Website software question

[Paul Atkins]

My wife wants a website for her business and says that since I can do anything, I should try and set it up. I have a Mac with Snow Leopard and a laptop with win7. What programs are there out there that make this a painless operation? I am not adverse to spending a bit, but will probably not do much of this because I'd rather spend time in the shop. Seems like there are tons of choices out there. Thanks for any info.

[Eric DeSilva]

My wife wants a website for her business and says that since I can do anything, I should try and set it up. I have a Mac with Snow Leopard and a laptop with win7. What programs are there out there that make this a painless operation? I am not adverse to spending a bit, but will probably not do much of this because I'd rather spend time in the shop. Seems like there are tons of choices out there. Thanks for any info.

If she is just looking for webpage that has pictures, a description and contact info, that is pretty easy to do; heck some hosting services have pre-pack website forms you can use. I use Dreamweaver typically, but that is because it was on my machine already as part of the Adobe Suite I own. However...

If she is doing e-commerce and actually taking orders/getting credit card information, I would hire a pro.

[Stephen Massman]

dreamweaver is really the king. if you dont want to pay SeaMonkey is a good free one.

Wordpress (www.wordpress.org) is a php software that is nice also and make it really easy to manage a site. Very customizable and lots of free templates and plugins. I am using wordpress to be the front in of our local woodturning chapter. http://midmowoodturners.missouri.org

[Ed Hazel]

What does she want to do?

If you are just providing information I would go with Wordpress it is free and there are tons of free templates.

If you want to actually sell products you might want to check out Yahoo they have a a simple website set up for sales ect.

[Greg Portland]

Basic e-commerce is now easy using Google Checkout or a similar service.

I'll 2nd the Wordpress recommendation for basic websites. Dreamweaver is a great tool but it's fairly complex.

[Darius Ferlas]

There are free html authoring software titles. One is called NVU (http://net2.com/nvu/download.html). and the other is Kompozer (http://kompozer.net/download.php) (based on NVU). There are versions usable on a Mac.

[Chuck Wintle]

My wife wants a website for her business and says that since I can do anything, I should try and set it up. I have a Mac with Snow Leopard and a laptop with win7. What programs are there out there that make this a painless operation? I am not adverse to spending a bit, but will probably not do much of this because I'd rather spend time in the shop. Seems like there are tons of choices out there. Thanks for any info.
are you going to purchase a domain name with a web site hoster or will you use one of the free ones like tripod?

there are many HTML editors and some are free such as Notepad++ and a good FTP program, to upload files, is Filezilla. Check out Bluehost for a domain....they make it fairly painless to set up a domain...and its not too expensive either.

[Eric DeSilva]

I thought about recommending Wordpress too, but that is really blogging software. There are some good styles for it, and with is built around PHP and CSS, it is pretty easy to customize. But at its core, it's blogging software...

You might get better recommendations if you could give folks some idea of what kind of site it is... and what you are toying with in terms of pages.

[Paul Atkins]

Thanks, I forgot there must be quite a difference between online 'stores' and information websites. My wife's business is alterations and repair work (clothing, cushions, pillows, bags, even the odd dog chewed prom dress). She would not need to sell anything online. (Yet) This would be an information site with photos and details about the services. In this college town most kids don't know what a phone book is and use their electronic appendage for any kind of input, so any place that does not have a web presence does not seem to exist. Altho she has been at the same location for 20 years, there still are people who 'miss it' as they drive by too. Out of town business is not out of the question for her except fitting by mail is a bit tricky. Anyway, that's the gist.

[Al Navas]

Her business sounds very interesting, Paul. PM sent with some information.

.

[Eric DeSilva]

Does she have some good content? Like a stock of before/after photos, and maybe some customer testimonials? Sounds like you may just need a fairly simply site, maybe something with a home page (logo, pic of shop front or shop, maybe one or two prominent testimonial quotes), "contact us" page (address, email, telephone, map and hours, maybe a pic of her at work to "personalize" the service), and maybe a gallery showing some before/after repair and alterations work. That wouldn't be particularly hard to build. I think the biggest mistake people make with websites is trying to make them flashier than they need to be.

If you are in a college town, she might also consider establishing a facebook page to cross link to the site, and encourage people to "friend" her as well.

[Earl Kelly]

Paul,

On the Mac get Freeway, Pro or Express by Softpress. I'm using it now on my new site. Hopefully, I'll be finished with it soon so I can finish uploading it.

http://www.softpress.com/

Earl

[Rob Wachala Jr]

My wife wants a website for her business and says that since I can do anything, I should try and set it up. I have a Mac with Snow Leopard and a laptop with win7. What programs are there out there that make this a painless operation? I am not adverse to spending a bit, but will probably not do much of this because I'd rather spend time in the shop. Seems like there are tons of choices out there. Thanks for any info.


Don't - if she wants a 'business' site it should look like a professional has done the job. Nothing is worse for a business than a website that an amateur with a WYSIWYG editor has done the job. If she doesn't want to invest in a professional design then I would suggest at least a decent cms (content management system) purchase a professional designed template and pay for a logo design.

Common CMS -- Joomla, drupal, wordpress. If she needs a cart system Joomla uses an addon called virtuemart. Wordpress has a few addons for cart functions that are good quality or if she just wants a full blown storefront you can use magento, or oscommerce.

If you must do it yourself and all she needs is a basic website then I would suggest going to lynda.com and taking the basic css and xhtml courses. You really don't need anything to code other than notepad.

If you must have a WYSIWYG editor you can get adobe dreamweaver. That's a popular program that is used in many design studios. They have a 30 day trial as well. If you choose dreamweaver you can also take a course at lynda for that specific program as well. If you need a cheap host to develop on aspirationhosting.com has a $4.95 a month plan that easily fits the bill.