Website builder packages??

[FunkyDanceFe 10]

Hi,

 

Could anyone advise me on a good cheapish website builder site? I'm currently using 123reg but it won't allow me to put my own videos on, you have to put videos on via youtube.

 

I want something that's fairly simple to use, and will allow me to put pictures and video on etc. We pay about £9 a month at the moment for 123reg.

 

Our current website is http://www.funkydancefever.co.uk ..so as you can see I'm not the greatest of website designers, in fact I am a physio pretending to be a website designer! hehe

 

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

Thank you,

Jo x

[Chozo 10]

You can get free web hosting space over at X10 hosting and they will even let you use your existing Top Level Domain Name on a free account last time I checked. Comes complete with a simple site builder and the WordPress CMS system ( Pick a template, add your own content and has plugins for every feature you could ever need.), one click forum and gallery scripts install are also available. MySQL database and SMTP mail support come included as well. Plus has a good user support forum for any help you may need with code, design, advertising and SEO.

 

 

Downside: the free hosting server can sometimes run a little slowly if being abused but admin at X10 is pretty swift to shutdown any site violating the terms of service. Admin also gets a little cranky if you are using over a Gigabyte of space but few people need that much.

 

PS: All web designers start off awful to begin with, those with artistic talent cannot code for toffee and those that code could not draw a rainbow with a pack a crayons. All I can promise is that your site will get better with time, blood, sweat and tears.

[FunkyDanceFe 10]

Hi, thank you. I'll have a look, although some of that is double dutch to me. I guess I need a very simple package for making a web site .. simple layout, drag and drop stuff, no codes ? This isn't my full time job you see! It doesn't have to look oober professional, I just need something that will allow me to use my own logo, and let me put pictures and video on.

[kinetic 10]

Get a wordpress account and point your existing domain at it. I couldn't even begin to guess the amount of themes available for it (let's just say: more than you'll currently find for any other customisable website/blog/CMS package and certainly more than you'll ever need!).

 

It was origingally designed for blogs but is now being used for all sorts of purposes (not least website templates). According to wiki "WordPress is used by over 16.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1 million" websites and as of August 2011 manages 22% of all new websites"

 

Wordpress (as well being a website/blog hosting site/whatever), is downloadable as free code. It's far better if you can do this, most people use it in this way, as you can use many plug ins & themes as you like, and you can also add or amend the code as you see fit. So Wordpress software + a (linux, php, sql) hosting package will be better.

 

But don't worry about that for now, just try opening a free Wordpress account first, just to get a feel for it and see if it's for you before tying anything more complicated and costly. Chances are the free hosted version might suit!

[alchresearch 214]

I'd probably try and find someone with a few web skills to do it on your behalf, as there are other issues on your site that need a little more work - the pictures for one are too big and should be resized before uploaded:

 

2,000px × 1,263px (scaled to 567px × 357px)

[SpeedwayDan 10]

I agree with alchresearch. Your website is taking far too long to load each page.

 

If you start adding videos then page load time will increase further.

[alchresearch 214]

I thought I was on dial-up when that first picture slowly came on screen!

[SpeedwayDan 10]

It did bring back painfully slow dial up memorries.

[DaFoot 10]

To be honest you're probably as well to put the videos on YouTube and embed them in the site. That way Youtube does the work and you wouldn't be at risk of exceeding your bandwidth limit on your host.

 

I have heard people say they don't want to put their vids on Youtube because of privacy, but if you're putting them on your website anyway that is a moot point.

[FunkyDanceFe 10]

I'd probably try and find someone with a few web skills to do it on your behalf, as there are other issues on your site that need a little more work - the pictures for one are too big and should be resized before uploaded:

 

2,000px × 1,263px (scaled to 567px × 357px)

 

 

 

I don't know anyone with web design skills that's why I'm here! It's a small dance school, we make hardly any profit, we do a lot of charity work as you can see if you wait 2 seconds for the pictures to load... therefore we can't afford to pay for a web designer to do it for us!

 

Edited October 11, 2012 by FunkyDanceFe
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[SportsTrophy 10]

I could probably help you with your website design and hosting in return for some dance lessons in the future as my youngest is 3 and oldest is 7. Please pm me if interested.

[FunkyDanceFe 10]

I could probably help you with your website design and hosting in return for some dance lessons in the future as my youngest is 3 and oldest is 7. Please pm me if interested.

 

 

Sounds like a fair deal I have pm'd you. Thank you.