How to start a website?

[wheel_of_steell]

Okay folks, I've been doing some googling around, but to be more concise I've just been confusing myself. I'm looking at creating a basic, one page website for work so people can just google the company name and find the phone number etc. What is the process that I need to follow in layman's terms? I don't know HTML so I'd rather use a program for creating the website itself.

Sincerely,
young luddite.

[Nine]

Squarespace is pretty good. Had a couple of friends use it and found it pretty straightforward. You can even set up a shopping cart if you like.

[Magilla]

You start with <!DOCTYPE

[madscientist59]

Okay folks, I've been doing some googling around, but to be more concise I've just been confusing myself. I'm looking at creating a basic, one page website for work so people can just google the company name and find the phone number etc. What is the process that I need to follow in layman's terms? I don't know HTML so I'd rather use a program for creating the website itself.

Sincerely,
young luddite.

try: Webs - Make a free website, get free hosting

been using them since 2009, no dramas during that time.
easy to set up, cheap if you want to buy your own domain

PM me if you want help setting up a website :-)

Cheers...

[agrid]

Your internet provider probably gives you some webspace, put the home page on there and register a domain name for $40 every two years.

[Rhino]

Wordpress is free and similar to SquareSpace.

Definitely do yourself a service and register a domain name for your company. It is infinitely more professional.
The domain name is the bit after www, ie www.exoticsportscars.com.
This can then form the basis of your email address as well, [email protected]

[email protected] does not look professional / reputable

2c

[Magilla]

On a more serious note, for something like this, you're better off registering your business with the local directory websites. The way that Google in paticular indexes your page is based on how many webpages link to yours, and what rank those linking pages have. Essentially, unless you are dropping links to this site on other pages, your page will be buried in the search results below a lot of other crap.

IF the local directory services allow you to put in a website, then those links should be able to elevate your site to the first couple of pages of results somewhere.

* Australian-based webhosting can be had for under $6/month here. These guys host my VPS, and are not too bad with customer service.
* They also do .com/.org/.net registration for under $15/year here. If you want to tack a .au on the end of it, you'll need to provide an ABN and stuff to prove it's your business, and it's about 4 times the price (which isn't dissimilar to anyone else).
* That will host webpages and give you @mycompany.whatever email addresses as well.

Making a single page with some contact information on it is pretty easy, and [MENTION=6807]Maxo[/MENTION] is always looking for something to put in his portfolio.

[Professor Redfern]

Go Wix, Squarespace or any of the other. They are very simple, either choose predesigned and put your title and details in or totally redisgn it how you want it. There is no coding or anything technical, its as easy as a simple cut and paste style program.

[Rhino]

Making a single page with some contact information on it is pretty easy, and Maxo is always looking for something to put in his portfolio.

He may even do it for free... with a pie chart.

[Wedge]

I'm currently in the process of updating my fiances little business website to update the email link and address shown.

I've managed to get into the website using cpanel. I've found the contact.html file, (backed it up and renamed the backup with a .old post-fix before jumping into the copy)
I've edited it using the code editor changing both the text and the link for the email. Everything looks good in cpanel. Saved, Go back in and hit preview and everything looks ok. However the website on the web isn't updating.. I've wiped internet explorer cookies, cache, etc, even went on the website on my phone but it's not updating. There are only 2 copies of this file in cpanel, the .old file and the one I edited that has todays edit date.

What am I missing? In the old days I think we had to publish? the website? But I can't figure out how to do that, and the cpanel forums look to be down or out of action.

[wheel_of_steell]

Thanks for all the advice. In the end, I hobbled together a basic website out of HTML. Just look at the source code for something if you want to know how it's done


[MENTION=7101]Wedge[/MENTION], maybe try putting the old edit in your home folder or just deleting and keeping it on your hard drive. That being said, when I first got hosted, it took a little while for my first updates to come through. Nowadays it's instantaneous.

[Phildo]

When I used to work with web sites years ago, I used to encode email addresses with JavaScript. That has prevented most spambots from harvesting the email addresses.

blahblah.com.au would then become:
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
document.write('<a href="&#109;&#97&#105;&#108;&#116;&#111;&#58'+'&#98&#108;&#97&#104;@'+'&#98&#108;&#97&#104;&#46&#99&#111;&#109;&#46&#97&#117;&#63&#115;&#117;&#98&#106;&#101;&#99&#116;&#61&#69&#109;&#97&#105;&#108; &#102;&#114;&#111;&#109; &#98&#108;&#97&#104;&#46&#99&#111;&#109;&#46&#97&#117;'+'">'+'&#98&#108;&#97&#104;&#64&#98&#108;&#97&#104;&#46&#99&#111;&#109;&#46&#97&#117;'+'</a>');
//-->
</script>

On a Mac, there is an application called SpamStopper that does this.

Or, have a look at:
Enkoder
Hiding Your Email Address
How to Use JavaScript to Protect Your Email Address on Web Pages