Help creating website please

sillybilly

Hello,
I want to create a website for my self catering home. I need some help please

1)I want something quick and easy, do you recommend wordpress? Is that just for blogging? how about yola?
2) I was actually thinking of hosting it using register365, i have already paid a years fee to get a free domain name. But can I create a website using say wordpress or yola and host it using a different server. When I want to edit it at a later stage how do I do this easily? Is there a different package that might be better for this?

thanks!!!

fergald

Hello,
I want to create a website for my self catering home. I need some help please

1)I want something quick and easy, do you recommend wordpress? Is that just for blogging? how about yola?

Wordpress is good for blogging about your website, deals, rates, activities in the areas, takes a lot of work to keep update. Best of all their are tons of free templates that you can use.

2) I was actually thinking of hosting it using register365, i have already paid a years fee to get a free domain name. But can I create a website using say wordpress or yola and host it using a different server. When I want to edit it at a later stage how do I do this easily? Is there a different package that might be better for this?

A lot of the hosting providers have cpanel where you can install wordpress etc(templates etc) free of charge by just clicking a button, the software allows you to manage the website. I personally only pay about 25 euro's a year for hosting of www.caloriehealthy.com.

i personally find that if you purchase hosting in the country you want to attract visitors it helps. SEO is huge and takes years.

Not sure if this info helps, hope it does.

Kind Regards
Fergal

thanks!!!

Trojan

1) Yes, many (most) web design companies would recommend WordPress for this kind of project. Personally, I would not recommend Yola.

2) You can create your site and host it elsewhere other than your hosting company should you so wish. However, you can also create it with a tool they provide to install your site - you'd need to contact support for the hosting company.

Hope that helps, ask more questions if you need further clarification.

mneylon

sillybilly wrote: »

Hello,
I want to create a website for my self catering home. I need some help please

1)I want something quick and easy, do you recommend wordpress? Is that just for blogging? how about yola?

Wordpress with a nice theme / template would work fine, but just remember to keep it up to date

Antoniet25

I would suggest Wordpress as it is easy to use and good for newbie, it is SEO friendly too.

Most importantly, it has thousands of free themes and plugins which are helpful for designing your website for user needs and SEO needs.

But you need your own domain name and hosting.

As domain name is very important to your website so make sure you are registering relevant domain name depending on your business. Also, I would like to register domain names on safe place like Godady. For hosting, I use HostGator which is too popular and reliable too.

benny306

1. I agree with all of the above about Wordpress. It's a very easy to use platform and there are plenty of templates (free or premium).

2. I use register365 at the moment, for a number of sites. No complaints with them. Granted I can only compare them to godaddy and bluehost because those are the only other 2 hosting providers I've used. But I've found register365 to be just as good.

Setting up wordpress on register365 is a one-click install so it's quite simple. But any other decent hosting provider should also have an easy wordpress install feature.

I just did a quick google search for 'wordpress self catering home' and found a few using wordpress in your market. You could have a look at them to see what they're doing.

Mrs OBumble

Much as I hate to be disagreeable - I would differ from some of the advice given here.

Firstly, think about the chances of the website of any one self-catering home reaching far enough up any search results page to be seen by a reasonable number. Think about exactly how many directory sites, travel sites etc you are going to be competing with. All of them with full time professional staff focussed soley on SEO.

Hopefully that thinking has sent you off to register with AirBnB or other similar services, where you can have pictures, text, on-line bookings, customer feedback, etc .. and benefit their SEO advantages.

But if you're still reading and determined to have your own website ... ask yourself some hard questions about exactly how much IT/internet time and aptitude you have. There are plenty of support forums etc where you can get specific knowledge - but only if you're prepared to put in time, and have the underlying interest in learning.

All that said, if you can check out whether a hosting provder's Wordpress install is the latest version, and if you can (figure out how to) check that any 3rd party theme or plug-in you use is also buit on the latest version of Wordpress and is being actively updated as new security issues are found/fixed, and if you are prepared to committ time every week to make sure that your plugins etc stay up to date, then I'd agree that Wordpress is a good platfom for you. (One-click installs are very sweet - but totally useless if they're of an old version.)

However if the thought of doing all that is making you pale, then a simpler approch may be better. Consider a Google Places listing and a Facebook page. If you really want a blog, use Blogger.


My 15c.


PS Whatever platform you use, you will also need to commit time every week to putting new content info it. If you pay someone else to set up the site, you will need to either buget to pay them every week, or make sure that their contract included teaching you how to load new content yourself.

benny306

Having a website and having a facebook + air bnb etc. presence is not mutually exclusive.

Why not do as many things as possible to attract customers?

However I would agree with Mrs OBumble that if you are going to prioritise then Facebook and other larger travel sites are going to give you a better ROI. You just can't compete with the sheer volume of people who use those types of sites.

Mrs OBumble

Given this week's events with Wordpress, I couldn't resist bumping this thread with a reminder to only use Wordpress if you have both the time and aptitude to sort out technical issues yourself.

I haven't followed all the issues, but this guy gives a good balanced account of lots of topics - and he's making some interesting comments about the housekeeping of self-hosted Wordpress.

cormee

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Given this week's events with Wordpress, I couldn't resist bumping this thread with a reminder to only use Wordpress if you have both the time and aptitude to sort out technical issues yourself.

I haven't followed all the issues, but this guy gives a good balanced account of lots of topics - and he's making some interesting comments about the housekeeping of self-hosted Wordpress.

It was a brute force password attack, not a vulnerability, the exact same thing could happen to any CMS.

Lack of technical knowledge, or not, is not going to prevent this sort of thing happening again, on any CMS.

Mrs OBumble

cormee wrote: »

Lack of technical knowledge, or not, is not going to prevent this sort of thing happening again, on any CMS.

Correct.

But lack of techinical knowledge causes people to be vulerable because they use less-than-current-version installations, or non-upldated plugins.

3sixty

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Much as I hate to be disagreeable - I would differ from some of the advice given here.

If you really want a blog, use Blogger.

Bad advice.With all due respect.

Building a business website via blogger is not good. Why ?

If blogger for some reason does not like your site/ or down the road you do something to violate their policies. They will delete and you lose everything.

Get your own website, your own hosting and build your own customers.

Get listed in all the directories as mentioned but always have your own web presense too.

As blacknight mentioned wordpress/nice theme will do the trick for you.

note: wordpress is very easy to learn.

Good luck

cormee

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Correct.

But lack of techinical knowledge causes people to be vulerable because they use less-than-current-version installations, or non-upldated plugins.

Again, the same logic/advice can be applied to any CMS

Mrs OBumble

3sixty wrote: »

Building a business website via blogger is not good. Why ?

If blogger for some reason does not like your site/ or down the road you do something to violate their policies. They will delete and you lose everything.

Get your own website, your own hosting and build your own customers.

The same thing can happen with any hosting provider: just 'cos you have paid for hosting will not stop a provider locking your account and/or deleting your stuff if your site gets hacked. In the latter case, you need to have taken backups to recover from.

One stand-alone self-catering house is never going to have the ability to build a website-based pool of customers. Anything beyond a brochure that other sites (ones that get traffic) can point to is a total waste for such a business.

3sixty

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

The same thing can happen with any hosting provider: just 'cos you have paid for hosting will not stop a provider locking your account and/or deleting your stuff if your site gets hacked. In the latter case, you need to have taken backups to recover from.

One stand-alone self-catering house is never going to have the ability to build a website-based pool of customers. Anything beyond a brochure that other sites (ones that get traffic) can point to is a total waste for such a business.

Hosting providers
The thing is it does not happen (Unless your a spammer of the highest order). For other cases, they might suspend the account, put a place page on it. But they will always work with you to resolve a problem as it might be a leaky script, people not updating wordpress, whatever. So no a hosting provider will not just delete your hosting on a whim.

Blogger - now this is a different story. They will. There are many reasons
1. You have a blogger account and your outranking me. I can just report you as spam. Your deleted.
2. It can be deleted for inactivity
3. If you have adsense on your blogger thats gone too. Best of luck with the appeals process there.
4. It owned by google and they can and will delete it at a moments notice without any warning. There is no going back then.These are just a few reasons.
5. You have no control

A self catering website.

No it is not a waste for her to have a website of her own and build up customers. That is just a load of nonsense. Anybody can build a website using wordpress. Anybody.

then enlist in paid directories, free directories, discover ireland, build her own base of customers. entice new customers,link in with local activities, there are endless opportunities really. Its like everything you have to be where you customers are looking. Everybody needs their own web presensce no matter how big or small.

Mrs OBumble

Ahh, I love religious wars. Remind me of Mac vs PC in the late 1990s.

Let's just say that you clearly don't know much about how Blogger really works, vs the myths and rumours spread by developers looking for work. And you haven't had the same expereince that I did when a website got hacked. (Yes, I did have a backup)

Also if you think that "anyone" can build a website, then clearly you haven't met some of the people who I know. The ones who struggle to type a letter in Word and are still angry about being forced, kicking and screaming, into using internet banking.

3sixty

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Let's just say that you clearly don't know much about how Blogger really works, vs the myths and rumours spread by developers looking for work. And you haven't had the same expereince that I did when a website got hacked. (Yes, I did have a backup)

I am clear about blogger in so much that i dont go reccomending that people set up their business through blogger.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Also if you think that "anyone" can build a website, then clearly you haven't met some of the people who I know. The ones who struggle to type a letter in Word and are still angry about being forced, kicking and screaming, into using internet banking.

Yes anybody can learn to build a website if they want to. There are tutorials all over the place.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

post#7(One-click installs are very sweet - but totally useless if they're of an old version.)

Clearly experienced alright.!!

Mrs OBumble

Interesting post today from a registrar about a Wordpress plugin to remind you to upgrade your plugins!

http://blog.blacknight.com/patch-up-wordpress-please.html



Actually, it's probably a nice test: If you don't understand what this is about, and why it matters, then you don't have enough undrstanding to be using Wordpress, and should switch to a simpler tool that manages the security aspects for you.

benny306

'a simpler tool that manages the security aspects for you.'

What would you recommend? I think the main reason people use Wordpress is because it's free, easy to use and learn, easy to customise and flexible, widely used which means tons of support.

What, would you say, is a simpler tool, while also being a low/no cost solution?

Mrs OBumble

benny306 wrote: »

'a simpler tool that manages the security aspects for you.'

What would you recommend? I think the main reason people use Wordpress is because it's free, easy to use and learn, easy to customise and flexible, widely used which means tons of support.

What, would you say, is a simpler tool, while also being a low/no cost solution?

Well I've been using Blogger quite happily. Simple, free hosting, unlimited bandwidth, centrally managed security.

There are people on this board who believe that this is not a good idea: they say that because you're not paying for hosting, you have less "control" etc. However in my observation the people who have issues with Blogger sites being deleted by it tend to be spammers rather than genuine website-makers. And the only site that I've ever had deleted on me by the web-host was one I inherited that was buit from a now-defunct freeware tool and with paid hosting.

fyi, there are number of large, successful websites made with Blogger including:

• www.IkeaHackers.net/ - a site for sharing clever ways of repurposing kitset furniture
• www.DarkRoastedBlend.com - a site about coffee - been around since 2005
• www.HowAboutOrange.blogspot.com - a very stylish crafts website

And some others that I know are made with Blogger, although it's not abvious unless you know what you're looking for:

• www.ConcentricsRestaurants.com/ - a promotional site for a company that builds restaurants
• www.RenewPilates.com - the site for a Pilates studio

jmcc

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Interesting post today from a registrar about a Wordpress plugin to remind you to upgrade your plugins!

http://blog.blacknight.com/patch-up-wordpress-please.html



Actually, it's probably a nice test: If you don't understand what this is about, and why it matters, then you don't have enough undrstanding to be using Wordpress, and should switch to a simpler tool that manages the security aspects for you.

There are at least 498 compromised websites in the Irish webscape (Irish websites). Most of them are using Joomla and Wordpress and have been compromised because they had plug-ins with security issues. The format of compromise has changed over the last five years or so from simple defacements to websites carrying dodgy links payloads in the HTML of the site. These links are typically invisible to browsers but search engines pick them up. It would be a good thing not to rely on Google telling you that your site is compromised.

Some web developers treat Wordpress and Joomla as brochureware production tools and then hand the site over to the client without any form of update contract. The clients often have no technological expertise and are unaware of the threats facing websites.

Regards...jmcc

IRE60

I'd agree with you there. If i hand over a site - the first think I show the client is how to update the core product when a new patch becomes available.