Website design advice?

I want to start a website. Nothing grandiose, but something that looks nice and allows me to add content fairly simply. Any suggestions on how to start?

Look into Wordpress, or possibly Drupal. I feel like I'm missing another big one...

You haven't said so, but I'm assuming you're more interested in having a site that works than becoming a web developer...

Weebly is another.

Thanks folks.

Ransom - Definitely not looking to attempt to become a web developer! Just looking for a platform that I can use to attempt to get something off the ground.

Most computer come with some web-design option these days, don't they? I seem to remember that you could output word documents as web pages.

My advice is to use a WYSIWYG editor like iWeb or whatever comes on the PC, and farm out anything more complex to the pros.

Use blink tags often. They increase your SEO.

I would also look into a Wordpress or similar.

+1 for Wordpress.

slefain wrote: Use blink tags often. They increase your SEO.

Blink tags have been deprecated in Firefox, but there are other ways!

http://www.lingscars.com/

Big thumbs up for Wordpress from this web designer. It sounds well suited to what you're looking for. The platform itself is free and it uses a browser-based content management system (CMS). The number of plugins for whatever functionality you're may be looking for is staggering, and most of them are free as well. Excellent user-based community for when you have questions too.

If you decide to go this route, I wouldn't suggest using any free design themes that don't come from Wordpress.org. Almost all of them have some sort of shady code. I'm a big fan of themeforest.net for paid themes, which are usually more than just a pretty wrapper. Most of them also have some pretty cool functionality built in, like page layout options and ways to further customize the design (without getting into the code).

Another vote for Wordpress. I recently put together a basic little site for the gun shop on there. One of the reasons was the ease of making updates for the shop owner. Set it up very basic considering I live in an area where dial up users still out number broadband users.

It allows the shop owners to put their inventory online as well as keep customers updated to what is going on at the shop. Its already made a few sales for them and was just launched a little over a week ago.

as far as I'm concerned, Wordpress is the only choice.

Another vote from a developer. I can "roll my own" (although my skills are getting rusty) but I recently switched one of my sites to Wordpress so my wife would be able to update it too and can't believe I didn't do it sooner. Excellent product, easy to use, but lots of flexibility.

Thanks folks. It sounds like Wordpress is the way to go. If you'll indulge me, I have some follow up questions.

If I start with Wordpress, and actually end up with any traction to speak of, is it possible to transition to a more robust platform? I'm guessing at that point I would need the services of someone much more knowledgeable than me, but want to be sure that the transition is at least possible.

Matt B - You mentioned additional functionality as an option. Eventually, I would hope to need the ability to introduce banner advertising as well as e-commerce. Is that possible with Wordpress?

I'm not Matt B but I can answer. Yes there are plug ins for banner ads. There may be e-commerce plug ins as well but you can also utilize a 3rd party e-commerce system and embed it in your Wordpress site.

You will not need a more robust platform, wordpress is not some scaled down just for beginners product, its quite capable. But again, you can always transition, you might loose some of the format and features in wordpress but wordpress is just the tool to design the site, the content, the URL (site name) and host are all yours.

I was recently quoted about $38K to design and build what I need. I'm shopping around for a few other options.

JThw8 wrote: I'm not Matt B but I can answer. Yes there are plug ins for banner ads. There may be e-commerce plug ins as well but you can also utilize a 3rd party e-commerce system and embed it in your Wordpress site. You will not need a more robust platform, wordpress is not some scaled down just for beginners product, its quite capable. But again, you can always transition, you might loose some of the format and features in wordpress but wordpress is just the tool to design the site, the content, the URL (site name) and host are all yours.

Fantastic news. Thanks!