Making a web site - WordPress?

[T'Baio]

Hi there. I put this thread in the web sites forum, but there isn't a whole lot of traffic there, so I thought I'd try here and see if I get more responses. Sorry if that's some sort of faux pas. Anyway...

I know fuck all about web design. Never done it, never tried it, literally know nothing about it.

So, I want to make a web site. WordPress has been recommended by Samuel Walters...who I hope might poke his head in here.

So, here's the question. I know nothing...is this gonna' be hard? Or is there some host or something who'll drop everything in for me, I just have to write/place my content and everything will show up exactly how I want it?

Say I go to BlueHost, and I have downloaded or purchased a really nice theme, can I just drop it into...something?...at my web host, and it'll just go up as is? Then, I just want to write my own headings with different fonts, some news and drop in some videos. Can I do that without "programming?" Like, just sort of copy and paste links and stuff? Does this make sense?

 

[Amaris]

It's easy. I set everything up on mine in about 20 minutes. It's quite flexible, lots of options, but easy to setup however you like it.
Yeah, there's a lot of drag and drop to it. You can copy and paste everything how you want it, because it does accept HTML formatting.

 

[Holdfast]

Wordpress comes in two flavours: you can either use their software with their free hosting system (that's what I use for my blog, check the link in my sig for an example of what you can do with that freebie set-up) or you can download the Wordpress software to use on your own webspace.

The latter is a more flexible option, but you do need to start "poking around under the hood" a little. You can still do lots with a minimum of detailed computing knowledge, but compared to the completely idiotproof software used on the Wordpress-hosted sites, it's a little more technical. Plus you have to pay for the hosting, etc, etc.

For what you're talking about, the freebie option probably makes more sense. Depending on the size of your video files, you may run up against the limit of your Wordpress Media Library for files. From memory it's 5GB or 10GB. But you can buy more space relatively cheaply if you need it. Talking of which, there are other premium but still cheap options you can use on the freebie site for things like a shorter webaddress ( www.yourname.com instead of www.yourname.wordpress.com ) and so on.

Good luck!

(PS if you want to use Google Adsense or host other commercial ads on your site, you need to self-host as they aren't allowed on the freebie Wordpress platform)

 

[Amaris]

^ Nice.
I don't post on it as much as I did, but here's mine:

http://jwallen.wordpress.com/

 

[T'Baio]

Thanks for your input guys. I am, however, talking about the WordPress software in which you pay for your own hosting and such. This site will be for my web series, so as time goes on, there's going to be a lot of content. I just know nothing about web design, and can't afford to pay someone. I just have no idea what I'm doing.

Take www.bluehost.com for instance. They say they have a WordPress script install. What does that mean? Does that mean it does all the work for you? You just "drop in" your theme somehow, "drop in" your content somehow, make your font changes, write your blog or whatever and hit "submit" and it's up, or something like that?

Someone please tell me, yes, it's that easy.

 

[Amaris]

Oh, I don't have an answer for that. Sorry, T'Baio.

 

[Holdfast]

Thanks for your input guys. I am, however, talking about the WordPress software in which you pay for your own hosting and such. This site will be for my web series, so as time goes on, there's going to be a lot of content. I just know nothing about web design, and can't afford to pay someone. I just have no idea what I'm doing.

Take www.bluehost.com for instance. They say they have a WordPress script install. What does that mean? Does that mean it does all the work for you? You just "drop in" your theme somehow, "drop in" your content somehow, make your font changes, write your blog or whatever and hit "submit" and it's up, or something like that?

Someone please tell me, yes, it's that easy.

It's (almost) that easy.

As I understand it, the core software, together with the plugins, widgets and themes, allow you to do almost everything without needing to program as such. You can modify it more if you know what you're doing though. But the basics don't need that extra knowledge. You just get a host, install wordpress to it, and then update through wordpress' software, like you would with a freebie blog hosted by wordpress themselves.

 

[Mr. B]

I know fuck all about web design. Never done it, never tried it, literally know nothing about it.

...

Say I go to BlueHost, and I have downloaded or purchased a really nice theme, can I just drop it into...something?...at my web host, and it'll just go up as is? Then, I just want to write my own headings with different fonts, some news and drop in some videos. Can I do that without "programming?" Like, just sort of copy and paste links and stuff? Does this make sense?

Do you find learning offensive? Sorry, but I read your post as "i want a website but i don't know anything about it and i'm not motivated to learn any new skills."

You certainly can build a cookie-cutter wordpress blog with minimal effort... one undertaken my 14 million wordpress.com members. It doesn't sound like your needs currently require you to spend any money. I would recommend starting with that... just sign up there and when you've outgrown it, start learning to make your own website. HTML is actually pretty easy. BTW my website has an integrated wordpress installation.

 

[T'Baio]

Seeing as I'm on track for med school, no, I don't find learning offensive. What with that and producing the web series almost single handedly, it's my lack of time to delve into learning how to build web sites that I find offensive. I'm just trying to learn the easiest and quickest way, because I am simply short on time as it is.

Thank you for your thoughts, though.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Creating web pages is actually pretty easy using an HTML editor with WYSIWYG, like Front Page. I'm sure there are freeware programs that do the same thing. You just type in your text, plop in your graphic elements, insert your links, move everything around till its pretty and then upload to your web space.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

I and some friends set up a website using WordPress. I haven't actually done any of the programming but my friend says it's fairly easy to use.

There's a guide book as well that might be helpful I think this is the one we have but there's a few out there.

I think for building the website it does take some time. My friend is a web developer so he had prior knowledge, so I don't know how easy it would be to build a website from scratch if you don't know the code and stuff.

As for using it and uploading content it's really simple, it's just like making a post on here really.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I can tell you right now that you're making more work for yourself if you've got your own webspace. Yeah, they might have everything setup to be point-and-click for you to get a WordPress site going, but it also means you have to keep up on security updates, you have to worry about backups, spam, etc. If your blog achieves any kind of notoriety you'll have to take performance issues into account.

If you really want a blog you don't have to fuck with on the back end you would be much better off with a hosted solution (such as WP's site.)

I only mention this because you stated you don't want to have to learn a lot to do this.

 

[think]

I am in the middle of creating a web site myself I have a few posts up but things are not solidified yet so they can change when the content changes .. this is the link to the site work here.. http://notonlymusic.com/wp/eeeblog/

most web sites styles depend on content but wp is the better one sofar.. maybe www.webs.com might work but there numbers are down.

 

[T'Baio]

If your blog achieves any kind of notoriety you'll have to take performance issues into account.

Really? How so? "The Guild" runs on WordPress, and it's the most successful web series there is, with millions of views.

 

[Holdfast]

^ What he means is that if you get a lot of traffic, and you aren't running on Wordpress' own hosting service, you will be responsible for paying for (at some of) all that extra bandwidth use, depending on your hosting contract plan. If you use Wordpress' free hosted service, it doesn't matter how popular your site is; their servers can - usually - take the strain.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

If your blog achieves any kind of notoriety you'll have to take performance issues into account.

Really? How so? "The Guild" runs on WordPress, and it's the most successful web series there is, with millions of views.

So? You think that means they have lackluster hardware behind it? I can assure you that they don't, not if they stay up under stress. Their Alexa ranking indicates they get a lot of traffic. It helps that their videos are hosted elsewhere.

The difference is that you're going to use Bluehost, presumably one of their shared hosting options. That means you'll be sharing the same server with dozens or hundreds of other people. If you start to get a lot of traffic you may even be booted from their server, as it would degrade service quality for the other people on the server.

Shared hosting only works because 99% of all hosted sites get very little traffic. All it takes is one popular site to upset it.

So, if your blog does become popular--and by "popular" I mean something on the level of dozens to hundreds of concurrent users--you'll probably have to move to a beefier server and worry about such things as MySQL tuning, opcode caches, etc.

This is not a knock against WordPress, mind you. Any dynamic content system puts an additional load on the server, and heavy usage will overwhelm just about any shared server in short order.

ETA: Also, what Holdfast said.