Jay Henry

I'm confused as to which website builder to use?
I’m looking for a program on which to build a website as I have no knowledge of programming and can’t afford to pay someone to built it for me

I don’t mind forking out a bit for the software as a one off payment or as a monthly fee. The site I want to build will be a database of recipe information and a shop selling the equipment required to make the recipes.

The main features that I am looking for are:

No limit on the ammount of pages, potentially the site may contain 1000 pages.

Ease of use to build the site. (WYSIWYG)

A good hosting package with no limits on bandwith etc.

A proffesional look in the finished website.

The ability to integrate a shopping cart that will accept a number of payment methods including credit/debit cards.

Any other features will be a bonus. The biggest problem I have is that there are so many to choose from. I have looked at numerous different sites that look like they will do the job but then on looking at reviews of other users they get terrible reviews.

I can’t seem to find a single site or software package that doesn’t get bad reviews somewhere along the way. As it’s a competitive market I can imagine that some of the reviews are left by competing companies. This doesn’t help my predicament though!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

If you want a professional website, you’re going to need a professional to build it. Software won’t build your website, you still need a pro to customize the software and make it create the particular site you have in mind.

You can either hire a professional web developer or become one. If there’s an easier answer, let me know; we’ll write the book together and make a million dollars.

If you spend the time learning web development (about a year if you work hard) you can get to the point where you can modify a content management system like Drupal or Joomla and get exactly the system you’re looking for.

This particular site would probably cost a few hundred dollars to have built by a quality developer. It would take about a year or two of dedicated skill for you to learn on your own.
References :
HTML / XHTML / CSS All in One for Dummies (author)
http://www.aharrisbooks.net

I would recommend bluehost.com for web hosting. It supports just about every thing you might need except ta good page creator.

CoffeeCup has an extensive suite of page creation software – both WYSIIWYG and code editing plus several Flash creation packages.

I have been using both for five years – well satisfied.
References :
https://bluehost.com
http://www.coffeecup.com/

Joomla Open Source offers you the best flexibility of platform as you can add on with extensions without learning HTML or paying a a whole lot for it.

The software is free, you might have to pay for a template ($5 but most of them are free) you can customize or you can make your own templates $49.

Tutorials are through forums and many websites have video tutorials from around $150-$299 Resources below:
References :
Joomla Official Site http://www.Joomla.org
Extensions for Ecommerce and more http://extensions.joomla.org
Templates http://www.bestofjoomla.com
Design your own templates http://www.artisteer.com
Tutorials http://www.joomlavideotutorial.net

Most hosting companies will offer an online website builder tool like this one…
http://www.pickaweb.co.uk/online-website-builder.htm
References :