How hard is it to set up a website and where do you host one?

Redrummd

Redrummd

Joined
May 21, 2007
Messages
1,432
I see a lot of you have websites and I have been thinking about whether I should be setting one up. What I do is certainly not a common skill with working with stone and I think it would be nice to set up a showplace with a bit more information than I can show in the album I have on my profile page here.

So, how hard is it to build a website that is designed mostly as a showplace for my "personal collection" line and a way to contact me if someone wants to purchase one.
I don't want an elaborate site with shopping carts or payment links. Just a place to show the works and a way to contact me.

Next, where would I go to put one together and how hard is it to put one together? I am not anything close to being a computer geek so I would probably need a pretty basic and easy to follow set of instructions! (Spell and grammer check would be nice too.) :p

What does it cost to maintain a site?

Thanks for any help or guidance you can give.....
 
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i dont know the ins and outs really but www.godaddy.com is a great place to start. you can search and by ur domain and they offer hosting, templates and actually the works.

jake
 
Read this place, Redrummd: http://blademakers.com/site/ Check out the "About..." section.
Check the makers who use Chris's hosting...you'll recognize numerous names from this place.
People have mentioned how easy it is to use.
 
If you have a Mac and buy the Mobile Me service, you get a website. That is where mine is hosted and I built my site using iLife. Not the most high zoot, but it doesn't look half bad.
 
fitzo said:
Read this place, Redrummd: http://blademakers.com/site/ Check out the "About..." section.
Check the makers who use Chris's hosting...you'll recognize numerous names from this place.
People have mentioned how easy it is to use.
Click to expand...

Fitzo beat me to it! Chris is a friend of mine and this site is sooo easy to maintain:thumbup:. Check it out, sign up for a free 3 month trial and see for yourself:D
 
You can go to http://www.doteasy.com/ and set up a sight for free. Their free web hosting package looks pretty good. They also have a 2nd party software package, also free, that you can use to design your website. The software is easy to use and has lots of premade templates. If they don't have enough webspace for your photos, you can link to them from photobucket.com and they will show up automatically.

You may have to pay $10 to register your domain name, but I'm not sure.

You also get up to 10 free e-mail addresses at your sight's name, so it will look very professional.
 
I have worked as a freelance web designer and have designed several of my own sites. These days, I strongly recommend the following for someone who wants to update their site fairly often (pictures, other content). The cool thing about this system is that if you are using this forum, you can probably set up your own site with very little help. This will save you a lot of money in the long run.

1. Register a domain name. I have moved all of my domains to iPower.com. Great prices, great service, and they don't charge for a lot of things that you will typically get charged for at places like Network Solutions and Go Daddy (I am a current and soon to be former client of both). E-mail @ your domain and domain forwarding, which you will want, are free at ipower. You also get over a GB of storage space with their basic package.

2. Get an account at Typepad.com - it's a blog engine. Using a blog engine will allow you to update your page with news, photo galleries, and anything else, as well as its design, on the fly, instead of having to re-code web pages by hand / using Front Page. You have a lot of control over the design, so you can make it look as little or as much like a blog as you like.

3. Set up domain forwarding on your ipower account to point to your Typepad blog. For instance, one of my sites is peskyhumans.blogs.com on Typepad. On ipower, I have it set so that my domain peskyhumans.com points to my Typepad site. There are other blog engines out there too. I use this one, as I said, but they all work in a similar fashion.

This is basically it. If you feel like you have any design or tech skills at all, this is the most practical and cost effective way of setting up a site quickly. It might be worth it to pay for some help in the design area to get started, which will undoubtedly give you crisper initial results, but once set up, updating your site will be as easy as posting to this board.

Hope this helps.
 
FYI peskyhumans.com as described above is in the middle of a domain transfer from another registrar so the pointing is down for the next couple of days. To see my example of the blog engine at work, go here.
 
The Blademakers.com looks to be a good start. Sell one small knife and it's paid for the year?
 
Mine is set up with Wordpress, a blogging engine, kind of like Pesky's Typepad. My sister-in-law built my site, and put in stuff you don't necessarily need. On the other hand, the user interface is easy enough that I can update my own pictures and text as often as I'd like. My site is www.frycustomknives.com If it's something you like, there should be a link on the bottom to greenbug graphics, and I'm sure she'd be glad to get your business.
 
I'm just an average collector (whatever that means).

However, your work is very impressive. The more I see, the more I realize I need to buy a few pieces. I imagine a good website would attract a great deal of attention ... and should result in enhanced sales.
 
Wow guys - My head is spinning with all of this information. Sofar I think the easiest looking way to go would be at blademakers.com. I REALLY do need easy as my skills for computers is pretty low.

I hate to admit I don't even know what a blog is....
 
I found out that I'm better off making knives than taking care of the website, so I have a webmaster that takes care of all of that :thumbup:

If you'd like to contact him, check out the link at the bottom of my website. He likes working with makers :)

Ariel
 
Redrummd said:
Wow guys - My head is spinning with all of this information. Sofar I think the easiest looking way to go would be at blademakers.com. I REALLY do need easy as my skills for computers is pretty low.

I hate to admit I don't even know what a blog is....
Click to expand...

I don;t think you will be sorry if you choose to go this route. Chris is going to rework the whole site in the near future, so it will have even more features than what it has now:thumbup:
 
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