Need help creating a website I can then manage on my own

Use one of the managed content formats. Put an ad on craigslist or look for some of the members here and your cup will overfloweth with responses.

Great idea! Thank you!

Where are you planning to have your site hosted? For example, if you use something like Yahoo Web Hosting, you'll have access to their do-it-yourself templates and Web page design tools.



You can come up to speed on Web design by visiting one of the many

Help and Tutorials sites.



But before you start managing it yourself, you really need to visit a site called "Web Pages That Suck," just so you can open your eyes to bad examples, as in "Don't do this." By the way, mistakes are made by both big and small companies. No one is immune. And just knowing what to avoid will help you work better with anyone who may design your initial site.



~ Kim

The company for whom I work, www.edit.com, offers a ?Do-It-Yourself Editing Service.? This is a service that is specifically designed for custom websites, meaning you don't have to have us build your site. Customers come to us with sites they have had built by developers years ago. If you have a developer build your site, chances are you will be able to use our Do-It-Yourself Editing Service to update it yourself.



We can also build a website for you. It is often easier to discuss this over the phone than it is to write messages back and forth, so feel free to give us a call at 877-387-2549 ext 1. You can ask for me ? Andreas.



Also, I have written a few articles about quality websites and website maintenance. I'd be happy to email them to you.



-Andreas

PS. The above post is open to anyone, not just LVR ? call or email any time.

Smallbusiness.yahoo.com SiteBuilder for only $39.95 per month you get to create your own website, hosting, add emails, add an online store, etc... It only operates in windows though, not Macs.



I am very happy with their services and prompt email replies. But I am looking into Macromedia soon as I have gained much experience in web designing.



Yahoo Sitebuilder is excellent for those of you who are new to web designing. It's just as easy as eBay!

If you work on a mac, Sandvox is a great, very simple, inexpensive new tool. Buy the developer's version ($10 ro $20 extra) and then you can pay someone to do some code for you if need be, too.

I would recommend staying away from template web site and even Yahoo Site Builder.



Here is why. The whole reason to be of a site is to attract your target audience. Those site buiding tools do nothing for that. Therefore if you are not getting organic (free) traffic you will have to pay for it (pay for click) at Google or Yahoo. That is an art in itself and take time to manage and weed out the keyword that are not performing. This is a lot a work.



Second, why go with an approach that was fine in 1997 but not any more. Blogging software is designed from the ground up to be optimized for the search engines.

The free sites wordpress.com are decent and you can manage everything yourself via a backoffice contol panel. If you can use a wordprocessor you will have no problem with it.



For ultimate power and flexibility a self hosted WordPress site is the way to go. The look and feel options are great and with plugin support added functionality and search engine optimization is possible.



Check out a post I wrote on this topic:

http://www.onlinesalessuccess.biz/2007/03/21/small-business-blogging-myths-that-you-might-regret-lat...

The website that you desire may be done.. I had a client (http://allureinternational.biz) who required a website that, once we finished developing, he himself could add his products, he could change the about us, services, contact us any time he wanted to..



If you need some additional info or advice, or maybe if you even would like me to do a site for you... please do not hesitate to contact me... or simply reply to this post..

Hi,

I could surely help you develop your website and then manage it by yourself later on. We have developed our own Content Management System (CMS), which easily allows you to add pages, add / edit / delete content and images.

Few examples:

1. www.lavenpartners.com

2. www.lussan.co.uk

3. www.myswm.com

4. www.valentinethomas.com

5. www.thextrava.com

6. www.wyncrestgroupinc.com



Let me know. You can mail me on deepak@invitratech.com

Cheers !!

Are you offering products or services on the website? Will you need a shopping cart? There are a lot of different applications available as were mentioned above (Blogs, CMS's, etc..) But you need to know what application suits your needs best. If you aren't selling online, you will not need a shopping cart application, if you are simply presenting your information you may be ok with a blog, or do you need to offer calendars of events, downloads, news, information, and other services, if so you may want to use a CMS.



My biggest suggestion is to tell us what the website will offer, then get more specific suggestions on what application/s to use, all of those types of applications can be built to be self sufficient.

My advice would be to check out Joomla. It's a free web design program that is astonishingly easy to use. It's what I used to create my site, and I have no background whatsoever in any programming or web design at all.



That said, if you are dead set on somebody else creating your site for you, I'd check out www.elance.com. It's a site where you can put up a job you need done, and then receive bids from vendors who can perform the job.

hey LVR, i am a designer based in mumbai/india ... i specialize in websites, especially flash-based. If you have other questions, please ask. I might be able to help.

I am using Homestead.com and they have some great templates that you can use and its very easy to set up and manage right from your computer. I really enjoyed createing my own websites and there are others features to help you as well.

Hello LVR,

I read your posting, and it seems to me that, what you need is a custom made approach. Although, people here have been very helpful, I don't understand why they are pushing you towards, a web site-creator or Yahoo services? If you ask me, those are all cheap ways to get your business noticed. It might be a quick solution for you to get your business published on the internetm but you have to take a few things into consideration:

1. What am I offering? A service or Product?

2. How easy would it be for me to manage the web site onces it's up?

3. How limited am I to the coding [source code].

4. Do I want my business to look like the other 10000 people using the same template as me?

5. What if I decide to move my hosting service? What's going to happen to my web site?

Alot of companies offer proprietary software that can only function on their server.



Another point, What if my business grows? How easy would it be to add more pages?

your best approach is if you're going to do something for your business, do it right the first time.



One last thing, stay away from the Flash ordeal, Although it looks good and customers like to see animations. It is not a good thing when it comes to the search engines.



PiperTax,

Jumlaa, and Mambo, have a long learning curve. Although, they are good CMS products, it would be much simpler to have a developer, develop a web site for you and let them take care of the maintenance.

Constructing a website is really not an easy job, believe me for a person who doesn't have any background about web designing such as myself went through a lot to get the job done. The secret is dedication. Now, web designing became a hobby to me. Try it out! You can do it too!



paul

www.txtsurfer.org

The big factor is who will keep this site maintained. I have built seeral sites with the original intent for the client to be able to edit it. But the problem is if you have a great looking design the client usually will not be able to maintain that look and feel. Plus they will not have the knowledge of the programs needed to make a polished looking site. And besides, the time spent tinkering with a web site could be spent getting new clients, marketing, or other things. Let the jobs be done by those whom it should. Company presidents should not waste their time doing something they are not a specialist in. Let the jobs be done by those that can. Dont have your bookeeper go out on sales calls. Or have a salesman fillining in on the assembly line. The end result is what counts. In a web presence the end result is critical now days. People dont want to play around in templated sites. They want cutom features and cool things about your company.

I too had the same questions and used network solutions - they had great "packages" that are offered and I built my own site with their easy instructions and got the extras I needed as well at a cost that was acceptable.



It works well with email, FTP, and other items if you want to build them into your site as well.

Another service is the one that I offer. It's called&nbspWebSite Tonight. Check out my profile for more information.&nbspCost is less than $5 a month and I think it's&nbspeasy to use.

I can't find a thing about publishing a LOWCOST web site! Everything seems to cost a ton!