Wordpress for simple site?

J

Josh Bass

Veteran
Ugh. I have had this iWeb site for years, liked the super simple "what you see is what you get" approach to building it but it is getting bloated and nutty and with only a few changes/updates per year I start forgetting how to upload which thing to the right folders, and things start getting wonky.

So I think many people these days are using blog sites for their simple websites. I don't need anything dazzly or flashy. . .something with a little text and a way to display my video clips from Vimeo or maybe Youtube.

Has anyone made their own site with Wordpress (I mention it 'cause I know it's popular) or a similar site, or something that's easy to use? I'm a dummy when it comes to web design so I need the dumb dumb's guide to how to make a site without knowing HTML or any of the other languages. I do have my own domain so I would upload the site, however it's created, to that.
 
Wordpress.. basically choose a theme.

I then employed a web proffessional to buy me some webspace and upload the theme/database, get it all running

once it is running it is easy to add/remove/modify your site.

make sure you get all passwords from your 'professional' and that YOU own your domain name.

S
 
I spent a few days learning Wordpress from youtube tutorials to do my wife's site. I ended up creating my own theme, so that I could understand what was happening under the hood. I already knew HTML, javascript (now updated with libraries to do the heavy lifting) and, to a lesser extent, CSS, which is the real speed bump. I developed on my own machine, which required installing and configuring AMP. When it came time to go live, it took several days and numerous emails to the ISP to work around their automated WP installer.
If you know little or nothing of HTML and CSS, pay someone to do it for you, and as morgan_moore wrote, be sure to get the admin password from the developer. There are a lot of complaints on this site about amateurs working for little or nothing - developing your own WP site is similar. The going rate for a simple WP site, using a canned theme, including SEO, is around $3000 in my part of the world. That seems reasonable, but the developers charge you for every change, including updates to the theme and to WP itself. My ISP updates WP regularly at no charge, and since I have my own theme, no updates are necessary.
So, the short version is, have someone do it, make sure the admin password is part of the deal, and decline any optional updates.
 
You might look at other frameworks besides WordPress. For a while, and it may still be the case, many artists preferred SquareSpace. I mean photographers, painters, and other people that wanted to share their portfolio. They preferred it, for some reason. I don't know why. Looking at the site, it seems to keep the content front and center, and frames it in web pages that are simple but nice looking.

After I burned out on video production for a living 12 years ago, I became a web programmer for a company. I can make a whole website with just FTP and Notepad. On the topic of CSS, here are 218 looks that super-expert people can get with the exact same HTML but different CSS: http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/alldesigns/. But most people don't know enough to do that.

But the point is that all you really need is a nice-looking page template and a streamlined way to type stuff into it. You also will want an easy way to link to sample videos, being that you are a maker of videos. But I'm not sure if you should use that as a criterion or just put your stuff on Youtube or Vimeo and embed them in the aforementioned nice, simple pages.

The provider of said nice-looking page templates might be WordPress. But WordPress is not the most elegantly written web framework, in my opinion. So you might also check out the aforementioned SquareSpace, as well as perhaps Google Sites (anyone with a Google account can make a site, I gather, with the well-worn process of picking a template and using a rich-text editor to type stuff into it [no knowledge of HTML needed]). Or any of the top 25 search results for "how to build a website" or something similar. Google search results are pretty well sorted, based a great deal on how many links from other sites go to a page. So if a lot of people are recommending Acme Website Builder (made that one up, in homage to the late Wile E. Coyote) then for that very reason it should be in the top search results on google.com.

Best wishes and pick whatever you like the most in the way it looks and in how easy it is to use (as long as it's recommended by a significant portion of others, so it doesn't go out of business or bite you later for some odd reason).

BONUS: I am of the strong feeling that most people all they need are white web pages with black text and a few nice images or something in there --- and a nice logo. To get a nice logo, I suggest you hire a pro for that, even if you do all the other stuff yourself. But you must commit to use that logo everywhere. Don't style your name in 10 different ways, on your website, business card, brochure, and letterheard (who still uses letterhead? or business cards for that matter? anyway....). Everywhere your logo is, it must be the same logo, the same font, etc. If you don't want to spend a few thou' on a pro to do it well (hopefully), then go to dafont.com, pick a font that you can live with for the rest of your life (once you become well known, never change your logo), type your name or your company name in that font, in a color that you can like and can live with for maybe not the rest of your life but a long time. Stick that at the top of your simple black-text-on-white-pages, along with a few nice pictures, and everyone will applaud you as simple and elegant and expensive too :)
 
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Sorry I don't know how I missed all these replies. Anyway, thanks.

I am not OPPOSED to paying a pro, but I can't do anywhere close to $3k. I'm not saying they're not worth it, I'm just saying I can't justify it. The most recent post in this thread about a simple page with video links is what I'm after. Anyway I got my Iweb page doing what it's supposed to again so I'll probably leave this alone for a while. I will look into Squarespace etc.
 
Something to keep in mind is that WordPress it probably the most economic solution when nothing fancy is needed. For example, https://www.bluehost.com offers site hosting right now for $3.45/month with free domain (WordPress with 1-click install is offered as one of many, many web site platforms - typical for 99% hosting businesses). Of course, a WP template is also needed (many of them are free, some nicer ones are somewhere around $50-75 one-time fee). Many templates target video/photo pros.

Things like https://www.squarespace.com/pricing/ are nice, no question about that, but more expensive. Currently business option $18/month and domain names are $40-$50/year (!) - better to used GoDaddy and get same domain name two time cheaper.

Some site maintenance is inevitable no matter what hosting site or platform is used. But IMO WordPress is the most practical solution unless you really need something special. I actually is about to set up a new site and most likely will use BlueHost (no affiliation - just used in the past) and WordPress and try to find the simplest free template oriented towards video production. My estimate is that the whole setup process (from using my plastic to crafting first page/post) will take about 3 hours based on previous and not recent experience.
 
A lot of hosting companies have WordPress available through them.

Honestly, I think Wix is one of the best options out there now. Very intuitive design interface, lots of great features.
 
If course you can if you know how to "point" a url

btw - getting my Wordpress set up was half a day work - about $200 not $3000
 
You just need a "pro" to buy you some space - install the database and theme and point your web name at it

you then populate the sit

you don't even need a pro to do this stuff - Google can teach you but a helping hand is probably worth it

Obviusly you need to write your content resize images and the like
s
 
Josh Bass said:
Thanks. Will also take a look. Can you use Wix but still have the site as "joshbass.com"?
Click to expand...

Absolutely, and Wix makes it easy to do. My suggestion, though, would be that you transfer your domain registry to Wix so that you have everything in one place.
 
Cool, thanks. Right now my cost is very low. . .like $60/year with TotalChoice hosting, and whatever the domain renewal cost is every two years. That's all I pay for. I could understand a one-time fee for setup or if I had them make major changes but if it's monthly cost to work with these services then maybe not worth it.
 
Wix has an unlimited bandwidth plan for $14 per month. 10GB of storage, free domain, and templates to design your site that are easy to work with and look pretty cool.
 
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