Recommendations for setting up my own website

Alako

Hiya,

I want to set up a site that I can use for both a portfolio site and eventually a shop. I've registered a domain name with Register365, but I'm not sure what's the best way to go from here regarding who are the best to host with and what packages should I choose etc.

I'm a student and I don't have experience setting up a site, but I have a tech background and I have a fair idea of how everything works. I'd like to take care of as much as the setup as I possibly can, so advice on where to go from here would be really appreciated.

Thanks a million

red_ice

Your portfolio site will reflect on you. Get someone who knows what they are doing to build your site. that will roughly be 30-45 euro an hour for someone who is worth working with.

Second of all, selling online. You need to look at how you want to sell. If its directly off the website, you will need to purchase a dedicated IP, ssl cert, and look for someone to handle your payments. The ip and SSL at entry level prices will be about 130 + vat for the two.

Alako

red_ice wrote: »

Your portfolio site will reflect on you. Get someone who knows what they are doing to build your site. that will roughly be 30-45 euro an hour for someone who is worth working with.

Second of all, selling online. You need to look at how you want to sell. If its directly off the website, you will need to purchase a dedicated IP, ssl cert, and look for someone to handle your payments. The ip and SSL at entry level prices will be about 130 + vat for the two.

Thanks for your reply red_ice!

Yeah I know how important the site looks, but the fact is I do not have the money to pay someone to do it. I really want to try and handle it myself, I just need some help being pointed in the right direction.

I found this site which is sort of the kind of structure I want, and I noticed its a Wordpress site.

http://verityheysenkizek.com/wholesale/prints/

Wordpress templates can be installed after hosting purchase and then you take it from there don't you? I know it's not a straightforward thing but would that be a good starting point? I already have a Wordpress blog, so working with it would probably be more familiar?

The shop thing is not immediately pressing.. plus I don't have €150, so that can wait!

p

cargocollective.com is a good portfolio site. Maybe play around with that, and then n the future you can work on a shop.

smash

red_ice wrote: »

that will roughly be 30-45 euro an hour for someone who is worth working with.

That's a cheap rate!

red_ice wrote: »

Second of all, selling online. You need to look at how you want to sell. If its directly off the website, you will need to purchase a dedicated IP, ssl cert, and look for someone to handle your payments. The ip and SSL at entry level prices will be about 130 + vat for the two.

Easier to use paypal or google checkout though to be honest with you.

red_ice

Alako wrote: »

Thanks for your reply red_ice!

Yeah I know how important the site looks, but the fact is I do not have the money to pay someone to do it. I really want to try and handle it myself, I just need some help being pointed in the right direction.

Go to town at it, it definitely cant hurt to try it out, and these forums are here for help if you get stuck along the way.

Alako wrote: »

I found this site which is sort of the kind of structure I want, and I noticed its a Wordpress site.

Wordpress templates can be installed after hosting purchase and then you take it from there don't you? I know it's not a straightforward thing but would that be a good starting point? I already have a Wordpress blog, so working with it would probably be more familiar?

The shop thing is not immediately pressing.. plus I don't have €150, so that can wait!

Wordpress can be moulded into any shape you want, and with a bit of work will function anyway you want to! That template you have there requires taking the stock twenty twelve theme, removing/commenting out the 'require sidebar' part, then making sure the content section of the stylesheet is set to 100% of whatever width the template is. That will get you the shape. You can comment/remove the stuff you dont want.

To colour it and add fonts etc will be what takes up your time.

smash wrote: »

That's a cheap rate!

Easier to use paypal or google checkout though to be honest with you.

Each to their own, some people feel they are worth more, others will may say their work is worth less and they are chancers. I would expect someone to produce work to a high standard for that price range.

Paypal/Google Checkout dont really sell the idea of an established company to me, even if your starting off, i would try make yourself look as professional as possible. Its kinda like using yahoo/gmail/hotmail for business instead of yourdomain.com

smash

red_ice wrote: »

Paypal/Google Checkout dont really sell the idea of an established company to me, even if your starting off, i would try make yourself look as professional as possible. Its kinda like using yahoo/gmail/hotmail for business instead of yourdomain.com

Well that's not true at all now is it. Using a free email address is a sign of an unprofessional half arsed operation. Using pay pal just means you've decided to use the worlds largest credit card payment operator. Who are secure!

You want to go down the road of someone like relex then do it. You'll need a ltd company and bank account statements etc.

But back to the original question, if it's a portfolio site and you're looking to start selling. I'd recommend opening an etsy.com account and link to it from your portfolio. Sell your stuff through there. After all, you're just starting out as an individual, not a big business.

Alako

red_ice wrote: »

Go to town at it, it definitely cant hurt to try it out, and these forums are here for help if you get stuck along the way.




Wordpress can be moulded into any shape you want, and with a bit of work will function anyway you want to! That template you have there requires taking the stock twenty twelve theme, removing/commenting out the 'require sidebar' part, then making sure the content section of the stylesheet is set to 100% of whatever width the template is. That will get you the shape. You can comment/remove the stuff you dont want.

To colour it and add fonts etc will be what takes up your time.

Thanks for that! I've been poking around a bit more online and I'll definately go with Wordpress I think, and sell online through Etsy. Seems like the best way for me to do things at the moment.

I've had a look at Digiweb and they do offer a years free hosting to students, the package is the advanced version too with MySQL which is needed to run Wordpress. Sound! : )

Much appreciate the advise lads, exactly what I needed.

Thanks!

Alako

p wrote: »

cargocollective.com is a good portfolio site. Maybe play around with that, and then n the future you can work on a shop.

Thanks for that, I had a good look at Cargocollective, some great looking portfolios but I don't think it's quite right for me. I want two sides to my site, a college project portfolio area, and a graphic prints portfolio area, and I want them totally separate so I think doing a proper site (as proper as Wordpress is..) is the way to go.

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Alako wrote: »

red_ice wrote: »

Go to town at it, it definitely cant hurt to try it out, and these forums are here for help if you get stuck along the way.




Wordpress can be moulded into any shape you want, and with a bit of work will function anyway you want to! That template you have there requires taking the stock twenty twelve theme, removing/commenting out the 'require sidebar' part, then making sure the content section of the stylesheet is set to 100% of whatever width the template is. That will get you the shape. You can comment/remove the stuff you dont want.

To colour it and add fonts etc will be what takes up your time.

Thanks for that! I've been poking around a bit more online and I'll definately go with Wordpress I think, and sell online through Etsy. Seems like the best way for me to do things at the moment.

I've had a look at Digiweb and they do offer a years free hosting to students, the package is the advanced version too with MySQL which is needed to run Wordpress. Sound! : )

Much appreciate the advise lads, exactly what I needed.

Thanks!

Wish I had known about digiweb before I forked out for hosting this week.

How do I avail of the free hosting ? Do I need to contact them directly or is there a button on their website ?

Alako

http://www.digiweb.ie/studentoffer/

The page looks like it's an offer for transition year students..!

Anyways, the offer is still on as I mailed support double checking Wordpress compatibility and one of the guys got back to me.

They use MySQL 4 (current version 5.5.2) which only supports up to Wordpress version 3.1.

Do you think that would be sufficient for the time being, and when my free year is up I can upgrade or set up shop elsewhere?

3.1 seems pretty outdated actually, current version is 3.3.1 and to quote from the archived releases page of the Wordpress site:

'This is an archive of every release we've done that we have a record of.
None of these are safe to use, except the latest in the 3.3 series, which is actively maintained.'

Hmm.

red_ice

smash wrote: »

Well that's not true at all now is it. Using a free email address is a sign of an unprofessional half arsed operation.

Most definitly. If someone in web programming for example gave me a card saying they are a company with no website on it, and an email with a yahoo account I would instantly be laughing at them in my head for thinking they are serious about their profession. Dress to impress etc, its the same with how you present yourself in business. Thats my opinion, if yours is otherwise, its no skin off my nose

smash wrote: »

Using pay pal just means you've decided to use the worlds largest credit card payment operator. Who are secure!

You want to go down the road of someone like relex then do it. You'll need a ltd company and bank account statements etc.

I always work with realex! I might be wrong, but i dont recall having to be a registered company to avail of their services. Then again, I only put my clients on to realex and let them sort their own accounts out.

Alako wrote: »

Thanks for that! I've been poking around a bit more online and I'll definately go with Wordpress I think, and sell online through Etsy. Seems like the best way for me to do things at the moment.

I've had a look at Digiweb and they do offer a years free hosting to students, the package is the advanced version too with MySQL which is needed to run Wordpress. Sound! : )

Much appreciate the advise lads, exactly what I needed.

Thanks!

If you are going to work with wordpress, you can just get a plugin for it that will let you handle paypal payments. It can come in the form of a widget (litterally a box on the side of your screen). So you do your wordpress site, install this widget (takes a minute), then your handling paypal payments on your site.

There is also the option of just buying your domain name, and setting up an account on blog.wordpress.com, then using the template you have devloped on that website? Free hosting, preconfigured wordpress install, all of which come from www.yourdomain.com.

benbob65

You have overlooked one on the most important things about websites: what is/will be the main purpose of your website?
The best way to do your own website in the long run, is to learn writing html/css by hand yourself.