What's the most cost effective way to create a website?

[Rawtid]

My friends and I are starting a business similar to this company and we want a website similar to theirs as well
Painted Palette Baltimore is a creative paint and wine studio

This guy quoted us $400 with a $15/mo maintenance fee, but we would have to make frequent updates to our pics and calendars and I don't want to have to go through someone to do that. Is it inexpensive to host a site on your own? I really just need the design, I could maintain it myself with a little training.

 

[Lady.Libra.]

Godaddy.com

 

[Matt504]

Seems like you need a content management system like WordPress.

That $15 a month fee may seem reasonable but in my opinion it's a ripoff and only serves to marry you to his services.

The most cost effective option would be to purchase a domain, setup a WordPress site, find a nice theme, install it and teach yourselves along the way.

 

[Brooklynzson]

My friends and I are starting a business similar to this company and we want a website similar to theirs as well
Painted Palette Baltimore is a creative paint and wine studio

This guy quoted us $400 with a $15/mo maintenance fee, but we would have to make frequent updates to our pics and calendars and I don't want to have to go through someone to do that. Is it inexpensive to host a site on your own? I really just need the design, I could maintain it myself with a little training.

Wordpress hosting is cheap: WordPress Cloud Hosting Optimized For Speed & Security - HostGator just make sure you keep your plugins and what not every month.
You can buy the domain name through them if you haven't already, its like $10 a year.
Buy a theme similar to theirs from www.themeforest.com
Install everything, then play with it and teach yourself.

 

[Rawtid]

Seems like you need a content management system like WordPress.

That $15 a month fee may seem reasonable but in my opinion it's a ripoff and only serves to marry you to his services.

The most cost effective option would be to purchase a domain, setup a WordPress site, find a nice theme, install it and teach yourselves along the way.

Thanks for this! A content management system is the term I needed to know. In reference to the bold, this is how I felt. I don't need him to make changes. I want to make changes on the fly and not wait for someone to get back to me. Would I be allowed to create the design on WordPress before getting the domain?

 

[Rawtid]

Wordpress hosting is cheap: WordPress Cloud Hosting Optimized For Speed & Security - HostGator just make sure you keep your plugins and what not every month.
You can buy the domain name through them if you haven't already, its like $10 a year.
Buy a theme similar to theirs from www.themeforest.com
Install everything, then play with it and teach yourself.

Good looking out!

 

[Matt504]

Thanks for this! A content management system is the term I needed to know. In reference to the bold, this is how I felt. I don't need him to make changes. I want to make changes on the fly and not wait for someone to get back to me. Would I be allowed to create the design on WordPress before getting the domain?

Yes, you should check out 1and1.com if you decide on the WordPress route, they have some pretty good deals.

 

[Apollo Creed]

Like everyone else said WordPress is probably the most painless way to do it.

 

[Obreh Winfrey]

Everyone is right, WordPress is probably the best pain-free way of doing it. The no-cost way would be to use GitHub Pages and not buy a domain name (immediately). The major downside is you have to do literally everything yourself; layout, page creation, etc. You can easily find bootstrap templates to get started but you need some HTML/CSS knowledge and a touch of JavaScript. You'll also need to learn how to use Git and their version control tools. If you want almost complete control this is the path, but you'll need to have the drive to learn everything.

 

[Ayo]

If he's only charging you $400 then more than likely he's just going to dress up some wordpress template and resell it to you. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth his time.

And LOL at maintenance fees. Those days are over. Maintenance fees harken back to the days when phpNuke was the only CMS around and shared servers were either too hard to manage or not readily available.

Tell this guy to go fukk himself. I'll help you out for free.