Starting a Website 1 - Where to go

image from https://pixabay.com/photo-3374825/

So you want to start a website...what do you do next?  At this point things can get overwhelming. There are so many different options for where to go, and everyplace you go has the "best" website editor and hosting service. What do you really need to know when you start looking around?

Experience

How comfortable are you in doing things online?  How well do you pick up the in's and out's of working with technology?  Most importantly, do you have the time to get things set up?

Time

It's going to take time to get it set up.  Once it's up it shouldn't take long to keep things going on a regular basis.  This is true for a lot of technology.  The set up will take some time, but the maintenance won't.

Comfort Level

The great thing about using website technology now is that it's easier than it ever used to be.  This means that your threshold for comfort doesn't need to be as high as it once did.  This is not true of all services, but the ones I'm going to recommend are.  They are meant to be easy to use, especially for churches/organizations that don't need all the bells and whistles. 

What to Look For

The first thing that you want to look for is someplace that will give you some structure.  Don't immediately head out and think that you need to buy a domain.

A domain is the website name that you most often think.  It is the Google part of www.google.com or, in your case it would be the yournamehere of www.yournamehere.com

 A domain name could be the most expensive part of your website (and probably should be).  Most church/organization websites don't need a lot, but there are a few things to look for.

Themes

What is a theme?  A theme is just what it sounds like.  

A theme provides a consistent look and feel across all aspects of your website  

When you change your theme, or change some aspect of it, it will change that across everything in your website.  This is a good thing!  You want this, because it makes managing your website so much easier, and you don't have to worry about all the formatting.

There are some places whose main business is selling domain names.  Unless you're a big company that's not something you need.  What you need is someplace that gets you the whole package.  Domain name companies like GoDaddy or HostGator sell domain names.  That's their main business.  What you're looking for is a place that will help you put together a good website with minimal effort.  Those places aren't it.  The other thing is that they will charge you a lot of money for it to, and you may not get everything that you need.

Mobile Friendly

The next thing to look for is, that what you use will automatically make your website mobile friendly.

Mobile friendly refers to how your website will look on mobile devices like phones and tablets

If your service provider doesn't provide this, then you need to change.  So much of how people interact with the internet happens through mobile devices.  If your website doesn't work there, then you are behind and it won't do what you want it to do. 

Editor

This is probably the most important part of your website.  A good editor makes life easier, and helps you put together a great website.

An editor is the collection of tools that a service provider develops to help you produce great content on your website

A good editor takes what theme you choose for your website and gives you easy to use and understand tools that let you put a great site together.  These tools should require minimal instruction time on how to use them, and give you lots of help in using them.  

Who to Use

This is the section that you really want.  Who do I recommend that you use?  The three options that I'll give are easy to use, easy to set up, and have free options.  

1. Weebly https://www.weebly.com/
2. Blogger https://www.blogger.com/
3. Wordpress https://wordpress.com/

There are other options out there, these are three that I know of, and have used.  One of their nice features is that you don't have to pay anything.  They'll let you have a subdomain for free.

A subdomain uses someone elses main domain, but lets you have a site underneath their umbrella.  For example RevNerd (as of the writing of this post) is a subdomain of blogger at https://johnpinkstonii.blogspot.com If I had my own domain it would be johnpinkstonii.com

All of this is to get you started.  As time goes on I'll ad more parts to this series and you can find more information then.