Designing and building your own websites

Can anyone suggest please a good package to help you build your own website, allowing at least 10 pages, plus sub-pages and perhaps a news/blog feature?

Whilst I already have a website which I'm really pleased with, and can add /edit my own text and pictures, I can't do things like change the overall colour scheme, change the layout of my pages and buttons etc.  I have to get the company who designed it originally to do that and, of course, they charge for the service.  At the moment I pay £11.50 a month to Healthosts for hosting my website and they do provide help and technical assistance within that cost.  If I had a problem with formatting, they would help at no extra cost but will charge for any larger work.

So, I want to see if it's more cost effective to do it myself. I've seen Moonfruit but it looked a bit limited in terms of what could be done.

Suggestions welcome. Ta.

Comments

  • the two main software packages out there (for MS users at least) is MS Expression Web and Adobe Dreamweaver.......neither are cheap but are fully featured (overfeatured?) and used by a lot of pro-am web designers. take some getting used to though and will cost a few hundred £..

    there are some open source programs like Wordpress which may be worth looking at as they are free but some of these tend to be a bit too techy....

    am sure there are many others freeware, open source or low cost but I'm not aware of them

  • I'd also like info on web design as my web hosts were hacked last year leaving my website looking a complete mess, and my web designer is no longer answering my calls for some reason, and I need to have my website up and running. 

    If my web hosts are so insecure that they can be hacked into, then should I be looking to move hosts? My website domain is up for renewal soon and I think these guys are the most efficient in an all-round sense, but obviously I would prefer a bit more security......

    The guy who did my website used html language, which I know the basics of, but the level he used is out of my range of knowledge, so I dunno whether to use something like Dreamweaver, and design my own, or find someone who is willing to help me out - only money is tight at the moment, so have to be careful on cost.

    Any ideas?

  • Hiya Sezzicle i've text Nev for you, you met him at a social. He lives in N4, maybe he can help I'll let you know and you too Vixx.
  • Thanks Nicko - much appreciated. image
  • SezzSezz ✭✭✭
    Coolio, thanks sweetie.  He's your biker mate, non?
  • Non, he's a plodder too. He helps at mile 11 too so you'll see him and  at the pub after.

    Biker mate is Paul from Reading.

  • Vixx you need to enable your email on here so I can pass on Nevs details.
  • Sezz: there's various Content Management Systems that completely shortcut the need for web designers and any specialist skills or expensive programs and looks completely professional and slick.

    Joomla! for instance is a free program you can download, choose from 100s of templates, have pretty much limitless pages, links menus etc and you can add content through the backend and various new menus and plaings/banners etc without any need of specialist skills.

    Just google Joomla! and you'll see what I mean.

    There are plenty of other CMS as well: Mambo and e107 to name but a few.

  • And if (like me) you have very little specialist skills; you should be able to get someone to register your chosen domain name, set up the hosting with a decent control panel and install a CMS for you for less than £200. Then you can play to your hearts content.

    If anyone quotes you much more; you're being ripped.

  • And if (like me) you have very little specialist skills; you should be able to get someone to register your chosen domain name, set up the hosting with a decent control panel and install a CMS for you for less than £200. Then you can play to your hearts content.

    If anyone quotes you much more; you're being ripped.

  • Sorry Nicko - disabled it when I was getting grief from some idiot on here.

    Will re-enable. Thanks for the heads up - I'd forgotten about that.

  • Sezz, G's web site cost's me £20 or so a year including domain really easy to set you and maintain I think the large package with more pages is about £60.

    GeorgiaLyons.co.uk

    Just wish I could be arsed to update it a little more often

  • There are loads of people offering hosting. I use Servage you get a massive amount of space (510Gb) and the have auto-installers for various CMS (Content Management Systems) so dead easy to setup.

    I have tried various CMS packages and currently use PHP-Fusion (My PHP-Fusion Site). It passed the 10 minute test in that it was up and running in less than 10mins. However, now thinking of switching to Drupal as it seems to be a bit more powerful just takes more than 10mins to setup.

    Also, have created various websites from scratch and tried and have tried various packages and Dreamweaver is by far the best. However, very expensive over £1,000 as part of the suite. If you know someone who works in a school the education version is about £250.

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