Creating & Managing a Professional Website

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OrangeWolf

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Jan 6, 2011
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I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, or even if I should be asking on [H]ardForum at all, but at least I know that most of you guys here are pretty legit when it comes to computer stuff.

Long story short: My dad and I are starting a small business. It will not be a big business and will be more something that we do on the side (he's retired and I will have another full-time job). I am planning to make and maintain a website for it. I do not (yet) know how to do this but am confident of my ability to learn. I have several initial questions.

I am planning to use WordPress to make the site. It is my current understanding that WordPress.org is the Website Builder and WordPress.com is the free Blog thing. Is that correct? I have also heard that many websites made with WordPress look like blogs anyway, but that with a little effort (how much is a "little"?) it does not have to. I do not want a website that looks like a blog -- is that possible with WordPress and a little effort?

The reason I chose WordPress is because I do not know Java or HTML and I think it might be easier for me to learn software than to learn programming.

I am choosing to do this myself because I think it might be a useful skill to put on a job application or something at one point -- creation and maintenance of a professional website, etc. I have also heard that many famous sites use WordPress, so I thought it might be the most widely recognizable/used software for this sort of thing? Not as much point learning something that no one else uses if you are planning to list it as a skill.

Is there something other than WordPress that I should use instead?

I know that there are several free options available to me -- Weebly immediately comes to mind as a fairly simple and free way of having a website. It just seems to me that it lacks customization ability and it's obvious to anyone who visits it that it was free. What's the best reason to use something that isn't free? Or am I kidding myself and the free options are almost as good?

I will need to purchase a domain name. The one I want is available for 12.99 at GoDaddy -- is that per year? It doesn't say. Is GoDaddy the best place to purchase this?

I need hosting. I've read parts of the stickied thread and saw that The Planet did the hosting for this site, but it appears to not exist anymore having been gobbled up by SoftLayer. I apparently can't navigate SoftLayer's website for crap because I can't find anything resembling a reasonable price and I'm not even sure what half the things they are selling *are* anyway. Do they even still do typical hosting?

I've also been told that BlueHost is good, but it is at least $5 per month and I was hoping for something more along the lines of $25 per year. I'm wary of free hosting.
Legit hosting is more important than cheap hosting, but I'm not willing to pay that much. I'm just not sure where cheap/legit coincide, or if perhaps BlueHost is the best option in that range.

What does buying hosting do for you that free hosting doesn't? Are there any legal considerations? Other considerations? Remember this is for a business and not a personal site of some kind.

Are there any specific things I need to do with regards to registering or getting it to show up better when using a search engine?

Anything else that I need to know? I consider myself reasonably computer savvy but I know very little about programming or the inner workings of the internet.

Thanks in advance.
 
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I've created several wordpress sites and they are very customizable but you will have to do a lot of work to the back end to get it to look less like a blog. I would look into it more and try and find some examples of people running a business website with wordpress, I am sure there are some out there.

Godaddy's 12.99 fee is per year and is probably the best place to purchase your domain.

I have never used a free host but I imagine their up time is not very good, I used these guys and their customer support and up time were both very good:

http://www.cirtexhosting.com/

If you are running a business website you are obviously going to want the up time to be as close to 100% as possible.

And lastly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
 
Ah ha, thanks! Both very good links. The $2.50 a month price is excellent as well, plus it appears to come with a free domain name (I assume that means I could skip the bit with GoDaddy).
 
Don't skip the bit with registering the domain name yourself. Should you decide to part ways with a (bargain-priced) host, migrating will be much easier when the domain management is managed separately by you.
 
I personally would stay away from GoDaddy. Use Namecheap for your domain name.
 
www.site5.com is a great webhost. www.mddhosting.com is another that is very good.

I would stay away from hosting at places like godaddy or namecheap, not the best for uptimes IMO. They are good for domain registrations though! That is what they are first, domain registrars!

For wordpress, checkout themes from www.themeforest.com. Most are under $50 and can provide a great groundwork for your site.
 
I registered my domain with godaddy for 10 years for $31.30, I didn't realize there was 12% fwallet cashback either or I could've saved even more.

Just google godaddy coupon and one of the sponsored ads will have a link to sign up for $2.95/year + fees. Might as well register for 10 years cause renewal fees are always much higher, and don't forget to cancel auto-renewal. You can also register for 9 years and wait for a sale with a registrar that offers free who-is privacy and domain transfer for the 10th year.

10 years is the max you can register a domain for, and who-is privacy basically just hides your name/address/e-mail information from people. Godaddy charges extra for privacy, some registrars don't, but not everybody wants or needs it.
 
I have had really good success with Crucial Paradigm. It cost me around $100 for three years of hosting when I bought it back in 2010 iirc. They've been really good to me support wise.

Pricing and such for their current hosting tiers are here: Notice the Tri-annually (every three years) lowest package is only 2 bucks.
http://www.crucialp.com/web-hosting/

Whichever host you choose, I would recommend a host with Linux servers and explicitly stated storage and bandwidth transfer limits. Avoid the "unlimited" sellers as it is better to know your limits than run into unkown limits and find out the hard way (read: no shared hosting is actually "unlimited," unless you are paying a heck of a lot more than normal). That may not be the case with every company but is a good rule of thumb.

Definitely agree with doing the domain name registration yourself for the same reason stated above (to protect yourself and your domain name). I've had great success with Netfirms (look for coupons). They were bought up by... tucows I think(?) last year but I have not run into any problems so far. Will be renewing two domains with them next month, actually :). Basically choose anyone else but GoDaddy though ;)
 
Thanks guys! All very awesome information. A few places offer a free (permanent) domain name along with their hosting (Arvixe is one at 4/mo), but I guess that's where you'd run into a problem if you wanted to change hosting later.

How hard is it to make a website that doesn't look like a blog with WordPress? Should I use something like Joomla! instead?
 
OrangeWolf said:
How hard is it to make a website that doesn't look like a blog with WordPress? Should I use something like Joomla! instead?
Click to expand...
There's tons of skins out there for WordPress and Joomla, some for free and others for a nominal fee, that can deviate from the default skin's appearance. You should get familiar with both products (ie: administration, features, modifying, etc.) and decide what is a better fit for your capabilities and needs.
 
OrangeWolf said:
Thanks guys! All very awesome information. A few places offer a free (permanent) domain name along with their hosting (Arvixe is one at 4/mo), but I guess that's where you'd run into a problem if you wanted to change hosting later.

How hard is it to make a website that doesn't look like a blog with WordPress? Should I use something like Joomla! instead?
Click to expand...

someone already mentioned http://themeforest.net
look for a theme there
 
Depending on how many users you need, I've used dreamhost and setup the email throught gmail for businesses. gives you 10 free mailboxes through the gmail interface and u get all the gmail functions and email forwards/distro lists in the form of groups. much easier to manage and once u grow big enough, it's only $50/year for additional mailboxes.

wordpress is easy to use and i would suggest using the free blog to experiment. create a test one and u can try different themes and plugins to play with. from paypal to social media to photo gallery, there's plugins for just about anything. once you've played with it for a while, you can look at other things like getsimple, or concrete5 or joomla or drupal... download some free themes and then u can look at customizing ur own theme or paying someone to make a theme for you.
dreamhost has one click setup for wordpress to give u full management. and also one click setup for other web apps like wiki or project management...
 
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