[kinder clean]

I looked at this a while back and put it on the back burner, but now I've mastered designing my own artwork for flyers etc I'm ready to have a dabble at making a website.

Wordpress seems the one to go for, is there anyone out there whose made a site using this ?

I'd be really grateful of some mentoring / advise for getting me started.

Thanks

Paul

[feldon]

Hi Paul

I'm only just starting out but I have built my own website using microsoft small officeat http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/en-gb/, which is free to use and domain names cost about £12. Its pretty easy to use and you can get some good results, worth trying out. I'm in the final stages of tweeking my site and although doing it this way is not going to be as good as paying for a site it is a good way to start before moving on and getting someone to professionally design a site for you if you so wish. Not heard of wordpress.

[justin brown]

Hi Paul, my site is word press although i know nothing about websites and the like. www.premiumcarpetcare.co.uk if you fancy a look. the company who did it (and that are currently building me a second site) are infobox media. they charged £350 and its proably the best money i have ever spent

[Chris Small]

I built mine with Frontpage but since then found a free editor called Komposer, this is as simple as it gets and has a great forum for tips and help.

http://kompozer.sourceforge.net/

am taking time building a new site with this.
Never seen wordpress so can't comment.

Good luck

Chris
ecocarpetcleaning.net

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Hi Paul, my site is word press although i know nothing about websites and the like. www.premiumcarpetcare.co.uk if you fancy a look. the company who did it (and that are currently building me a second site) are infobox media. they charged £350 and its proably the best money i have ever spent

Nice site Justin.

[David Rogers]

For those without HTML or other website skills, Moonfruit have really improved over the last year and you can get a convincing site, pretty quickly and intuitively.

Mine is a moonfruit site and I simply point my domain name's DNS record at the moonfruit site, so it comes up with just www.carpetzest.co.uk and search engine optimization is preserved (which it's not if basic web forwarding is used).

[wynne jones]

I'm thinking of getting an expert to do it. I wouldn't know where to start and I think you end up with better google if sum one knows the ropes.

[justin brown]

thanks steve, that means alot. cheers mate

[Tre Allen]

A couple designs I have built are: www.drynclean.com , www.refreshcarpetcleaning.co.uk , www.sansonecarpetcleaners.com , www.pcssouthernct.com

Lemme know if you need any help, my email is owner@truckmountforums.com

[ianharper]

Hi Paul

i run about 50% of my sites on wordpress. a few things you need to know. you will need to get a web server with cpanel which will have a button on it called "Fantastico" which will do all the set-up for you.

first you need to go to 123reg.co.uk and get your domain then go into your domain control and  you will find the link to your nameserver point this to your server account. you will get the details of your nameserver in the first email you get when you set up your server account.

next go to your cpanel and into Fantastico fill in your domain details, and that's it. you can add HTML sites to your server by FTP which again the details are in that email. The program i use is free and called CORE. just reg your domain then got to cpanel and into add on domains fill it in then open up the ftp and log on where you will see a folder with the same name as your domain put all you site files in it and your up and running

http://www.coreftp.com/

Richard be very careful about buying domains though third party's some will register their details and you don't own the domain. i had this once and spent many months building up the domain only to lose it at renewal when the company put it up for sale.

Paul if you use shared server space its risky as hackers can get in much easier. get your own server. this way you are in control of all the software updates which is the number one reason people get hacked. by not keeping any software updated you will be a risk.

what happens is that when a hole is found in any software hackers pass this info around to each other. they they build spiders to go out and find sites with the old versions on them and hack them. I have had this problems a few times. as soon as a new version come out update. when you are on shared servers your not in control of this.

other advantages of your own server is your own IP address and if you want to have more than one site you can add more. which helps is SEO a domain with its own IP is an advantage. think of sharing a server just like letting other people share your PC. as you will see that's all a server is a rack PC it has memory hard drives etc

good luck

Respect

Ian Harper

[Nigel_W]

Paul I am part way (still) through building my site in Wordpress.( www.designcare.co.uk)

I took a one to one(1 day) training course with Davco Media to get me started. www.davcomedia.co.uk

I would strongly recommend this approach because it really kick starts your progress and gives  you confidence in using Wordpress.

My host is TSOhost who have been fine for Wordpress. I have designed my wordpress site using a Wordpress theme called Atahualpa. Using a theme really helps and there are thousands of these Worpress themes out there for free.


I don't have much free time to mentor you but if there is anything specific feel free to contact me anytime.

Good luck.

Nigel

[garry22]

Paul,

Wordpress is easy to use.

It has things called "plugins" for a variety of functions that the ordinary mortal would find impossible to code in a "normal" website. They literally plug in to your site in the dashboard (user control panel as opposed to the C panel that Ian mentioned).

Some important ones are...

All-in-one-SEO pack - (helps with on page SEO)
Google XML sitemap Generator - compiles and submits sitemap to Google (more chance of indexing)
Akismet or WP Spam Free (stops spam comments)

You can get free themes at ..  http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Alternatively you can make your own with a relatively cheap program called Artisteer.

Take a look at ... http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons

The best thing is to just have a go.

Garry

[wynne jones]

I've been looking at these blogs and they look all over the place, what's all the words crap on the right.

Surely people want to see a bonefide website.

[garry22]

Wynne,

Wordpress is just the platform that they are built on.

You can make any site look like a "real" site using the stylesheets. You just have to adjust the layouts accordingly. Tre can probably give you a bit more detail on this.

Both Justin's and Frasers's (refresh Edinburgh) are built on Wordpress but look like html sites.

Things like the auto pinging feature helps with search engines so a lot of people use it as a base nowadays..