Best way to start a website

Tricked

Hi all,

I've a ton of questions so if you can contribute to any of them it would be much appreciated! I'm looking to set up a site with the capability to display video and music in either embedded youtube frames or pop-out players. Eventually I might put a shop on the site too but for now I want to use it mainly as a blog with a big media input. Ideally it would be something like this site where you can embed videos and songs, as well as make them available for download through a soundcloud account.

So far I've experimented with blogger and wordpress but havn't commited to a payment on wordpress that would allow me to host media, and the memory capacity on blogger is too low. I'm stumped s to what's the next step. Should I host the site using Wordpress? I don't really know what are the options without going to a developer to set it up. I'd rather get involved in it myself and learn the process.

On that note is there any good online courses that teach the entire process of designing, hosting and maintaining a site? The main appeal of wordpress for me is the easy to use interface which would mean I wouldn't need major experience in HTML. It also has the ability to add a shop section with Big Cartel.

Like I said any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Trojan

Tricked wrote: »

So far I've experimented with blogger and wordpress but havn't commited to a payment on wordpress that would allow me to host media

Sounds to me like you're talking about WordPress.com there. What you could do is buy your domain name, a hosting account, and setup self-hosted WordPress ("WordPress.org").

Tricked wrote: »

On that note is there any good online courses that teach the entire process of designing, hosting and maintaining a site?

I can't say if it's good because I am a biased source, but I created just such a course because of questions like this on boards - there's a link in my signature if you want to check it out.

Tricked wrote: »

The main appeal of wordpress for me is the easy to use interface which would mean I wouldn't need major experience in HTML. It also has the ability to add a shop section with Big Cartel.

Like I said any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!

The main issue you'll have to think about is going hosted or self-hosted - hosted is where someone else deals with all the messy techie bits, the downside being less control for you. The self-hosted path is more involved, but you get more (complete) control over your own site. I recommend self-hosted for almost everyone for that reason, even if you then hire someone to come in and handle setup and maintenance.

HTH.

-Chris-

The memory capacity on Blogger (or wherever) shouldn't really bother you - presumably you'll be uploading your videos to Youtube and your photos to somewhere like Flicker or Picasa. Once you've done this you're just embedding that content on your page, it's hosted somewhere else.

Tibbers

I'm currently setting up my own website in blogger, I am designing my own template down to the very last pixel of padding.
I have not found any issues with space restrictions, or any restrictions at all. Your content should be uploaded on services like YouTube, picasa and such just like the poster above said.

Tricked

Great stuff, thanks for all the advice so far, I'll look into all those tips. Just on the hosting capacity I didn't make it clear but I was referring to music hosting sites that I would get an embed code from and use them in Blogger. There was a lack of space on the music sites themselves, rather than Blogger. Cheers again