Designing a new website

[married2speed]

Hi Guys
I need your suggestions for which company (preferably NCR) to contact to get a website built. What are the things a non-IT person should keep in mind to prevent a possible rip off.
Any information would be of great assistance
Cheers!
M2S

[deepakvrao]

Have you given a though to doing it yourself? Its not that difficult and you have much greater freedom to make changes, add pages etc. I am in no way in IT and I did my own and the best part is the price plus the fun of doing it.

Here is my website and if I had wanted this many pages done by a professional I would have had to pay a HUGE amount.

Rashmi Nursing Home

[amohit]

Agree with deepak,
Unless its something very complicated, you can use freeware tools to design your own website.
All you may have to spend is for the domain name and the server space to host the website.

Regards,

[sudev]

I always advise that what ever be the design adding further content or deleting current content should not break the site.
In this context using any CMS based site builder is better. Personally prefer doing it my self using CMS like Wordpress or Joomla. Even lot of web designers use these but do not tell you since they are free of cost programs (open source) and work like a charm.
Can help you with pointers on how to do it in house so that you can keep evloving your site and keep it groing while at the same time have things like SEO - seach engine optimisation CPD - cached page delivery (jargon that they try to impress you with)
I agree with Deepakvrao, doing it your self is fund and easy. End of the day remember you know your product or service best.

[srijit]

married2speed, I'd suggest you do it yourself. It would be easier and cheaper that way. However if you have some exotic requirements, then that option would change.
Could you list your requirements?

[bblost]

Buddy this is the basic stuff.
You get some space to store your files.
Access is generally given via an FTP server.
Any ftp software will allow you to connect and upload/delete files.

You also get a URL or website name that is connected to this storage space.

When you go this website then it will search for a file typically called index.html in the storage space.

So create a file
call it index.html
upload into the ftp server
Goto website and you will see it.

Now comes the content part.
What kind of a website is it.
Is the content dynamic or static.
Static content is when what you have written does not keep changing often.
Dynamic sites need to pick up realtime information like stock prices and so on.

Then there are website that take a lot of user input and show it to others. LIke our team-bhp for instance. In this case you need a database, where you can store the information and retrieve it for display.

I assume you want a simple static website.
So create a simple index.html.
Create all the other pages you want for it.
When you put in a link to another page always use the reference path and not a full path.
When you have a link like C:\helloworld.html.
your internet pages will not get it.
YOu will need to write it as Http:\\<url>\helloworld.html
Same goes for images as well.

try it out.
We got a bunch of software guys out here who can help you.
TO create your html pages simple use MS Word.
When saving a file use filetype html instead of doc.

[Thad E Ginathom]

The first thing I would tell a web developer is that I never use IE, and expect everything to function perfectly for all the FF, Opera, etc etc users in the world. Too many developers (especially in this country, it seems) wear Microsoft blinkers.

The second thing I would tell them is not to use Flash on a large scale. Excellent sites can, I'm sure, be built entirely in flash, but I don't think I've seen them. It is more often used to develop stuff that would look good as a TV advert, but does not, in my humble view (and hey, I might be the prospective customer, so perhaps I shouldn't be so humble about it) suit the net.

Third thing: they are to test on a slow, dialup connection, right from the start of development. It amazes me how many sites, in this country where even the broadband is not very broad, seem to require huge bandwidth.

Fourth: the intrusive stuff that nobody but web developers wants should be absolutely out.

--- No flash intros that take ages to load and have no big skip button, and if they do have a skip buttin, everybody will use it, so don't waste your money on the page!

--- No useless "This is XYZ site, press here to enter the site" pages.

--- No music (at least not without a prominent 'music off' button)

--- No useless animations (Flash again) especially those that take ages to load.

I'm sure I could go on --- but I hope, that in my stream of negativity there might be some useful hints!

Some of the worst sites I ever visit are those of the car manufacturers (It's that 'lets make it look like TV' thing), so I think all Team-BHP members are probably familiar with the kind of stuff that makes me want to throw a brick at the screen. Some of you may disagree; I guess someone must like it!

Good luck with the site

[married2speed]

Hey Guys
Thank you so much for your overwhelming support. It makes me feel less of a dork now

deepakvrao;906256]Have you given a though to doing it yourself? Its not that difficult and you have much greater freedom to make changes, add pages etc. I am in no way in IT and I did my own and the best part is the price plus the fun of doing it.

Here is my website and if I had wanted this many pages done by a professional I would have had to pay a HUGE amount.

Rashmi Nursing Home

Thank Deepak - I have given it a thought of doing it myself but I have absolutely no clue or shall I say that ABC of IT. Call me outdated but that's true, so I'm a bit hesitant to do this on my own. If it is as easy as you say it is, then let me know where to begin from.

amohit;906257]Agree with deepak,
Unless its something very complicated, you can use freeware tools to design your own website.
All you may have to spend is for the domain name and the server space to host the website.

Thanks amohit. The website is all about displaying the various products of my company to my foreign clients. Don't want anything Jazzy as I would prefer to have the content written by myself. It's just that the home-page is the main thing. I did get to try a website done from a guy in Chandigarh but that bugger would spend only about half an hour working on the site after he would come back from work, had no creativity and charged like money grew on trees. Maybe because of my lack of knowledge. Eventually, the project was aborted in between and to avoid this situtation with someone else, I thought it would be ok if I hired some professional company to carry out the task. Someone creative and not so expensive.
I already have a domain name, which I had to get re-registered from godaddy.com(long story that) but have no ideas how much space to take, etc etc. The plan is to build the website for marketing purposes right now and eventually (1 year down the line) if economically viable, turn it into a B2C website.
Are there any better hosting companies. Heard GTO mention about pair.com

sudev;906259]I always advise that what ever be the design adding further content or deleting current content should not break the site.
In this context using any CMS based site builder is better. Personally prefer doing it my self using CMS like Wordpress or Joomla. Even lot of web designers use these but do not tell you since they are free of cost programs (open source) and work like a charm.
Can help you with pointers on how to do it in house so that you can keep evloving your site and keep it groing while at the same time have things like SEO - seach engine optimisation CPD - cached page delivery (jargon that they try to impress you with)
I agree with Deepakvrao, doing it your self is fund and easy. End of the day remember you know your product or service best.

Thanks sudev
Would be of great help if you could throw in a few pointers. Even if I do decide to lease the project out to an IT company, the understand would help me negotiate better with the company, or I might just do this own my own.

srijit;906394married2speed, I'd suggest you do it yourself. It would be easier and cheaper that way. However if you have some exotic requirements, then that option would change.
Could you list your requirements?

The main reason behind building the website like I said earlier is to reach out more. Having said that, in my opinion a website is a display of your products and is a sheer marketing gimmick. So would like to design it in such a way that it's "sellable" to the people and sales conversions are high. Would be a lot informative and would have pictures to suit the content.

bblost;906553Buddy this is the basic stuff.
You get some space to store your files.
Access is generally given via an FTP server.
Any ftp software will allow you to connect and upload/delete files.

You also get a URL or website name that is connected to this storage space.

When you go this website then it will search for a file typically called index.html in the storage space.

So create a file
call it index.html
upload into the ftp server
Goto website and you will see it.

Now comes the content part.
What kind of a website is it.
Is the content dynamic or static.
Static content is when what you have written does not keep changing often.
Dynamic sites need to pick up realtime information like stock prices and so on.

Then there are website that take a lot of user input and show it to others. LIke our team-bhp for instance. In this case you need a database, where you can store the information and retrieve it for display.

I assume you want a simple static website.
So create a simple index.html.
Create all the other pages you want for it.
When you put in a link to another page always use the reference path and not a full path.
When you have a link like C:\helloworld.html.
your internet pages will not get it.
YOu will need to write it as Http:\\<url>\helloworld.html
Same goes for images as well.

try it out.
We got a bunch of software guys out here who can help you.
TO create your html pages simple use MS Word.
When saving a file use filetype html instead of doc.

easy for you to say buddy but I get the gist of things. I think i'm pretty much getting inclined on doing this on my own but from what I understand from your defination of things is that my website would have dynamic pages. Any suggestions as to where can I read more of this stuff either on internet or a book to save your guys time. I kinda feel embarressed PMing everyone unneccesarily.

Thad E Ginathom;906570The first thing I would tell a web developer is that I never use IE, and expect everything to function perfectly for all the FF, Opera, etc etc users in the world. Too many developers (especially in this country, it seems) wear Microsoft blinkers.

The second thing I would tell them is not to use Flash on a large scale. Excellent sites can, I'm sure, be built entirely in flash, but I don't think I've seen them. It is more often used to develop stuff that would look good as a TV advert, but does not, in my humble view (and hey, I might be the prospective customer, so perhaps I shouldn't be so humble about it) suit the net.

Third thing: they are to test on a slow, dialup connection, right from the start of development. It amazes me how many sites, in this country where even the broadband is not very broad, seem to require huge bandwidth.

Fourth: the intrusive stuff that nobody but web developers wants should be absolutely out.

--- No flash intros that take ages to load and have no big skip button, and if they do have a skip buttin, everybody will use it, so don't waste your money on the page!

--- No useless "This is XYZ site, press here to enter the site" pages.

--- No music (at least not without a prominent 'music off' button)

--- No useless animations (Flash again) especially those that take ages to load.

I'm sure I could go on --- but I hope, that in my stream of negativity there might be some useful hints!

Some of the worst sites I ever visit are those of the car manufacturers (It's that 'lets make it look like TV' thing), so I think all Team-BHP members are probably familiar with the kind of stuff that makes me want to throw a brick at the screen. Some of you may disagree; I guess someone must like it!

Good luck with the site

Thank you for the support and an important tips. Would keep them in mind. Need to learn a lot more about how to actually get things done.

[Mr.Bangalore]

married2speed

why dont you give a try..
just to start
--- First come up with number of pages you want in your website
(Home, Aboutus, Products, Services, contactus)
---- Then do a word document which goes into each page
--- Scan the images which will go the different pages in different folder
---- then you can start designing the pages

you will get lots of tutorials in net and live demos too you can have a check

for the above you can also compare with your compitator sites if requied.

[bblost]

To just add to what Mr Bangalore has written.
Open MS word.
Do Alt+F then N
This will bring up the available templates.
Choose web pages.

Go crazy.

[married2speed]

To just add to what Mr Bangalore has written.
Open MS word.
Do Alt+F then N
This will bring up the available templates.
Choose web pages.

Go crazy.

Tried but none came up. A blank word document with a search function on the right.

married2speed

why dont you give a try..
just to start
--- First come up with number of pages you want in your website
(Home, Aboutus, Products, Services, contactus)
---- Then do a word document which goes into each page
--- Scan the images which will go the different pages in different folder
---- then you can start designing the pages

you will get lots of tutorials in net and live demos too you can have a check

for the above you can also compare with your compitator sites if requied.

Now that sounds like a plan. What next after I have the content ready?
Any ideas where to refer to for tutorials and live demos. Googling, only shows the "paid" stuff and is crap to say the least.

Thanks guys. This is really encouraging.
Cheers!
M2S

[phamilyman]

PLEASE!

Stop and hire a college guy to do it for you.

Reasons:
a. Your time is worth it. You'd much rather spend more time with family, on road or etyadi.
b. The college kids do a good job of it. They already do enough timepass.
c. Lastly some college kid does something useful than just timepassing and learns the value of cash.

PS: Been on both side, been there, done that.

[Mr.Bangalore]

Originally Posted by married2speed

Tried but none came up. A blank word document with a search function on the right.




Now that sounds like a plan. What next after I have the content ready?
Any ideas where to refer to for tutorials and live demos. Googling, only shows the "paid" stuff and is crap to say the least.

Thanks guys. This is really encouraging.
Cheers!
M2S

Ok then take a new word document.
Next insert the table and put the text and images in different columns and try to make the look and feel good.
Once it is done just make sure you save as pagename.html and then try opening in IE.

[Thad E Ginathom]

I absolutely agree that it is worth your while to hire someone to do the job.

Using a college guy may be good, but you had beat him with my previous post. You do not want someone who is just yearning to use the latest thing they learnt about.

There's an icon to an expensive, pro web development package (it's an old version; legacy of my office closing down) on my desktop: I have never managed to produce anything but the most basic stuff with it. I know I do not have the html knack anymore than I have the Paintshop knack. You need someone with both design and technical skill.

Good luck with the development

(I've heard tell that MS word produces the most dreadful html code. Even though I use it ---had to at work, and can't be bothered to learn anything else now--- I don't even like it as a word processor!)

[shajufx]

I have my official site (bestFXdeal) as well as personal site designed by myself and updated (redesigned) atleast 10 to 15 times from 2004 till date, though I am not an IT guy but into investments and finance. First I did it (domain and hosting package) with register.com, later renewed and moved it to networksolutions.com and again renewed and moved to godaddy.com which will be running until 2009. Next renewal might be with the same company provided I dont come across something more economical or more attractive ! All these companies have their own webpage templates (over 100 to chose from) which can be used for do-it-yourself projects. Or you can also opt for designing the complete page on your own (using dreamweaver or photoshop or just the simple frontpage. There are too many choices and too many servers. Plenty of choices.

Working with webpage templates, your site will look very professional and attractive. There are also 100s of websites that provide templates (free and paid) alone. Just google a bit, you will get plenty of links.

Now coming to the cost part. I used to pay higher annual charges to my initial servers (mentioned above). My present one is godaddy.com. My cost of annual domain charge is as little as Rs.400/- which includes free hosting plan with the domain (there is ad banner on free stuff), or choose for a paid hosting plan that can range from Rs.2000 onwards (no ads) depending on what all features you want. To summarise, gone are the days you had to pay over Rs.10,000/- for a decent website !! You can PM me for any related help anytime !