Website Virgin - Need Help/Suggestions

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totalburnout

Well-Known Member
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Looking for some insight here.

Plan to start a brick and mortar business. To compliment the business we need a website, logo, domain name, web host, the whole nine.

It appears that most in our industry use Wordpress for their sites.

The web layout will basically be a landing page, contact us page, about us, daily blog post, and we would like the ability to imbed video from instagram/snapchat/youtube on all of these pages. Ability to view on a mobile device is key. If we can update/upload from a mobile device to manage the page, that is also key.

Opinions on wordpress?

Opinions on Go Daddy to purchase the domains?

Options/opinions for a web host?

I'm asking two of my friends that are graphic designers by trade to help me with the logo. We're sort of on our own with the web design. I don't want it to look like a Mickey Mouse operation but also don't need a ton of bells and whistles. Clean, competent, and intuitive would be ideal.

I know there's a lot here but I'm hoping that I've missed a ton, I will be called a fool, and you guys will point me in the direction of what I'm missing.
 
my boss built a crossfit website too for a guy who is making oodles of cash in fitness. i'll try to get you the site tomorrow.
 
This is Ian's GF posting...

I was going to go with hostgator.com for domain name registration and hosting... is there any reason we should be buying it from namecheap instead? I like the idea that everything will be done through one site, even though there is a $2 difference in the yearly registration...

I couldn't find anything for asmallorgane- server may have been down when I tried. And I couldn't quite figure out servint.net. Again, any reason we should go with those over hostgator?

Thanks!
 
the thing with hostgator that we run into is if the site is script heavy, it will peg and they will take the site down for a few hours at a time.

those sites above i posted are listed there.
 
hostgator is one of the worst places ever. i wouldn't bother.

and NEVER EVER EVER register a domain through a host--- they will own it, not you, and you won't be able to leave for another host if you wanted to later
 
Got it - you guys don't like hostgator.

She wants to use whatever is the simplest for Word Press. She liked that hostgator had a one click type thing for Word Press. Know of any others that are simple like that? It probably goes against everything both of you stand for.

She had watched a tutorial on Wordpress earlier today and they recommended hostgator, that's why she was heading there. Ultimately, she's way more artistic than I am, and she will likely be responsible for the design. I'll help with a logical layout, click through, and whatever else, but if its not already built, I can't design worth beans.
 
anything that has 'cpanel' with 'fantastico' has wordpress built in to it.

but honestly, those 1-click installs suck. you lose the flexibility and are locked into the platform's release. ie, if 2.2 comes out, and you're on 2.1, you can't upgrade until fantastic decides to release their 2.2 compatible version.

I can install wp and get your bare bones up and running for $20 if you want my help.
it's seriously a 10 min job....
 
Rackspace has all those features and we're only $150 a month :ph34r:

I kid, but yeah, anyone who says they have cpanel will likely have a 1 click install for wordpress. The important thing to note is, in addition to the version lock in, if your site gets even moderate levels of traffic like 1000 hits an hour, many of the budget hosts will take you offline for overusing resources.

I'd personally take B up on his offer. There's a few places out there that are cheap, reliable, and not total douchebags to their customers. I don't know who they are since I don't see company names on the competitive analysis reports, but I know they exist.

Once wordpress setup the first time you really don't have to touch anything else because the admin webpage for it is pretty powerful now.
 
anything that has 'cpanel' with 'fantastico' has wordpress built in to it.

but honestly, those 1-click installs suck. you lose the flexibility and are locked into the platform's release. ie, if 2.2 comes out, and you're on 2.1, you can't upgrade until fantastic decides to release their 2.2 compatible version.

I can install wp and get your bare bones up and running for $20 if you want my help.
it's seriously a 10 min job....

Where would you do that? On one of the sites/hosts that you provided?

I should probably hit you up or have you get in touch with Bonnie because that may be easier. She wanted to fool around with it before she meets up with her friend on Thursday that is supposed to show her the ropes.

I mean if you're telling me not to go to those sites, then even if its 10 minutes, I don't want to put the site on a platform that is going to need to be changed.
 
Installing is cake. assuming the .com is already pointed to the host (set name servers at godaddy/etc to the hosting package, usually something like NS1.myhost.com / NS2.myhost.com) and has had time to DNS resolve (a couple hours)...

it's log in to the hosting 'file manager' or portal thingee like cpanel
create a new DB
create a user/pass for it
FTP files up to file system
go to install.php
enter the created DB connection params and set up an admin account.
push go
word press is installed and live on yoursite.com


it's literally that easy.


call me later if you need help, I won't be online much the rest of the day.
my ph# should be on facebook for my friends and 'im pretty sure we are connected there.... if not, gmail me fullname@g
 
And to speak idiot to me, the files that you're FTP'ing up are the word press template itself, content for within the template, both or what?

I would actually like to learn, so I'm not always a dipstick and can do this in the future but I'm also not against shooting someone money to make sure the thing gets done properly.

GF actually didn't buy the domain or hosting services last night. She got cold feet. So we're not on hostgator. We were going to use namecheap and then possibly asmallorange or servint. Should we just choose the simple package or do we need to use one of the "Cloud" hosting services?

Am I just searching google for a Wordpress template if I don't like the Responsive one you posted? Just google reviews to make sure its not garbage?
 
the thing with hostgator that we run into is if the site is script heavy, it will peg and they will take the site down for a few hours at a time.

those sites above i posted are listed there.

Any recommendations on inexpensive hosts for a small time business?

We're planning on less than 100 members - what that will equal to hits or web traffic, I don't know.

Looks like the ASmallOrange Tiny or Small plan is probably where we'll start.
 
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smallest plan would be fine for your site. you can always upgade later if traffic comes in.

ftp'ing would be the wordpress files, html, php, js, css, etc to the server itself. basically the opposite of 'downloading adobe reader' to your machine.... you're pushing an app up.


I suggest a 'responsive' template, because that means it will work on phones and non-computer devices out of the box. it will know to rotate and go wider when it goes to portrait mode, etc.
NOT coding for mobile today is a mistake.
you are certainly free to use whatever you want though.
 
I suggest a 'responsive' template, because that means it will work on phones and non-computer devices out of the box. it will know to rotate and go wider when it goes to portrait mode, etc.
NOT coding for mobile today is a mistake.
you are certainly free to use whatever you want though.

100% agree. Now that I know thats what responsive means, that's exactly what we had in mind.

Many of our users will be checking the WOD - workout of the day, using mobile phones. Thats probably where the most hits will come from, other than people initially finding us on their computer.
 
Bonnie here. #hacktheplanet. jk

THANK YOU. I got the domain name from namecheap, and signed up to host with ASO. They helped me "point" everything and fix DNS servers and download WP and all that techie stuff I have no clue to do.

So far so good... now the real fun starts :)
 
...and we're up and online. Just waiting on some things to go through before we actually put real content on the page.
 
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