Building a Website

[O4L]

I've been asked to build a website by a friend of mine for his small business.

I have never done this before, and he knows this, but he wants me to try.

I just started looking at Wordpress and Bluehost.

Does anyone have some advice or recommendations?

Thanks!

 

[ShurShot]

I would avoid WP and any other hosted, open source CMS style approach unless you just have to go that route. They require ongoing maintenance and if you are new to it and only building this one site you might be signing up for more than you want to deal with in the long run.

You could set him up on something like squarespace.com, with his CC, and not be 'married' to it.

It also depends on the type of site, budget, etc... There is a lot happening these days in web development.

What capabilities is he needing? Ecommerce, blog, contact form, basic one/two page brochure site?

 

[ShurShot]

If I was going to run a single WP site, I'd probably go with this option: https://amazonlightsail.com/features/

I should be clear, I hate WP and will never build another WP site!

 

[O4L]

For now he just needs a basic brochure site and maybe a contact form.

 

[NightShade]

I personally use Drupal for my sites. But I host a few on my server space. A big advantage that I have found is when building content I can use a simple HTML editor to give the text and graphics a finished look but let the site software handle the theming and links.

If that is something you would like to do but don't want to deal with all the major stuff, hit me up and we can work something out, I can host quite a few sites with what I have available. You can handle the content completely or I can help you out.

 

[O4L]

Thanks for the info so far.

After doing a little research, it looks like a "drag and drop" service like Wix, Squarespace, or Weebly might be what I need since I am a total novice to building a website.

The Drupal and amazon lightsail sites looked like Greek to me.

I have a lot more to learn!