I have a site up and running I want to change it over to css

I have a 20+ page site where almost the whole site started with a Dreamweaver template. The template had a css style sheet with it.
I modified everthing and kind of cut and pasted and modified it to add pages and navigation as I went.
I am not real happy with the current look; and to make a change in the menu or something like that, you know twenty page changes!
I learned a little html myself, and taught muself how to use dramweaver a bit, but now I think I need help.
How hard would it be to take the pages that I have (tables and text, etc.) and turn it into a css website?
I mean what would I actually be doing, create a main css sheet for the pages and then transfer my text into them?
I need my navigation changed to css for sure.
Anyone have any thoughts on the process I should use?
PM me and I will give you the URL.
Thanks,
Steve

 

css is simply styling.
Your page is done in html/css.

I suggest spending a bit of cash, and getting someone to code you a wordpress template.

 

You mean run the whole site in a custom wordpress blog/website?
what about my current content and pages transferable without too much difficulty?
Why do you suggest wordpress if you don't mind me asking?
Thanks Steve

 

Yes, run the whole thing in a custom wordpess website.

Your content won't be hard.
Text and images will simply be a copy and paste issue, no problems there.

Sidebar, unless you have a different sidebar for every page, this won't be hard at all either.

I suggest wordpress because it's extremely simple to run a website (I coded http://feelingsound.ca to run off wordpress as a CMS) and it's very easy to use for a beginner with a few pages.

That, and you can get it coded cheap on dp.

 

It's a very well working blogging/article system. Over 50 million blogs use it I believe...

The pages are copy and paste transfers, I think you would probably need a new CTRL, X, C, and V key depending on how much content their is after doing the transfer though

 

Your site, that you showed me the link for is very sharp!
Doesn't look like a wordpress site...
I am waiting for some folks on another board to answer my questions about what would happen to my page rank, links, and positions if I did this?
Any thoughts on that?
Steve

 

If you kept the same website, switched cms, and stayed on the same domain?

Your pagerank should remain.
SERP should remain the same.

SEO will increase if you use proper wordpress techniques (setting page names to SEO friendly, and adding in plugins),
But your links will change.

It should be easy to set up a redirect, so any incorrect links will redirect to the homepage.

-- That design was a simple example.
Websites like http://appbid.com are run off wordpress.
http://shareblossom.com will run off wordpress as well.

 

That share blossom is amazing!
It is a wordpress theme? I am wondering what the cost for the theme is?
What the sequence of the changeover would be; meaning the order of the steps to effect the remake ie:
down load the theme,
set the static pages,
cut and paste content into the pages,
upload, with different file names to see the look?
??? I mean I am lost as to what order the project would be completed in...

 

haha, that shareblossom is nothing.
The official thing isn't up yet.


The remake would be as follows.
Have your theme designed / re-coded for wordpress.
Install / host wordpress & upload your theme.
Copy/paste your text from old pages, into new pages.

.. that's it.


Oh, that shareblossom, came with two designs, and a bunch of other promotional print work, re-branding, and advertising for 6grand.

 

Well worth it!
Unfortunately my little school has been running in the red, since the real estate crash. My budget doesn't allow for figures even remotely approaching a few thousand...
I will have to make do. I am thinking its either a free css site template (open Source Web Design, about 2,000 beautiful css based templates) or the best free wordpage theme I can find (there are thousands, the problem is picking through them can take hours)...
The change over as you describe sounds like I could do it with a few do-overs
What has to happen first is me deciding whether to go wordpress or css template?
There is a third option, that is to just have someone construct a navigation & basic page css sheet for my site & help me intergrate that into what I have before it gets to big?
Three different options, hard to pick from my perspective?

 

Again, a 'css-template' is a web page.
Pages are coded and styled using css.

You can pick a free wordpress template (trust me, there's thousands and thousands of them too).
The only thing is, to set it up like that site feelingsound.ca, you'll need a bit of customization work.

 

I am thinking the wordpress theme re-coded to look like a website with homepage and horizontal menu.
I would like the blog content I have now to be intergrated right into the home page (a div or box showing the last three or four posts, but then clcikable to enter the blog itself) if that makes sense?
I forgot where I saw it??
I have PM'ed a couple of designers here to see what they think, and what they would charge for a makeover using my content and the new wordpress container...
I'll see what develops
Thanks for your thoughts!
Steve

 

I see you have identified you would like WordPresse integrated into the site. Your primary goals are to identify the following.

*How often will the content be updated
*Who will be viewing this (age wise)
*Who will be editing this
*What would you like to ideally have

These are just a few of the questions you might want to consider that will help you tailor a design and site to your liking.

 

*content updated daily,
*age is adult (25 through 65)
*editing by me (as has been the case since 1995
*a site that has the advantage of css's "change the one file and whole site changes"
a clean polished look, funtion well for the visitor, and be SE friendly...
my site is at stevesimon.us

 

In that case I think a blog would be the perfect interface. Either that or a CMS, something like Joomla. The only problem with those is to get a unique programmed design costs some mean green.

 

If you already have a design it should not be as costly to create the WordPress template. It is simply a matter of integrating the design into the WordPress format.

Q...

 

If you have a designed template, Design to wordpress should run you about 100-150$.
Already have it coded? 50$ to wordpress.

Or if you pick a free theme, you can probably get someone to customize it for 10-20$.

 

Forgive me, but I am not following?
I have my page designed (using Dreamweaver).
Are you talking about taking my site and turning it into a wordpress site?
I guess I am a bit confused?

 

It depends on what you want to do.


You can take a free theme, and use it by tweaking it.
Or if you have your 'dreamweaver' coded site. You can have it changed into a 'css' template like your'e asking, then into wordpress.

 

My site has twenty+ pages, and a wordpress blog (you access the blog's directory from the main site's homepage).

What I want is the ability make changes to the menu site wide, currently I have to go in and make changes to each page!

css could fix that...

I am not happy with the header on my pages, if I change it I have to change it on all of the pages.

css could fix that...

I like having the blog, I thought having it intergrated into the main home page would be cool, that is where the conversation started towards having wordpress run the whole site...

I think changing the Dreamweaver template (which has some css in it) layout of my current site to one that uses css to give me site wide change abiltiy and leaving the blog in it own directory is what will happen.

I guess I just need someone to code my main site using more css to make the navigation sitewide via a css menu and remove the tables and redesign the header..
I wonder what a good css redo will cost?