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I would like to design a website.

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  • 06-07-2008 6:20pm
    #1
    pokeroptimist
    Closed Accounts Posts: 57 ✭✭


    Hi,

    I've been told that this is the place to ask this question.

    I would like to design my own website for a mate who runs a poker company.

    Both him and myself have no experience with web design and would like to know how do we go about designing one ourselves?

    We do not want to hire a professional to do it for us as we would like to update it regularly and do not wise to have to pass on the info every day to him/her at an additional cost.

    Dreamweaver has been suggested to us. Can we design professional websites using this? Is it difficult to use...bearing in mind that we are not very computer savy?

    any info you guys can provide will be greatly appreciated.


Comments

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    #2
    ntlbell
    Registered Users Posts: 16,288 ✭✭✭✭ntlbell


    dreamweaver will do the job

    or you could just buy a ready made template


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    #3
    pokeroptimist
    Closed Accounts Posts: 57 ✭✭pokeroptimist


    where could i buy a ready made template?


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    #4
    ntlbell
    Registered Users Posts: 16,288 ✭✭✭✭ntlbell


    pokeroptimist wrote: »
    where could i buy a ready made template?


    have a look through here


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    #5
    ve
    Closed Accounts Posts: 448 ✭✭ve


    I know you mentioned that you don't want to hire a professional, but I don't think you have the full picture at the moment in order to rule that out.

    For example, you mention that it would need it updated fairly regularly, and this (to you) is further justification to keep away from a professional. I can't disagree more. As a professional could deliver your site with a content management system (CMS) which would allow you (a non-techy) to perform updates yourself (at no further charge) while not having to bother with anything like dreamweaver or knowledge of markup/scripting/programming languages, graphics design, etc. While at the same time maintain a professionally designed/developed web presence. I'm not trying to hype the job in to something it's not, but there are several facets to producing expected results that are well beyond what many people (including a lot of "professionals") think the job to entail. Also the point at which the website is finished isn't the end of the line either. As a website needs to be managed, it needs to be updated and long term search engine ranking strategies need to be put in place and executed.

    One thing that I notice about "web design" is that everyone who has some experience with a computer thinks they can produce a sufficient web site. Yes it's true almost anyone can create a website, but will the end result serve its intended purpose. In the majority of cases the answer is no. I had someone ask me recently to take a look at their company website to see if it was any good. The design was fine, but it was practically invisible to the likes of Google. So I told them about SEO and web standards, etc. These were terms completely oblivious to them, because all they knew was that as long as they could create something that "looked like a website" and upload it to a web host they were away with it. OMG how wrong it is to think that this is all that is necessary.

    When creating a website, you have to consider your audience when deciding on the design/layout/colours/fonts/etc. Then there are things that visitor of your site many not care much about (except for accessibility), but will hurt you if you get it wrong...E.g. web standards & SEO markup, etc. Then after you've considered using some various front end technologies, you have to consider the middle tier, etc.

    A bad website is worse than no website, because at least with the former, you will not be showing your customers that you a) haven't a clue b) don't consider the medium important enough to invest in getting the job done right.

    For example, the likes of Enterprise Ireland have funding available for qualified enterprises to exploit the web in the name of business growth. Part of the "qualification" process is that the chosen professionals are "up to scratch" before they will be even awarded the contract. The reason for this is because there are thousands of web design agencies in Ireland, and everyone has someone that can "do the job", but the truth is....to do it right, there is so much to know and there is so much that needs to be done properly.

    Appologies for the rant, but I'm sure I have made myself clear. I'm someone with a B.Sc (hons) + M.Sc. + many years experience in web based systems, and the area never seems to bore me because it changes so much so fast. I am not such much in the area of front end development, but I know plenty that are and I know only too well that its something that is not easy to get right.

    Bottom line, if you want a website...invest in the professionals to get it right for you, don't do it yourself or get your nephew to do it. Be clear on what you want, and not how you want to get it. The professionals will be able to advise you on strategies and even help you with your requirements if you are a little uncertain. If you can't raise the money to go down that road, don't do it yourself, wait until you have the funds instead.

    I know this may not be what you want to hear, but your business venture deserves better. The web is extremely important to any business in this day and age, to show a lack of regard as a business person, you might away answer the phone to a customer and say "What the **** do you want?"


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    #6
    pokeroptimist
    Closed Accounts Posts: 57 ✭✭pokeroptimist


    ve wrote: »
    I know you mentioned that you don't want to hire a professional, but I don't think you have the full picture at the moment in order to rule that out.

    For example, you mention that it would need it updated fairly regularly, and this (to you) is further justification to keep away from a professional. I can't disagree more. As a professional could deliver your site with a content management system (CMS) which would allow you (a non-techy) to perform updates yourself (at no further charge) while not having to bother with anything like dreamweaver or knowledge of markup/scripting/programming languages, graphics design, etc. While at the same time maintain a professionally designed/developed web presence. I'm not trying to hype the job in to something it's not, but there are several facets to producing expected results that are well beyond what many people (including a lot of "professionals") think the job to entail. Also the point at which the website is finished isn't the end of the line either. As a website needs to be managed, it needs to be updated and long term search engine ranking strategies need to be put in place and executed.

    One thing that I notice about "web design" is that everyone who has some experience with a computer thinks they can produce a sufficient web site. Yes it's true almost anyone can create a website, but will the end result serve its intended purpose. In the majority of cases the answer is no. I had someone ask me recently to take a look at their company website to see if it was any good. The design was fine, but it was practically invisible to the likes of Google. So I told them about SEO and web standards, etc. These were terms completely oblivious to them, because all they knew was that as long as they could create something that "looked like a website" and upload it to a web host they were away with it. OMG how wrong it is to think that this is all that is necessary.

    When creating a website, you have to consider your audience when deciding on the design/layout/colours/fonts/etc. Then there are things that visitor of your site many not care much about (except for accessibility), but will hurt you if you get it wrong...E.g. web standards & SEO markup, etc. Then after you've considered using some various front end technologies, you have to consider the middle tier, etc.

    A bad website is worse than no website, because at least with the former, you will not be showing your customers that you a) haven't a clue b) don't consider the medium important enough to invest in getting the job done right.

    For example, the likes of Enterprise Ireland have funding available for qualified enterprises to exploit the web in the name of business growth. Part of the "qualification" process is that the chosen professionals are "up to scratch" before they will be even awarded the contract. The reason for this is because there are thousands of web design agencies in Ireland, and everyone has someone that can "do the job", but the truth is....to do it right, there is so much to know and there is so much that needs to be done properly.

    Appologies for the rant, but I'm sure I have made myself clear. I'm someone with a B.Sc (hons) + M.Sc. + many years experience in web based systems, and the area never seems to bore me because it changes so much so fast. I am not such much in the area of front end development, but I know plenty that are and I know only too well that its something that is not easy to get right.

    Bottom line, if you want a website...invest in the professionals to get it right for you, don't do it yourself or get your nephew to do it. Be clear on what you want, and not how you want to get it. The professionals will be able to advise you on strategies and even help you with your requirements if you are a little uncertain. If you can't raise the money to go down that road, don't do it yourself, wait until you have the funds instead.

    I know this may not be what you want to hear, but your business venture deserves better. The web is extremely important to any business in this day and age, to show a lack of regard as a business person, you might away answer the phone to a customer and say "What the **** do you want?"



    This is very well explained Sir. Thank you.

    Would you be in a position to give me and idea of the cost involved in getting a website professionally done with that CMS in place for me?

    It would not have to be a very flamboyant website...just something neat and that would allow my friends personality to come through.


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    #7
    forbairt
    Registered Users Posts: 3,594 ✭✭✭forbairt


    for a professionally designed website with CMS you'll be looking probably at 1500 up ...

    You'll no doubt have offers from people willing to do it for 10 quid :D

    You tend to get what you pay for a lot of the time.

    Doing it yourself .. well you'd have a generic template from the likes of template monster for 50ish quid that everyone is willing to buy or oswd.org or similar then you'd have to figure out how to set it all up.

    Creating a logo and so on ...


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    #8
    ve
    Closed Accounts Posts: 448 ✭✭ve


    pokeroptimist wrote: »
    Would you be in a position to give me and idea of the cost involved in getting a website professionally done with that CMS in place for me?
    Well I'm not a web design agency myself, so me giving you a quote could only be a ballpark figure. You would have to approch the agencies yourself to get something more specific.
    pokeroptimist wrote: »
    It would not have to be a very flamboyant website...just something neat and that would allow my friends personality to come through.
    To be honest with you the majority of non-techy people I've met that look to get a job done will ask for a quote based on that sort of information and the problem is that you're only touching on the surface of requirements. The project requirements will need to be thrashed out between you and the agency before you will get a quote. So what I propose you do is go off and have a think about it.

    Consider things like the follow (and other please feel free to add to this list)
    • Do you have your own established brand? (logo, etc ?)
    • What sort of content do you want on the site (break it up in to pages/sections)
    • Do you want the site design to incorporate any sort of complex graphics or animation? (my own personal advice is to keep the "bling" to a minimum on a website, and focus on quality content, don't have a site that is all flash and no substance. Although a good agency will be able to advise you on this sort of thing).
    • You do realise that "you/representative from your business" will produce the content for your website, not the web agency. The reason for this is simple..."you know your business best!", choose your words and content wisely. The web agency will generally not stop you from publishing something (within limits of course), but if they do think something is absolutely rediculous they will "advise" and "suggest" alternatives.
    • Again on the subject of content (the most important thing of all). Some people have websites for the sake of having a website, because people say you must have a website. This is true, but not any 'ol website will do. Think very very very carefully about your content. Do any of your compeditors have websites, what are they? (make a list), what are they doing?, what are they not doing?.
    • With regards your own website my advice is to make a draft of everything you would like to put online. Then go through what you wrote and ask yourself "is this element essential to attract business and win customers", if not cross it out and refine what you have.

    People that I know that are good at what they do in the area of web technology service providers, work with customers all the time trying to keep them focused on producing quality content. Some of their clients have marketing people, others don't.

    Then I find some web design agencies who are both techies and marketing people, but I'm a skeptic about such outfits. Be good at one thing I say. I have dealt with marketing people in the past who claimed to be techies and tried to tell me something that was completely incorrect without realising that they had just crossed the line in to an area where I am practically an expert (doctorate pending). They muttered and stumbled and retracted a lot of what they said once I reveiled what I did for a living. So personally I would be wary of marketing people pretending to be techies. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I think there are far more people who "think they understand" when they really only know how to put the techy buzzwords in to fancy sentences.

    So again my bottom line to you is do two things...
    1. Draw up a requirements specification document (few pages). Be very clear on what it is you want, and what you expect, and in how much time you expect it. The more detail you provide, the more accurate your initial quote will be.
    2. Find an appropriate agency. Although the term "professional" can be used losely in the industry, true expertise can actually vary significantly in price. Personally I would never go for the really large service providers, I would try and talk to customers of some of the smaller or perhaps newer agencies. Also if search engine ranking is important to you, then see who shows up in the likes of Google for you without much trouble performing a search.

    All the best to you


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    #9
    ve
    Closed Accounts Posts: 448 ✭✭ve


    forbairt wrote: »
    You'll no doubt have offers from people willing to do it for 10 quid :D
    Exactly. It's reasons like that, that people realise after a few weeks that the best price isn't always the best option (this is absolutely certain for something like web design & development). I could show you how to throw up a professional "looking" website with a CMS for next to nothing, but the way a website looks is only part of the problem, and unfortunately for most, the only part they consider.

    I encourage anybody who wishes to get a website done, to educate themselves. I'm not saying you need to become an out right techy, but the web is extremely important to business and you should understand what it is you are paying for and what you need in terms of your web/business strategy.

    Get to grips with the likes of...
    • Web etiquette
    • Content management
    • Online shopping security risks / identity theft / data protection act
    • Understand the legalities and need for accessability
    • Web standards
    • SEO
    • Etc...
    All of the above have absolutely nothing to do with the way a website looks, yet the majority of web design & development agencies show a complete disregard for them. There are good service providers out there, and one thing is for certain they won't be offering to do the job for a tenner. If you don't have the time to verse yourself in the above, then at the very least, assess your chosen providers level of concern for the above. Generally what you'll find is that the cowboys will try to convince you that items in the above list are not important while at the same time try to win you over on price.

    Again I wish you the very best of luck ;)


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    #10
    Saruman
    Registered Users Posts: 11,389 ✭✭✭✭Saruman


    If its just a website to promote his poker company then thats simple enough and im sure there are plenty of free and not so free templates out there for that. Do not even begin to think you can put up some sort of online poker website with no experience of web design though.

    For easy updates maybe consider a CMS (free) like Joomla. Plenty of documentation out there, very little knowledge of HTML/PHP is needed but you need a server that can support a sql database and can run PHP.


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    #11
    ve
    Closed Accounts Posts: 448 ✭✭ve


    Saruman wrote: »
    If its just a website to promote his poker company then thats simple enough
    I disagree. If he had said "poker hobby" and not "poker company" then I would say fair enough.

    A mere knowledge of PHP/(X)HTML/(My)SQL/Joomla/Hosts will not automatically equip you with a website that will meet your business web strategy. When I said I could show him how to throw up a website with a CMS for next to nothing, it was the likes of Joomla and the other aforementioned technologies I had in mind. Still not a very clever approach though.

    Personally I think we're in a transitional period whereby people are starting to cop on to that. Thankfully some of our government agencies are on the ball with this also. This "DIY" & "cost cutting" lack of appreciation for professional web representation and business/web integration is the reason why we have so many businesses in Ireland with terrible websites that are doing nothing for them. The worst part is that many businesses know it, but they can't understand why.


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    #12
    fattestman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 233 ✭✭fattestman


    Saruman wrote: »
    im sure there are plenty of free and not so free templates out there

    Anyone have any idea where I might find some Free Publisher Templates?


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    #13
    Sully
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 24,056 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sully


    ve: Excellent post and well put together. Hit the nail on the head with your views on how things should be done. If only more people saw things like you did!

    OP: In full agreement with ve. If you want to get a decent website then the best way to go about it is getting it done by someone professional. Expect to pay €1500+ depending on your requirements and do expect offers from cowboys for much much less. The chances are that cheap "to good to be true" quotes are just that so avoid at all costs. I put together a small and brief post here on the different stages of dealing with professionals and what to look out for. It should cover the grounds and make you feel more easy about going down that route.

    Getting it done right is much more cost effective in the long run and gives you more flexibility to get changes done. Some websites done on the cheap can be an absolute nightmare to change in the future as its like a solid structure - move one part of that structure and the rest fall down around you. The same often goes with the thousands of free templates out there. In addition to the general headache, it can turn people off using your website and effect your rankings in Search Engines.

    Hope that helps!


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    #14
    Hosting
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9 ✭Hosting


    Look :eek:, these big complex detailed over elaborate posts are not necessary!!!

    If you want a site that you want to update yourself then DON'T design it. Just get a CMS (Content Management Site) done. It can be easily updated.

    Explore your options, know what you want in the site, know what you want it to do and get it done.

    There are a few options with CMS sites that you will need to look at first also, make sure that is the question you are spending time asking.

    You will have enough work updating and marketing the site without becoming a web developer.....

    HOWEVER....if that is the road you choose, I wouldn't expect the site to do much except have you become a 'busy fool'(no offence intended).


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    #15
    FortalezaOwner
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14 ✭FortalezaOwner


    has anyone had any luck with using the above software in desiging websites for beginners


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