My first website...need help please!

This is my first time making a website and I need some guidance as to what to do. I have bought hosting already, and buying a domain is no problem, but how do I get the content onto my site?

Should I use some kind of CMS, like Joomla, or Wordpress? What if I want to make a regular site, without using a CMS or Wordpress, what do I do? Make something on Notepad and then upload it to my FTP???

If anyone can help me, it'd be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

Wordpress is basically a blog - did you want a blog or have a blog? And make sure you can use PHP and have a mysql database on your server.

You can if you know HTML. Microsoft has come out with Expressions which is a WYSIWYG editor and it is free right now while in Beta. You might check that out if you need help writing HTML

 

Definitely go with a CMS. It will save you a lot of time. DotNetNuke is a good one if you're on a Windows machine.

It's best to stick with one that uses a language you know. Joomla comes highly recommended and I've seen some large sites using either it or Mambo.

You should try to avoid writing code whenever possible. You've got better business things to do other than coding.

 

Okay, but what do I do to get my site looking like a real site? Do I upload the templates and all that into the FTP server? If possible, could you provide me more detail?

Thanks a lot

 

I guess the first thing is - what kind of site are you wanting to put up?



Andy

 

I'm planning on putting up a tech related site. This question still hasn't been answered:

 

use Wordpress its very easy to use, and its good for google Never use Microsoft html editor, never ever!

 

Isn't Wordpress only good for blogs though?

 

Makes a nice, basic, CMS also

 

no, if u remove the archive and blogroll and all these stuff u wont reckognize if its a blog, and a blog with 4columns can really be a site, even with 2 columns.. Wordpress is a verygood site creator too

 

try MODx CMS as a starter - its free + easy to use

 

Its good to see your trying this out on your own.

IMO you should do the following:

Install a CMS - If your host offers fantastico or something similar look at the various CMS listed and see which one you like better.

Hopefully your host offers a simple click install feature for the CMS you like, if so do that.

Then its a matter of applying a "theme" you like and making a few changes like logo etc.

Then you should be all set to start adding your sites contents. The great thing about using a CMS is you type, you click, your in business!

Hope that helps

 

If you want to upload your site on to ftp, login to ftp://ftp.yoursite.com and then put your index file in to the "public html" or "public_html" folder.
Your index page can be "index.html", "index.htm", "index.php", etc.

 

If you are just going to publish articles - Wordpress will do wonders. Joomla too will work out well if you want a real CMS - wordpress being a blog s/w has it's limitations.

 

You can try Mambo:
http://www.mamboserver.com/
I've used it and it was pretty user friendly once installed.

 

He rephrased his question but no one answered it...

Everyone here is recommending you use Wordpress and other content management systems because it could take you quite some time to build a decent website if you didn't use a content management system(CMS).

If you decided not to use them, you would learn HTML and CSS. Basically, they let you shape your website piece by piece. For example:

That's CSS, and it is what defines how the pages of your site will look. It's no easy task for someone just starting out. Once you create the HTML and CSS of your site, you would then upload everything to your FTP.

There is no template or anything like that unless you find a free template or buy a template and edit it using something like Dreamweaver.

Which brings me to the same point everyone else just made, just use Wordpress

 

okay thanks for all the help guys. i still have some questions tho:

where is this "public_html" folder? do i have to create my own, or is it already there? then I just put my templates and everything into that public_html folder and it will show up on my website?

thanks

 

Zlyfe, the publc_html folder is the root web directory

 

if you want to make one using a cms I recommend www.phpnuke.org or www.futurenuke.com

Also if you wish not to use a cms on your website, you can make files via notepad, wordpad, dreamweaver, etc. and then upload the files to your ftp such as (index.html) would bee your homepage or the first page anyone would see.