Comments on: Creating Your Web Site

By: Daan Van der Merwe

Daan Van der Merwe — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:05:46 +0000

I’m a sophomore and AT LEAST 26 months away from getting published, so I am still working on moving my craft from good to excellent. I reckon once I get promoted to junior, I will give some thought about having my own website.

Dancing girls huh? I hope to find the code for some French girls doing the Can Can, in stead of that tiresome “Congratulations!!! You are visitor number 50000000 to this site!!!!! Claim your million bucks right away!!!!”

I have an idea that the owner of such a website is a thlimy thpammer.

By: Gerhi Janse van Vuuren

Gerhi Janse van Vuuren — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:17:55 +0000

Another free option for creating html pages on a pc, and which works extremely well is Alleycode. I have been using it for three years and it taught me enough that I can now code in a text editor if I want to.
There is also an open source program called NotePad2, (normally bundled with OpenOffice) available which is a huge improvement on NotePad.

By: Lynda

Lynda — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:19:42 +0000

What would a moderately priced web site cost?

By: Barb Haley

Barb Haley — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:02:35 +0000

I’m working on a website using Coffecup Software. Ith’s incredibly easy and pretty inexpensive. And the support is superb. I mean it. They get right back to you the same day! Super helpful. Well worth the cost.

By: Andrew Cooper

Andrew Cooper — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:11:09 +0000

Textpad is another great text editing program for Windows.

Lynda - I’m a web programmer by trade and I get questions like you just asked all the time. The problem with answering it is that “moderately priced” is completely relative. You can spend anywhere from $100 to $10,000 and it would be considered moderately priced depending on the client. If you’d like to tell us what you want in a site, I can tell you approximately how much *I* would charge for designing it for you. I base my fees completely off the time I’ll spend on your site and that is generally $50 - $75 an hour depending on what kind of work it is; HTML encoding, actual server-side or client-side scripting or graphic design.

~Andrew

By: ML Eqatin

ML Eqatin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:29:50 +0000

I’m married to the original geek, so we bought Dreamweaver. Let’s just say that it is a continuing lesson in marital communication. He already knows half the stuff, while I carefully slog through classes and manuals, rearranging my graphics to fit the miserable medium.
But thanks for the topic, Randy, it has gotten me to lean a little harder to get the thing fixed. I also read Michelle Howe’s book — I think it’s called Writing for the internet — and got some good ideas from that. Also the guy you linked to many e-zines back with the research showing people’s eyes travel in an ‘F’ shape. Good research.

By: Mary E. DeMuth

Mary E. DeMuth — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:06:08 +0000

A good web designer is worth his/her weight in gold. And I would advise you ask your designer to design in such a way to allow for CMS (Content Management System). Yes, you pay a bit up front for the design, but then you have the ability to update your site at will. My site, www.marydemuth.com, is about 90% CMS. It’s as easy as entering a blog to update my content.

For a site similar in scope to mine, prepare to spend between 3,000–6,000 bucks. It’s expensive, but well worth the cost in terms of looking professional.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:53:17 +0000

A couple of other software options are:

- XSitePro (about $300); this software is very well thought out for internet marketers; kind of a combination of a website creation tool like FrontPage but with features / integration that website marketers can use; including links with Google

- For those with ambition, wanting to run a members’ website, can check the software behind sites like www.garynorth.com (there’s a link there to the site creation system he uses; look at the bottom of his page); expensive, though, starts at about $4000.

By: Pamela Cosel

Pamela Cosel — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:05:23 +0000

A bit of advice when working with web site designers by way of me relating my experience here. Maybe someone can learn from it.

I hired someone to do my web site (www.carouselcommunications.com), as I liked her company’s own site. I told her what I wanted, in the way of a new logo, color scheme, and pages. I wrote the content. She showed me a great design after one of her designers spent hours on it, gave me more than I expected, and I went with it. However, she did not tell me she was using Flash to create the site. She did this at her own choosing, which I didn’t know until after the site was finished.

I was unfamiliar with that program and didn’t know until after I gave the OK that Flash doesn’t allow for making easy changes and other things I wanted done. It was too late to go back and start over, so I kept what she’d designed. I now feel like my hands are tied with making changes (I have to pay her to do it), and she also says that “she” owns the web site, that I don’t. All information I didn’t know up front. I am hoping we can eventually come to some agreement, as I want to take over control of the site.

So BEWARE in hiring others to do your web site. I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying, ask a lot of questions and be clear about everything you want and expect, up front.

By: Donna

Donna — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:45:16 +0000

Pam, it is a nice site. Definitely flash and the designer should have specified that it would be flash before you signed anything. Do you have some sort of contract or terms of service agreement with them? If so, and you should if they’re a professional business, make sure to completely read through it for your options. Some will add in updating the site with the original cost, some won’t. Or a money back guarantee or option to redesign if you’re not happy with it (for a specified amount of time). With all the competition out there, most will work with you if they want to keep your business.

As for her ‘owning’ your site…did you pay to register the domain name? I’m sure you did. Are you hosted through the designer’s site or elsewhere? I’m hoping elsewhere but if it’s on the designer’s site, you can always get hosting elsewhere if you like. If you pay yearly for the domain name and pay for hosting then the designer does not ‘own’ your site. Depending on the agreement terms, she may own the content on it but not the actual site.

Definitely read through the terms you agreed to. If you want something different, something you can update, and they won’t work with you then it may be best to count your losses and hire someone that will make you happy and give you want you want. A non-flash site (I personally love flash but if done right and not an entire site being flash) shouldn’t cost you as much and even if it’s not built as a content management system, simple changes like images and content can be done by modifying some things in the html. Not as hard as you’d think and can even be done through your control panel of your hosting account.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:14:52 +0000

My website, complete with blog, is brand new. If you like it and want the name of my very reasonably priced designer (in the neighborhood of $200), you can email me through my website. I’m out of town for a week starting tomorrow though, so you might have to wait until next week to hear from me.

My site is nickharrisonbooks.com

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:18:54 +0000

As a post script to my comment above, my designer is noted in my January 16th blog entry.

By: Gina

Gina — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:11:52 +0000

I never knew it was called a content management system, but I guess that’s what I have. My website is set up with four different blogs that link to my main website which is a wordpress blog. I know the format will change when I’m published, but for now it works, and I can change everything on my own. The only time I have to call my friend who designed it is when I mess up some html. But I’ve learned a lot by messing up. Especially that it’s wise to copy your code and save it in another file.:)

By: Mary Hawkins

Mary Hawkins — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:56:44 +0000

Now, why didn’t I know half this stuff early last year! I now know some questions to ask my web designer. From the other comments I sure have a great “deal” from her, including 12 months free updates. But now she has become a published author and not taking on any more clients I’m guessing I’ll need to learn how to do updates myself. Hopefully she is using a programme not too difficult for me to learn.

Many thanks once more, Randy, for your excellent info.
Mary

By: Bonnie Calhoun

Bonnie Calhoun — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:33:06 +0000

I love Nvu! It really rocks for a open source CMS!

I’ve designed three websites using it.
Mine - http://bonniescalhoun.com
My organization (The Christian Fiction Blog Alliance) http://christianfictionblogalliance.com and
My church’s - http://crossroadsoflife.com

…and I’m working on a fourth