Thread: Decisions decisions - which site builder/web host?

Hi, total noob here (as will shortly become evident).

Having been burned by a 'web designer' here in the Land of Smiles, ran out of cash and decided only option to design myself a site.

I need a site for my very niche (painfully so, here ...) product. I managed to get the domain name of aforesaid scam artist, er web designer, and have it registered with Goddaddy. (Still no site though). I then registered another domain with them more pertinent to the product and having driven myself nuts and to several cases of the local hooch, have been advised by a local software entrepeneur Wordpress the way to go. Can I import my photoshop designs into wordpress? I've seen a tut on youtube saying you can, but not how, is it fairly straightforward?

Also, had been directed to Hostgator by someone some time ago, but Wordpress primarily recommend Blue Host.

Now, this is where the 'dummies' part comes in, the bit everyone thinks you're already supposed to know so don't s.p.e.l.l it out for you
Am I right in assuming I can host my two domains from just one host at the quoted price per month? ie $4 will get them to host me the two or more domains, not $8 etc? All advice very greatfully received

Yes, you can add on other domains by going to the Control Panel and setting this up. I'm assuming Blue Host uses cpanel like Hostgator so when you login, there is an option to add on other domains. I've never used Blue Host so I am not familiar with the exact steps but I'm pretty sure it's possible.

You can definitely use your PS designs with WordPress, but importing them into the WordPress platform will require you to learn a bit of CSS. If you don't, it will make the process kind of difficult. For most WordPress themes, the design is broken up into multiple files. For example, if you want to edit the header, you need to edit the header.php If you want to edit the footer, you have to open and edit the footer.php.

I use the WordPress Thesis Theme (not free) and one great thing about that theme is you can use their custom functions file to manage your entire blog. So I no longer have to open multiple files to edit various sections of my blog. My entire blog design is managed by updating one PHP file (and my stylesheet). Nevertheless, knowing CSS is really the first step because it will be difficult to explain without having a basic understanding.

Thanks Lisa, I've seen and subscribed to your videos on Youtube and you've always been incredibly helpful and informative. I've checked Blue Host's home page and they have a cpanel and so expect to be able to upload my two sites, when they're ready. So it's the domains that are the most expensive items then? The host just charges a flat fee for eg 50 and up?

I've checked the Thesis Theme and price a bit prohibitive at the moment, so will just have to learn a bit of CSS. All a bit overwhelming with having to learn Sketchup and vray too lol.

There's a website showing how to upload from Photoshop to Wordpress, I'll check through by bookmarks and post it here for anyone else needing it.

Thanks again Lisa.

Here's the link http://psd2cssonline.com[/URL]

Hi, tamsinthai. I am also a newbie and had almost similar questions (just a couple of days ago). I went with bluehost (although I'm based in Europe). Until now it all works fine. I even managed to come along with Cpanel (there are really good video tutorials etc.).

I'm also using Wordpress (I bought the thesis theme, but I'm still just running with tesis on my local XAMPP test server). A very good free WP theme (it is from the same developer as thesis, Chris Pearson) is "neoclassical" (I use this theme for my life 'test' blog). This one comes with a header with rotating images. Changing the images is quite straightforward (you just have to overwrite the default images which are in a specific folder of the neoclassical theme). Check out the information on the neoclassical theme over at Christ Pearson's blog. You can google for it. The name of his blog is pearsonized (or something like that).

I'm pretty sure, you will enjoy this theme. It is also extremely nice designed from a typographical point of view (and optimized for SEO).

Cheers

Hi everyone! thankyou your suggestions, been bit tied up with eco project so have had to put website aside for a few days. I've registered my domain with blue host, but still not had time to work on my site. I downloaded thesis theme 151 and unzipped it and it came up with a bundle of files cache, themes, plugins etc, but don't know how to open those let alone install them :-( Hopeless. Any advice greatly appreciated, again :-) Thanks

Thamsitai,

don't despair. If I was able to start it running, everybody will be.
First thing: read all the instruction specifically geared to new WP users / beginnners. You will find "how to install thesis" info on the thesis website/blog.
Google for dyithemes/thesis. As you bought thesis you are also entitled to sign up in the thesis-forum. There is a pretty helpful community there.

Basically the process goes as follows (please remember that I'm a newbie, too):

Make sure that Wordpress is already installed on your webserver (if not, just install it in cPanel using simple-script ... just with a few clicks).

Start using Wordpress with one of the default themes (i.e. you have to select a name / password / certain settings etc.). Basically you start a new blog (if you didn't have an old one, of course ... I assume that you start entirely from scratch).

If you have WP and your blog running you have to upload the thesis folders to your webserver. You do this by using a ftp-program (there are help videos on cPanel which show you how you do this).

You upload the thesis folder into the "theme"-folder of your Wordpress.

Then you go into the dashboard of your blog and now you have to define thesis as the new theme for your blog. This is also quite simple: Go to "appearance", then themes. You will get a list of available themes (the two default themes of WP and the thesis theme you have just uploaded to your server). Choose thesis and activate it. And bingo, your blog should running now under the thesis theme. Now you can try to change the "layout" of your blog, i.e. number of sidebars, width of sidebars, etc. etc.

Good luck.

I really appreciate your post, Alpeno. A very clear tutorial.

So far I have resisted starting blogging because I have so much to learn and so much content that I haven't wanted to get tied down with anything requiring a regular time commitment.

But I have to say that when I get ready I certainly won't dread what I will run into. From reading your post I think I could do it in my sleep.

@James: thank you for your kind comments. The basic things are indeed relatively simple. However, for a newbie like me the devil is in the many details. Danger of getting lost everywhere! You have to taken into account that almost everything is totally new for a newbie like me. I had to learn every new concept, every term etc. from scratch .

And once my blog (it is still my learning blog) got started it was again more than just writing posts: claiming your blog at Technorati, installing plug-ins, understanding the traffic statistics, desperately trying not to forget the things I already learned 1 or 2 weeks ago, learning SEO, learning how to inlclude a google map (this was also entirely new for me) etc. etc.

Forums like this one are really a good source. Nevertheless, I have to admit that often I do not really understand what everybody is talking about in the threads

However, learning is just so much fun.

Cheers.