similar in terms of price - give or take a couple of pounds. The intention was always to host with a different company in case I ever wanted to move hosts; I'd read that having domains registered with a company whose hosting you might want to leave at a later date can cause all manner of problems.
 
Domains: register them where you want, ifs often swifter to register them where you host. The really imortant thing is is that YOU register them, and your name and address is down as the registrant
Hosting: Choose the host you intend to stick with, moving hosts invariably means some pain, and potentially downtime
Wordpress: We have done lots of wordpress sites, with bespoke templates, and heaviliy modified stock templates. There are advabtages, many of them, and some disadvantages

What you need to consider is "what end result do you want" what features do you want today, tommorow and next year. You may find that wordpress fits the bill nicley... However you may decide to also incorporate a decent gallery soloution, and you may want some swish presentation of your images

As i said - pencil down what the end result needs to be, and work backwards from it, you will find that something wil be the best fit
 
As Richard says, get your pens and paper out, lay out what you want and work from there. If you don't want to spend ages and ages learning dhtml css etc etc then I'd get someone else to do it. Give a freelance designer (Richard maybe? I don't know him but his tag says that's what he does) your plans, tell him your budget, reach an agreement and set him on. You could try a site like elance where individual freelance folk with loads of skills are bidding for work, but whatever you do, as Richard says make sure you have your name on the register for the domain name.
 
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