How to build a website?

[mlmpetert]

I apologize if this is already a thread but I searched and couldn’t really find anything so please merge if need be.

I want to make a website. Besides a couple geocities sites back in high school and linking sellourteamdannyboy.com to the donation site I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Here is what I want to do:

Make a website with a specific domain name (ie www.thewarpath.net NOT www.geocities/fanpages/thewarpath.com)
Easy – I want to use templates, but I would like to use 3rd party templates as well if I wanted to
Moveability – If I wanted to change hosts or servers I would like to be able to do so easy
Cheap – I doubt Ill draw much traffic but I would like to be able to expand if need be. Whats a reasonable costs?
Ability to have a mobile site for smart phones
Personal – I doubt ill draw much traffic or need lots of space, but I want to be able to upgrade if wanted to. Or if I ever did have a business website I would like to have all my stuff at one place
Im not selling anything – but I would like to know how and be able to put ads on if I wanted to


When I search and try and get peoples reviews of sites and what they offer I am primarily finding ads. I hate committing to stuff so I don’t want to get started with a hosting site and then find out I got one that sucks or doesn’t work for me. So I guess I am looking for you guys to tell me whats the best hassle free hosting site you’ve had experience with or which ones to avoid. I want to keep it easy, but I don’t want to cheat myself out of learning something new. Most of the reason I am doing this is to learn something new and know how.

I guess to sum up my needs I want something that has cookie cutter stuff that’s easy to start out with, but I want to be able to expand to legit warpath like status if need be. That said I don’t want to start a forum or anything, but I love sites that are user interactive and allow people to leave comments or take polls or get notifications. Any recommendations or advice?

[MTK]

Have you considered a blog? Blogs are very easy to set up and work with. Check out blogger.com. You can have one up and going in minutes.

[SmootSmack]

What's the purpose of the website?

[tryfuhl]

Site purpose? Content?

I'd worry less about the mobile access at the moment.

[mlmpetert]

Matty:

Most "social" website stuff is blocked at my work so its hard to me to check that out. Also it looks like you might be using a different blog for your p90x stuff? That might be all i am really looking for, but i need to mess around with it and find out. One thing that is real important to me to be able to learn how to make a website so if i want to make a business one in the future i can - im not sure if a blog based site will accomplish that.

SS:

The main reason why im doing this is to learn how. I am hesitant to say what the website would be because it will be somewhat political, but also because im not really sure. Im going with a “somewhat” political based website, because it will keep me interested and i wont have to update nonstop.

[MTK]

If you want something somewhat interactive, a blog or forum is the way to go, or even a Facebook page. The days of firing up Microsoft FrontPage and making a site are in the rear view.

Blogs can be set up with add-ons to do pretty much anything a traditional site can.

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by tryfuhl

Site purpose? Content?

I'd worry less about the mobile access at the moment.

I dont want to take away from the thread by explaining the content, but i guess i will have to. It will be a site aboutpoliticians who have cheated on their spouses, porkypoliticians.com. More than anything I thought the name was clever and it wont take a lot of work to update since a new scandal only comes out every 4 months or so. And this is mainly for a learning purpose, im not trying to get too involved with something.

I only said mobile access because I hate going to websites on my phone that don’t really have good mobile access. I just would like to be able to know that I can do it at some point, so I can learn how. I don’t want to feel restricted, because then ill just never get around to learning how

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

If you want something somewhat interactive, a blog or forum is the way to go, or even a Facebook page. The days of firing up Microsoft FrontPage and making a site are in the rear view.

Blogs can be set up with add-ons to do pretty much anything a traditional site can.

I guess i dont just want to take the real easy road. I want to learn how to make a basic website.

I went to The Om Field and i like the lay out. What i dont understand is that i cant go to your p90x blog or click on a lot of things at blogger.com but i can go to his blog no problem?

Blog might be the easiest way to go and best fit for what im currently trying to do, but the main purpose is to learn how to build a site. Maybe im stuck in the past and there's really no reason to learn how to do that anymore?

[saden1]

Do you want a dynamic website or a static website? Static site is pure HTML and no user interaction goes on, where as in a dynamic website you will have to write back-end code that handles user requests and displays data from another source (i.e. database). Building dynamic website from the ground up is no small feat and if you want to do that I would suggest you pickup a few books (on Ruby on Rail, Javascript, HTML, and CSS). Better yet, take a course on the subject at your local community college.

[MTK]

If you want to learn the hard way, like saden said take some classes or pick up some books and teach yourself. Honestly though, with blogs and forums there's not much need to go that route, but that's up to you of course.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

If you want to learn the hard way, like saden said take some classes or pick up some books and teach yourself. Honestly though, with blogs and forums there's not much need to go that route, but that's up to you of course.

Plus you can customize the hell out of software like WordPress.

[SmootSmack]

I remember when I thought I was the man for knowing FrontPage, I was a pioneer among my peers...now I have to explain to people what that once was.

Create an app with a social game element, skip the website

[tryfuhl]

a CMS system would def help

wordpress is one of the easier ones, joomla is decent, drupal is great if you hate yourself

[tryfuhl]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

I remember when I thought I was the man for knowing FrontPage

oh man, not even sure what to say haha

I honestly never tried that type of program.. well I lied, I tried it once but it cluttered up my code so much I went back to hand-coding the same day

did you follow up with dreamweaver?

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by saden1

Do you want a dynamic website or a static website? Static site is pure HTML and no user interaction goes on, where as in a dynamic website you will have to write back-end code that handles user requests and displays data from another source (i.e. database). Building dynamic website from the ground up is no small feat and if you want to do that I would suggest you pickup a few books (on Ruby on Rail, Javascript, HTML, and CSS). Better yet, take a course on the subject at your local community college.

I think that since im completely new to this that I should start off easier than building something from scratch. I guess you see tons of things out there like:

http://www.homestead.com/~site/hslo/website/features.ffhtml
http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/website-builder.aspx
http://www.intuit.com/website-building-software/?pd=t&s_cid=CJ

Has anyone used any of these or others before with good results?


Here is a review site that I looked at:

http://www.buildwebsite4u.com/building/free-website-builders.shtml

I have my domain with 1 & 1 so that’s likely who I was going to start with, then I decided to ask thewarpath. So my thoughts are building a website with one of these cookie cutter builders might teach me a little bit especially without knowing anything about css, javascript or html. I want something uncomplicated to start out with. But im completely ignorant when it comes to these things so maybe im over thinking it, and should just get started with the builder 1and1 offers?