OT - Building a website with Bluehost and WordPress

[Chris]

I am not very computer literate. I am trying to help out my martial arts school and build them a website. I read that this was a good way to go, but I'm struggling. Any experience?

[rockdude]

I have built four of them and Fumble through it each time. For me it takes a lot of youtube watching and 20+ hours. Youtube is your friend.

https://bouldercyclingcoach.com/

http://www.matjournal.com/

[paredown]

Agreed--Wordpress is sort of user friendly, but hard to figure out when you try to customize. And I am not very good at web stuff--I'm just stubborn...

I found that the preset free templates would sometimes be lacking, but still the easiest way to build is to use one, so look through a lot and pick one that is as close as you can come. If you are tempted to purchase one, look for someone who has been in business for more than five minutes--it is a bit like all those flaky Apple apps--suddenly everyone is a developer.

As you go, some things are easy (more or less modular plug-ins are available for some of the things that you will need), but often limitations are set initially by the template. And there is a underlying problem that it started as a blog posting platform, so it handles text/blog posting (and ancillaries) really well...

I've used a great shareware program called Wampserver for developing Wordpress on a Windows machine--it lets you set up a working install of Apache etc on your machine and develop and test before you migrate to live servers.

[Chris]

I have built four of them and Fumble through it each time. For me it takes a lot of youtube watching and 20+ hours. Youtube is your friend.

https://bouldercyclingcoach.com/

http://www.matjournal.com/

Which template is the boulder coach?

[dbnm]

Have you thought about Squarespace? So much easier than WP and a lot less hassle.

[C40_guy]

If you're on a Mac, consider using Dreamweaver. I find it a lot more intuitive than WordPress...

I built my first website on FrontPage 1.0. Still miss that app... :)

[fiamme red]

I know someone who built a perfectly adequate website using WYSIWYG Web Builder: http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/.

Here are some other options: http://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/wysiwyg-web-builder/.

[paredown]

Have you thought about Squarespace? So much easier than WP and a lot less hassle.
My lovely wife has been trying out WIX, and likes Squarespace as well--both very easy to use, although I have not worked with them...

If you're on a Mac, consider using Dreamweaver. I find it a lot more intuitive than WordPress...

I built my first website on FrontPage 1.0. Still miss that app... :)

We used to use Dreamweaver at the Uni where I worked because it allowed for easy access by people who were not web-savvy to post topical stuff for their area, without having to know much at all (and with limited possibility of screwing up anything important.)

FrontPage front end was great, but it produced really dirty HTML, with lots of M$ clutter IMO...

[Climb01742]

Squarespace. Look no further. I'm clueless and I was able to use it.

[redir]

Dreamweaver is web development tool and an expensive one at that. Wordpress is a content management system or a website in a box. Two totally different things.

My only recommendation is to make sure your host is on top of security and be very weary of using lots of Wordpress modules. A basic WP site can be easy to use and secure but when you start adding things to it then it gets more difficult.

[dbnm]

I built two businesses using Squarespace. Their pricing is spot on and their 24 hour customer service is amazing and fast.

[gavingould]

used to build my own websites using html in a text file (early days) then later Dreamweaver.

now use Squarespace.

[EPOJoe]

Can you use Squarespace to build a site and then not use their hosting service (use your own URL with another host server)?

[rockdude]

Which template is the boulder coach?

Its not a template its just the latest version of wordpress 2018?

[scharny]

If you are more or less of a noob with regard to web development, and still want a content management site where you can log in and post/update content without using an expensive piece of software like Dreamweaver, then wordpress.com (as opposed to wordpress.org) may be the path you want to take.

Wordpress.com hosts the sites on their servers, has a small set of pay-to-add plugins and themes that are curated/updated by them (as opposed to by you). All you really need to do to protect your site is to have a complex password - their servers are pretty well locked down.

Wordpress.org is all open-source software, and necessitates that you find a hosting service (like Bluehost, but I recommend Godaddy if you go that route), and you need to do all of the plugin and theme management and updates yourself, plus you need to put in place some security measures or your site WILL get hacked (I use a Sucuri web proxy firewall on the 15 of so sites I manage).

[martl]

I am not very computer literate. I am trying to help out my martial arts school and build them a website. I read that this was a good way to go, but I'm struggling. Any experience?

+1 Scharny

I ran several websites on many different CMS and ended up using WP. Did a lot of customization, built themes and coded addins.

Worpress is easy to set up even for non-nerds, and is very simple to use. There are plenty of free themes and addins for it, too. So - good choice.

But there's a big "but" with it. It is one of the three most popular systems of that kind out there, and in this case it means: there are a lot of exploits out there as well.
Now, the devs are quite fast fixing those and the system can auto-update itself. This, however, does only extend to the 3rd party coders of themes or plugins to a certain extent. If you're lucky, the dev(s) of your most favourite plugin is still interested and adapts his software, if not, you're on your own.

So, chosing the best plugins and themes for your purpose is not as trivial as creating the site in the first place. also, a good choice today might cause major issues a year or two down the road.
*if* something goes pear-shaped (and in my experience, this is less a question of "if" but of "when"), some in-depth knowledge of how webservers, databases, filesystems etc. work, will be mandatory.

Then, there is the issue of maintaining the Web server beneath it. I don't know Bluehost, but some hosters give you a more or less recent Linux-based system and leave you to it. This will grow into a security issue unless you know how to keep such a system up to date and clean.

IMO, for a non-techie and in the long run, running your own WP installation is not the way to go, the additional control this would give you is not required in most cases anyway.
I'd opt for something like wordpress.com which will take the load of maintaining the Webserver *and* the WP Installation of you and let you focus on the content and how to look pretty.