I have had several people ask me if I have a web page where they can look at my pictures and I have to direct them to CC.

I would like to have a web page of my own and wanted to know how to go about doing this.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

I'm working on my website right now. I'm actually using Microsoft Publisher 2003 to make mine. There are a ton of other programs out there that can do so much more, but Publisher is very easy to use. I've already got my domain name registered and have paid for two years of listing. I'm using BlueDomino as my webhoster; they were by far the easiest to work with. They have live chat help, and they've already got everything you need for a good site bundled together. Other webhosters that I checked out had you go through and select all the features you wanted individually. Well, I don't know enough about websites to know what I may or may not need, so it was nice to just be able to pick a package that was already put together.

I guess the first thing you should do is decide on a domain name and then check to see if it is available. Go to www.godaddy.com and in the gray box you'll see an area where you can type in the address you want for your website. Do that, and it will tell you whether or not that address is available, and if it isn't available, the search will offer other suggestions for site names that are. Godaddy.com is one of those other webhosters that I checked out that I didn't like. Their domain search feature is handy, but beyond that, I thought they just made the process even more confusing.

Let me know if I can be of any help. It's very intimidating at first (at least it was for me), but it gets easier. I promise!

I too am working on my site but I have another site for my other company and have put up and maintain sites for about 6 of my clients sites for my other company. I use a local company who has created a website wizard that is as easy to use as Microsoft Word. If you are interested in taking a look, i have put the link below and would be happy to answer any questions you have or help you get set up with them.

http://builder.clickcomworks.net/?RID=R0061

Well, Steph, it depends on how comfortable you are with working on web pages. But there are a few different ways of getting it done.

There are lots of programs out there that will assist you in creating web pages, some free, some inexpensive, some pretty pricey. Or you can learn how to build a page "from scratch" using just a simple text editor like notepad. || Personal plea: PLEASE don't use FrontPage - this program loads up a LOT of MicroSoft specific tags which may not work on everyone's browsers, and it is a messy program with all sorts of excessive coding. ||

If building it yourself is out of the question, you can also just hire someone to build the site for you (talk to Heath, he may be able to help you out there). One small downside to hiring someone else is that any changes you need to do, if you don't learn how the site is made, will require you to get that someone to make ALL changes for you. This might prove a drawback when you need to change something NOW but your designer isn't available. It may also get costly if they ding you for every update. A combination of having a professional build the site and your learning basic web coding would allow for you to make minor changes as needed while keeping the site's design/quality up by using a pro.

As far as the actual web SPACE is concerned, you'll likely want to register a domain name (such as stephaniescakes.com or whatever) AND a place to put the site. A good place to do both, I've found is MidPhase. They have an excellent space with tons of room and unlimited bandwidth (this may not be an issue) and their tech help is very fast and efficient (this IS important). They're $7.95/month. ((If you enter the code "FreeCarFreeMonth" when you register, you'll get a free month and a chance to win a new car. Bonus!)) You can get a domain name registered for free when you sign up as well, so do both at once and save yearly domain name fees. You get, among many other extras, a system called "Site Builder" which allows you to build your site based on templates and requires no HTML knowledge. I can't say if this is decent or not since I have never used it, but looking at the flash demo it look pretty easy - it's all "point and click" - and they have dozens and dozens of templates to use.

Designing, building, hosting, uploading and so forth are a little more complex than can be explained here, but there are TONS of sites on the web that can help you do that.

What you may want to avoid is places like GeoCities/Yahoo and such as they tend to bog down a lot, they insert their own advertising on your site and don't look quite professional since it's obviously a GeoCities site. You probably DO want your own space. But if you're strapped for cash and $7.95 is not in your budget, then go with the freebies; ANY web presence is better than none!

Thanks everyone for the help and information.

I am still learning alot about the computer and would need something fairly easy to use...can't even add a link yet.

I second (third?) what the other posters wrote about how it depends how comfortable you are with doing a website and whether you have access to those tools.

I am a web designer by day (crazy baker by night) so I can help ya' out if you'd like.

Barefoot_Contessa,

I would appreciate your help very much.

As I stated above, I am not computer intelligent.lol

I don't have a cake site, but I manage our church's and school's web site. The school's web site I got a free web template from <a href="http://www.freetemplatesbyann.com">Free Templates by Ann</a>. You'll need to know more than basic HTML for this though. For our church website I use Yahoo Small Business. It's mega easy to manage, $11.95 a month and offers a variety of templates and drag and drop options - with most of these you don't need to know anything about HTML.

I would recommend getting a WYSIWYG (What you See is what you get) program like Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX or some of The others mentioned. This way you dont have to learn all the various tags that go along with HTML.


Princess

Okaaay...what is HTML?

HTML - [H(yper)t(ext) M(arkup) L(anguage).]
A markup language used to structure text and multimedia documents and to set up hypertext links between documents, used extensively on the World Wide Web.


I can second, third what others have stated, however, for the newbie, before you get into any cost, i would suggest going w/ the freebies, for the practice.

I started out making websites on Angelfire.com and have learned quite a bit! There is NOTHING I can't do on Angelfire that I can't do on my company's website through dreamweaver, except remove the unwanted ads. True - they are annoying, but for a free site till I can justify the monthly expenditures on my own website, I'll deal.

I have created cake websites, one for my WW progress, one for a WW challenge I am part of, as well as my DD's girl scout troop -- all on angelfire.com, and I would suggest them to anyone starting out.

You DON"T want to sign onto a contract for a year or more with a hosting company that might not be what you want it to be. ((talk to my boyfriend on this one! Maybe next time he'll listen to me!!))

If you want to see what angelfire can look like, click here ..

http://www.angelfire.com/ma4/troop1139 My DD's girl scout page

or

click on the WWW button below this post ... my cake page needs to be dressed up a bit, but I am in the process or remodeling it and its not yet ready to go!!


Good luck!!

I think someone stole my cake business name! I went to the site mentioned and typed in my name (I'm in process of building my site) and its used! It wasn't used before! Darn it! That's not fair!

I am sorry sunlover, bands have a website they can go to and register their names,,,,maybe we should get a cake name website so we can register our names before others take it...Just a thought

Yeah, this has prompted me to do just that. I will have to be a .biz instead of .com

oh well...its still kind of neat that way

Live and Learn...its a vicious world out there! Dog eat Dog!!

You can get a free website from freewebs.com

Have a look at mine if you like. We are still in the process of creating our wedding website but here it is anyway:

http://www.freewebs.com/oglejeffery

You can click on the link on the left hand side that says "the big day" to see some photos.

Hope that helps.

Thanks alot.