Recommendations for new web site

tmac2853 (25), Petruchio71 (42), Chuff (53)

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my GV650 Posted by iconan on 11 Jun 2011 in Viewed 227 times 2500w X 1875h 466712 bytes

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Don't over work yourself bro, enjoy the life party! -- spiderweb

[Jae]

My wife is a musician, and has started a trio with a couple of her friends. They have been playing together for a while and now would like to put together a fairly professional looking website to put up photos, videos, and sound files of them playing as they are interested in starting to book gigs.

My wife has been tasked with being in charge of the website by virtue of being the youngest, but she knows less about websites than she does about motorcycles so I thought I would ask around here for recommendations.

The first thing she's worried about is hosting. She has been looking around for free hosting, and I just don't think she's going to find what she's looking for for free. The next thing of course would be the actual site design, and she's also been looking for free templates, but my experience is that if you want a professional looking website you're probably going to need to pay someone who actually knows what they're doing, and unfortunately I don't.

I know several of you guys have experience with running a website (at least Bill does, right?), so if you could point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it. Additionally, if any of you do this kind of thing for a living, let me know what I should expect to be paying to have someone set this up, and if you're interested in taking on this project how much it would cost.

[650s]

I run a basic site for my HOA through dotster.com.  I pretty much write the site by hand (it is just a few pages I manage through a free html editor).  If she doesn't feel like hand coding pages that probably won't work.

The main problem I see in hiring someone is that if you are not knowledgeable to direct them they will try to do something that shows off all of their "skills" and you get some flash heavy page that takes 2 minutes to load with navigation that requires a flashlight and a map.

I don't have experience with Google Sites or any of the other free hosting, but they could be useful depending on how the content is managed.  Rather than hosting all of the pictures and video, it might be better to create a YouTube channel for the trio and keep the media files there. 

Hopefully someone else has a better idea for you.

[Bob Witte]

You'd do well to use something like GoDaddy.com that has inexpensive hosting and lots of fill-it-in templates to build on.

[pennsylvaniaMike]

My suggestion would be to use Wordpress.  The software is free, it's fairly easy to set up, and there are tons of templates out there already.  They also make it pretty easy to post pictures and YouTube videos and whatnot.

Hosting is going to be hit-or-miss.  Most of the cheap and/or free hosting services out there have pretty poor customer service.  And I personally won't go anywhere near GoDaddy.   

[650s]

And I personally won't go anywhere near GoDaddy.   

+1

[Jae]

my suggestion was for them just to setup a facebook page for now, as it offers the media hosting (when paired with linking to youtube for videos) they need, it's free, and there's no real design to do.

[650s]

That sounds like a very reasonable plan until they get some traction and need something more elaborate.

[Benjamin]

Ya, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter are the best bang for the buck. Social networking has helped a couple of my online sites a bunch and all it cost is your time. They allow you to host pics and vids, friends can share the media, tell others about and to a certain extent you can kind of track whats being said and by who. And it is free.

If you do decide on doing a site, i recommend www.fluidhosting.com as they host all my sites. I have been with them for almost 5 years now and have had a total of maybe 5 hours of combined downtime with their service. If you do go with them let them know that Benjamin from TheDieselClassifieds.com sent you.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

[ACD_Bill]

Cheap hosting is generally that, cheap. That said, there are some that are fairly good within limitations, i.e. 1and1 is good as long as you do not need a large Db. It just takes a lot of research looking at reviews.

I would highly recommend facebook. Almost every successful company ha a facebook page anyway so why not go that route at first.

As for templates, again, it depends on the package you use. I have to agree with Mike though, Wordpress would be a great choice. Tons of support for it out there.

I would be happy to advise, but do not want web master responsibilities.

[Mac]

I think that Bill hit a very important point there when he mentioned "limitations"...in order to decide how they want to put it online, they probably need to define exactly what they want online.  You mentioned the elements, Jae (ie, pics, vids, sound files), but the difference of a half-dozen of each vs hundreds of each could make the decisions completely different for hosting or social-media window.  And how these would be presented - a simple download portal or a heavy video marketing-style presence.

The more involved, the less they really want "cheap"....and, conversely, the less expensive they want, the simpler they should aim for...