Creating a website

[Lee Hurrell]

Hi all

With Easter holidays upon us and a bit of extra time, I have been thinking of creating a website (or a blog). I know many UKB colleagues have one, or both but I have no idea where to start. I am aware of Wix, Weebly, Wordpress and Blogspot.

What other options are there that users recommend?

Thanks,

Lee

[Padfield]

A proper website, coded from scratch, is the best option (in my opinion) if you are prepared to spend the time and effort learning how to do it. It gives you complete editorial control over everything.

If you go down this path, you need to buy a domain name and get a web hoster. These days, most hosters will sell you the name too, though when I bought mine (guypadfield.com), over two decades ago, things were less streamlined.

When you have these things, you need some programme to write the code in. I used to write directly in HTML but now use KompoZer, a free WYSIWYG editor that also enables you to edit the code directly when you need to (for inserting javascript elements, for example). It's very basic but easy to use. When I want to code something more ambitious, I just go to any website that has the kind of thing I want, open it in 'source' and copy the code. Then I edit it to my own ends. That's how I made the main menus on my webpage here - I just found a page that had menus like that and copied them:

https://www.guypadfield.com

I'm not necessarily recommending you do this - just saying what I do. I taught myself in very little time.

Guy

[Medard]

Hello Lee.
You may find an off the peg hosting site such as Zenfolio that I use offers an easy way of creating a website,it offers three price ranges from £5/MO* to full professional at £25/MO*  adaptable templates that allows you to create your own personal site , it has  a blog site,search,videos, take a while to upload , contact pages,and many other features.
When I first used Zenfolio to display Somerset and its bird life,many of my birding friends immediately joined Zen.
You may find it useful to visit different sites to see how others have design theirs
 For details visit Zenfolio site here  https://zenfolio.com/uk
a few examples below
https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com
https://www.featherlightphoto.com/birds a magnificent North American birding site
https://www.charliebishop.com

Bloge page

Home page

Sample of home page

[Roger Gibbons]

I agree with Guy that it is preferable to have complete control over the content. FWIW I use Microsoft FrontPage which was discontinued in 2003 but is still available as a (free) download, I believe: https://microsoft_office_frontpage.en.downloadastro.com/

This seems to do most things that I want it to do and doesn't involve (unless you want to) any complicated coding. All I need for my very simple site is the means to structure grids and the ability to link from place to place.

FrontPage has some quirks but these are fairly easy to get used to.

My site is hosted by 34SP.com. This is not free, but not prohibitively expensive. I have heard that people I know that have used the "free" hosting services have been required, after a while, to make payments or take advertising. Hence my feeling that it is better to have complete control.

Given that it is free, it would be possible to have a try and see if it works for you, without cost or risk.

Roger

[Wurzel]

You can get a free one with Weebly.com which is really easy to use - it's a 'drag and drop' affair if like me you don't have the first idea about coding I was put onto it by a professional web designer who said that it just takes all of the hassle out of it for you.

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[MikeOxon]

I agree with Guy and Roger that it's nice to have complete control over your site. I started with 'Front Page' but then found that the much more sophisticated 'Microsoft 'Expression Web' is now available as a free download. so I switched to using that. i also use 'FileZilla' to transfer web pages to the internet.

You need to think what you intend to do with a website. For photos, a simpler solution may be to use 'Flickr'. I currently do not have my own website, since BT recently doubled their hosting charges and I've not found an alternative. To be honest, I find that sites like this one (UK Butteflies) provide sufficent outlet for me to add my two-pennyworth, in specific areas of interest. There's so much information available on the web now that I feel little need to add my own content to all that's already there.

[Pete Eeles]

Hi Lee - in order of simplicity, I think the sequence is:

1. A UKB personal diary - it costs nothing, and people will read it

2. Using a 'Content Management System' such as Wordpress. My book website was created using this (others are available) - https://www.butterflylifecycles.com. Of course, you need to also pay for the website hosting.

3. Create a custom website. I'd consider this a last resort, and only needed if you need to do something sophisticated. Again, you'll need to pay for website hosting (and learn to write code ... even if it's just HTML - such Adrian Riley's website at http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com).

My 2p.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Lee Hurrell]

Thank you all, for taking the time to reply.

I've had a look at all the sites listed above and have decided that seeing as I struggle to keep my own UKB diary up to date, I have no chance of maintaining a website.

So, that will be my first project. Once UKB is up to date, I will try one of the free options and go from there.

Best wishes,

Lee

[David M]

...So, that will be my first project. Once UKB is up to date, I will try one of the free options and go from there.

Now's the time, Lee, with lockdown restrictions suddenly giving us all more free time but little opportunity to go outdoors!