How to Build a Website

Matt,

You'll probably get a better response over in tech help.

I'll see if I can find a Super to make the shift.

Matt, your cost can be as little as hosting and domain registration if you opt to go with Wordpress to power your site. You can spend a lot more if you want, but if you want a basic blog on your own domain (and not at wordpress.com or blogspot.com, for instance) you can do it on the cheap and still end up with something that looks nice.

Use a good host like Hostgator, and installing wordpress is as easy as a few clicks.

Shelley

Going to move this over to the Blogging forum, rather than Tech help, since I suspect he'll be fine with a free Blogger or Wordpress site to start.

Matt generally speaking, unless you want to learn HTML and CSS, your best bet is to use Blogger or WordPress or a similar system to create your site.

You can start by creating free accounts at www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com to get an idea of how they work.

Both are quite capable of running/creating a Web site with static pages as well as blog posts.

If you're looking for a site that reflects you as an author, then just start up a free Wordpress blog. They're easy to set up, easy to manage, and a great way to not only show off your current works but also keep people up-to-date on how you're changing as a writer. You can post snippets of current works or whatever you want.

The only problem with a blog is you'd have to update it regularly.

Also, if you want your own domain, like www.mattyjrocks.com then that'd be the only real cost to you. Just find a domain registar like 1and1 or GoDaddy (NOT recommended, just an example, godaddy is not good but is a recognized name. They're the White Castle of Domain Registration sites.).

It doesn't cost much for a simple domain. If it's your first one you'll probably get it pretty cheap and then you can pay for it for like 4-5 years if you want so you won't have to worry about the price increasing for a long time. Plus, with your name as the domain you won't have to worry about the domain becoming old or stale. Unless you die. And then you can't update your blog anyway. Yet.

I'm not a website master. I don't know jack about making a website but I think the one I have looks pretty good and all I pay for is the domain and hosting costs.

Hey Matt,

The others said some really good stuff about Wordpress, but I thought it might help to have the options broken down a little more for you.

There's three pieces involved in getting a website. You need a domain. You need hosting. And you need someone to actually design the website for you.

The domain is the actual name people type in the url bar-- www.myawesomedomain.com. That has a small cost.

A website is made up of a bunch of files, just like word documents or images, and they have to be stored somewhere that's accessible to the web. That's where your site is "hosted." This also has a cost, but it's a quite a bit more than domains.

So if you use a Wordpress or Blogger site, they pay for your domain, and they pay for your hosting. So it's free for you, and you have options to create extra pages, pick themes, and modify those themes. They provide basic packages of code so you never have to mess with it. (FYI Google also has similar free websites for anyone with a google account.) It's a great "starter" website.

The other option is to buy your own domain name and pay for your own hosting. This works better for professional sites once you want to be able to have mailing lists, or lots of pages, or hire someone to make your own design, etc etc.

The problem with buying your own domain/hosting is that now someone has to write the code. You can hire a web designer ("small" 5 page websites can cost around $1,000k depending on the company.) Or you can try and do it yourself.

Doing it yourself means either A) Learning how to use a program like Dreamweaver, in which you can design what the site would look like, and have it generate all the code for you, or B) Learning how to write CSS and HTML yourself. And although the two languages go hand in hand, you still have to learn them both. It took me two Web Design classes to feel like I could competently design a website.


And just to sum it up:

The cheapest, easiest way is to go with Wordpress/Blogger
The next best cheap, easy way is to buy your own domain/hosting and invest in Dreamweaver to help you design the site.
If you want a cheap, professional looking site, do your own domain/hosting, and spend some time really learning how to write CSS & HTML and write the site yourself.
If you want a professional site, and you can afford it, hire a web designer, and then you only have to worry about the domain/hosting.

I'd suggest evaluating where you are in your career, at the moment, and what's really worth your investment at this point. I'd say start with a Wordpress site and then when you start publishing books, bump up to a professional site.


Hope that helps,
-Mandy

Feathers said:

The problem with buying your own domain/hosting is that now someone has to write the code. You can hire a web designer ("small" 5 page websites can cost around $1,000k depending on the company.) Or you can try and do it yourself.

Doing it yourself means either A) Learning how to use a program like Dreamweaver, in which you can design what the site would look like, and have it generate all the code for you, or B) Learning how to write CSS and HTML yourself. And although the two languages go hand in hand, you still have to learn them both. It took me two Web Design classes to feel like I could competently design a website.

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Or you can pay for the domain, which is about $10 a year, pay for the hosting which can be as little as $6 or $7 a month, and install Wordpress on your site for free and/or use a program like Seahorse or some other free html client to create your site. It really doesn't have to be an expensive proposition.

Yes, if you want certain things that you don't want to learn, like fancy programming, you'll have to pay someone or recruit a friend who knows how to do it.

But a nice, basic site can be created with these methods, and can always be changed later. I own several websites on a variety of topics that all use Wordpress installed on the server, not the blog.wordpress.com sites. Yes, I learned basic html years ago so I can create a passable site in Notepad, which helps. For the site that doesn't use Wordpress, I do a lot of it with Seahorse and adapt as necessary, because it's faster. But I also use Wordpress on most of the sites, and can adjust the free themes a little bit. I've also purchased themes in the past, but not expensive ones.

You can spend a great deal if you want a premium site full of bells and whistles. But you don't have to. It all depends on what you want the site to do for you.

Shelley

shelleyo said:

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You can spend a great deal if you want a premium site full of bells and whistles. But you don't have to. It all depends on what you want the site to do for you.

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This is the central thing to think about.

I always suggest that new-to-the-Web folk might want to try a free blog site first; they can always move their content to a domain, and if you're an unpublished writer thinking about a future Web presence, I hate to see a large cash outlay. Don't spend money until you make money; and, it's a good idea to find out if you actually have content, time, and the perseverance to keep a site or even a blog updated.

MattJ said:

I'm a little paranoid and uncertain about using the free blogs for commercial self-promotion -- didn't Twitter just claim that all the tweets belong to them?

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Not exactly; if you read the TOS clearly, it's a cover-their-ass-statement; they don't want someone to delete their account and then demand Twitter remove all the Re-tweets, etc. They have a permanent license to your tweets--but it isn't exclusive.

Content hosts kind of have to have that kind of a TOS because users will make idiotic and expensive demands about removing all data--which would mean combing through all sorts of backups and servers and would cost a fortune.

MattJ said:

I think I like Shelly's idea of buying a domain and importing Wordpress. It sounds like a good compromise.

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This is dead easy to do; some tips:

1. Don't register your domain and purchase hosting from the same source; the host can then hold you hostage.

2. Keep your blog up for a month or so, at least, after you establish your domain if you decide to host your blog on your domain; add a note sending readers to the permanent site. You absolutely can import your blogger content to WordPress.

Hey, thanks Medievalist. I've been wondering about transferring my Blogger blog to Wordpress when I set up my author website.

Medievalist is correct: "Don't register your domain and purchase hosting from the same source; the host can then hold you hostage."

I do design websites and use DreamWeaver, which I wouldn't recommend you running out and purchasing right now. There is the Front Page clone, now retitled Office Sharepoint Designer by Microsoft. It is free. If you have it in your mind to start designing your own site, you can get plenty of practice with that.

Your expense will be the cost of the domain name (usually less that $12 for the year) and hosting (if you choose to pay for hosting).

Alternatively, you can create a free website on Bravenet. Of course most free website building sites have ads on them.

Hey
I have literally just bought my second website, kinda wish I had found this thread before. The first site was a domain and hosting job where I put a Wordpress site on a domain I had bought myself. Whilst the second time (now) I am getting it built as it is a little more complicated than just a simple blog. A little pricey at almost $200 I went with this guy cos I have been following his blog for a while and he is a really cool guy.
Johnny B Truant
I should say I am not an affliate, I just think he is cool.
Altogether its under $300 for hosting, a domain and a 5 page site. That was the cheapest figure I could find from a trusted source, although there are cheaper quotes available I am willing to pay more for the comfort of knowing this guy is pretty reliable

On the other hand I did build my first 2 sites, and could have built this one too, by myself, I dont really have the time to learn how to use Dreamweaver or learn HTML CSS suffienetly to build the site I would like.

All the best

LawlessLara said:

Altogether its under $300 for hosting, a domain and a 5 page site. That was the cheapest figure I could find from a trusted source, although there are cheaper quotes available I am willing to pay more for the comfort of knowing this guy is pretty reliable.

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Make sure you are listed as the Domain Registrant and Owner.

Make sure you have control over the server/site.

If you're interested, what I did for my site was to (1) rent a domain name, (2) rent host space, and (3) try to use my clumsy, leftover-from-ebay HTML. Eventually, I looked up a bit about CSS, and my husband did the frames thing. I'm sure the cobbled-together code is inelegant, but it did make a website that gets me business. And if you e-mail me at that website, the mail goes to the website's address and is forwarded to two other addresses, the ones I really use. Handy.

Basically, every time I want to do something, I Google it and try to figure it out.

But it's a very simple site.

It's not that difficult to build a web site providing you have the time and enthusiasm. Just keep it simple at first, and you'll do fine.

You can also customize free blogs and sites by adding your own personally designed header, etc. so they look more professional, and better represent the image you want to portray. Here are a couple of examples:

http://www.greatmindsthinkaloud.proboards.com

http://writershaven1.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=advertise&action=display&thread=377

http://wherewritersmeet.proboards.com/

Kensington said:

It's not that difficult to build a web site providing you have the time and enthusiasm. Just keep it simple at first, and you'll do fine.

You can also customize free blogs and sites by adding your own personally designed header, etc. so they look more professional, and better represent the image you want to portray. Here are a couple of examples:

http://www.greatmindsthinkaloud.proboards.com

http://writershaven1.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=advertise&action=display&thread=377

http://wherewritersmeet.proboards.com/

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Would it take much technical know-how to customize forums and blogs like this?

I tried out a couple different 'package' websites and hated them. There was very little I could do as far as customizing, and none was really what I wanted (individuality). That's why I went with writing my own code (I also didn't have money to spend on someone else doing it). It's really not that hard to learn - there are tons of tutorials online - and it gives me the flexibility to do whatever I want with it. I did have to have my son help me with some CSS stuff, as I haven't really spent much time on that yet. GoDaddy is my host (don't know what problems others have had - I'm very happy with it).

Wordpress can be customized a lot -- how much depends on whether you do understand a smidge of code. And it's much easier to manage than a shipload of hand-coded pages. Much. Take it from one who created her first site in Notepad and still loves playing with code.

There's some info here about HTML, free HTML editors and writing for the Web.

Matera the Mad said:

Wordpress can be customized a lot -- how much depends on whether you do understand a smidge of code. And it's much easier to manage than a shipload of hand-coded pages. Much. Take it from one who created her first site in Notepad and still loves playing with code.

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Nice site, Matera. I like your header. Did you use a special program to create it?

Hello, all. I am planning to set up a website before I start querying, since I have heard all writers should have one. However, I haven't done HTML in nine years. I remember how to use it about as well as my high school Spanish (which is to say, not at all.)

A search of this forum turned up this old thread. Is the advice here still good? Or have things changed substantially in three years? What does an author need to consider when setting up their first webpage?

And what is the best way to troll-proof them? I have a persistent one that might find the site and I don't want a huge headache.

First get a domain, either a .com or .net based on your name/author name.

i.e. myname.com

Second, I'd go with WordPress. I'd forget about hand-coding. Find a Web host other than your Registrar that offers one-click installs of WordPress, or, use the "free" hosted version of WordPress from wordpress.com with your own domain.

And I'd look at this thread: How to promote your book like an intelligent human being and not an SEO Dweeb