Total Newbie (wet behind the ears)

Blossom · #1 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 03:33 AM

Hi, i was browsing the web loooking to design my own website with threads and fourm for discussion. My topic will be Tropical/SW fish keeping. There are several sites out there, but i want my own.

I am 29 years old and no job. I am disabled and have lots of free time, i figure this is a great way to make a intresting thing to do (as a admin of a site) Plus be able to offer money/prizes to encourage new members!....

The only thing is i am sooooo dumb when it comes to computers...LOL My job prior to not having one was classified sales rep and i designed ads on a comp so im not completely illiterate when it comes to it i have basics but no idea how to design a web....

I have several questions

1. How much is total cost monthly to get the ball rolling. Please give me actual numbers when all said and done.
If you take a look at Badmans.com, thats the kinda lay out design i want but i want to of course design my own. I aim to have it up and running in less than a year, sometime in March would be great...LOL (wishful thinking)...but i am clueless.

2. I dont have a great comp. Windows XP was wondering if i needed to upgrade. My service is with comcast, do you prefer another source....
Also will i need to have independant wiring, my connection is shared with cable connection as its high speed internet...

I know these are totally stupid questions but please bare with me i am 100% serious.

I visit many websites and i hate the butt kissing that goes on in most fourms i want to design a fourm that is honest, true and has the aquatic hobbyist in mind first not the amount of posts, or how long someones known someone esle crap which most sites are like.....

GreenThumb · #2 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 10:12 AM

Hi Blossom and welcome!

So do you want to create a forum or a website? My recommendation is to create your website about fish first because as I've learned from this forum, it's easier to get traffic to a website than a forum.

So first you need to build a big content site of tropical fish so people can begin to find you in Google, etc. THEN you can direct that traffic to your forum later. You should never start a site by building a forum. It's very difficult to make them popular if you don't already have the traffic. As Lisa said once, this is her 3rd or 4th attempt at a forum and she realized the others failed because she didn't have enough traffic.

As far as building your site you need two things a domain and a web host. You can get a domain anywhere between $7 and $10/year and then you need to pay for hosting. Hosting is a monthly cost ($5 and $10/year) I use godaddy.com. So those are your two costs upfront.

Then you are going to need some software to actually build your pages (unless you code HTML yourself and since you are a beginner I would highly recommend you buy software) I just got Dreamweaver and I'm playing around with that. Many people on this forum have recommended it.

Then when you're ready to publish your site you can save it to the web through Dreamweaver.

And as far as that Badmans.com site, you can get that design easily by going to the page and right clicking your mouse and saying "View Source" or "View Page Source" and copy the code. Paste that code into your web page software and edit the text accordingly. It's a great way to learn about design and a quick way to get the design you want.

I'm sort of a newbie too so I hope that helps. Maybe some more seasoned vets can give you more specific advice. Good luck!

lisa · #3 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 11:07 AM

Welcome Blossom,

(I moved this thread to the Brainstorming forum)

I couldn't agree more with what GreenThumb said. Your first goal is to build an information site about flowers instead of launching your forum first. I made that mistake years ago and never got my forum off the ground because I didn't have the traffic levels to keep it active.

Google can be your best friend and greatest source of traffic if you do it right. Your first step should be to create a site on tropical fish and write a ton of content on it. As you do this, you will begin to be found for numerous topics and keywords related to tropical fish and your traffic will slowly increase over time. It will take months, but as long as you keep building content it will eventually increase.

You can also start a blog at www.blogger.com for free. This can be in addition to your regular website. You can use blog to post about updates to your site or to write about topics that are not covered on your site. Having a blog point back to your main site will also help in traffic.

I know your main questions revolved around how much it costs and how to build a site but it's important you plan out your goals before you even do this. So many people launch a forum, online store, etc. without a basic understanding for how websites generate traffic. So that's why it's very important no matter what you plan to do, you first build a content-rich website about fish. Once you have enough targeted traffic, making the money (monetization) is actually the easier part.

I would agree with what GreenThumb told you about the costs and building tools. Definitely get a good edtior like Dreamweaver. CoffeeCup.com is good to if you would like to save a bit of money. Dreamweaver is quite expensive ($350-$400) while CoffeeCup is about $40. Obviously Dreamweaver is a lot more powerful but CoffeeCup will get the job done and it has nice design templates already done for you so you just pick a template you want and add text.

Blossom · #4 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 04:29 PM

Wow lots of great info, thanks so much i will begin looking into that and comeback, Let me let that soak in for a minute and see if i have more questions...LOL

Oh with the web host, am i actually using my server or theirs? So if the server goes down so does my site right? Do they handle that aspect of it. I kinda get that they sort of refresh my site with updates needed to keep it going? right?

Will my computer be able to handle that dreamweaver software?
What kind of puters do you guys have to be able to control this kind of traffic?

I also want to design a web page for my husbands business....lol
Would multiple webpages be supportive on a windows XP (4 years old.)

lisa · #5 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 04:51 PM

I don't know much about hosting your own site but, yes if you use the standard shared hosting you are using the company's hosting space and if their server goes down so does your site. You'll find though that most hosts are pretty reliable. If you go with the big names like godaddy.com, etc you won't have many (if any) issues with downtime. At least I haven't.

If you have windows xp then you should be able to run dreamweaver with no problem. Hopefully some other server experts can address your other questions.

2fer · #6 (**permalink**) 08-31-2007, 11:14 AM

I can see a little confusion in the questions regarding your computer. You really should not think of hosting your site on your home computer, things can get way out of hand unless you're really ready to invest significant money in hardware, and is far beyond the level of your experience at this point. Successful hosting is a detailed and intricate behind-the-scenes-business best left to professionals.The common approach is to buy a domain and find a host as Lisa said; usually the two starting points can be accomplished at the same place. Some ISPs allow a free space for a personal page but if you are thinking site, forum, etc. you would need to start paying some hefty monthly fees if you use your home ISP rather than a paid professional host.
No web host will keep your site up to date for you, you create your site on your computer at home and then upload the pages to your domain on the paid host's server. Whenever you want to alter the content or add a new section or a new page you create the new pages and upload them.
You have a ton of reading ahead but it can be done with the circumstances you mention: lots of free time. Do not rush into buying software for page creation, many WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get)page creators look fine until another browser comes along. A WYSIWYG page creator is good to make fast work of a project, once you learn to use it; but you should definitely learn the basics of HTML so you can fine tune your pages and avoid duplicate content which the SE spiders dislike intensely. Good luck - it can be done.

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