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Brainstorm - Suggestions for where to take my site/blog?
LewieP
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey guys.
Right, I would like some suggestions for what to do with my website.
It started out as just a blog, but now it's a lot bigger than that. I now have a podcast, reviews, opinion pieces and news all mixed in with the bargains, which are the most important part of the blog.
(I think) It's pretty much grown beyond what blogger can offer me. I've had a look at wordpress, but I really don't like it. It feels like at every stage they want me to throw money at them, and feels really restricted.
Here's the kind of features that are really important to me, in a new site:
I don't actually know if all of those criteria are possible to satisfy with free solutions, but it is really important to me that it's both free, and has no advertising. I am not completely averse to getting some hosting, but I would prefer not to if possible. From what I understand I need a site design, hosting and a content management system, but I'm not sure if that's right, and indeed which ones would be the best for me.
Basically, I know very little about this kind of stuff, and I bet someone here can either tell me what I know, or link to a good tutorial, and probably provide me with some good alternatives to blogger.
So suggestions?
Right, I would like some suggestions for what to do with my website.
It started out as just a blog, but now it's a lot bigger than that. I now have a podcast, reviews, opinion pieces and news all mixed in with the bargains, which are the most important part of the blog.
(I think) It's pretty much grown beyond what blogger can offer me. I've had a look at wordpress, but I really don't like it. It feels like at every stage they want me to throw money at them, and feels really restricted.
Here's the kind of features that are really important to me, in a new site:
- I don't want any advertising on the site anywhere. That includes stuff like "design provided by *name*" and "Hosting provided by *name*"
- I was to be able to sort posts into different RSS feeds. One feed for everything, one feed for podcasts, one feed for reviews, one feed for editorials, then feeds for bargains - one feed for all bargains, and then platform specific bargain feeds too. If any way to allow custom feeds, so lets say someone wanted "PS3 bargains + podcast" in one feed, that would be perfect, but I don't know if that exists.
- I would like a navigation menu at the top that has drop down menu's similar to this, one button for "Home", one for "bargains", with the platforms in the drop down box, one for "Reviews", one for "podcast", one for "about" and one for "contact".
- The bargains would all be listed similarly to how they are now (link in the sig), although the reviews might be better listed in an archive format.
- I want it to be pretty as hell. Clean and easy to navigate quickly, and also fast. Having the good stuff of web2.0 without the bad would be nice.
- I like open source.
I don't actually know if all of those criteria are possible to satisfy with free solutions, but it is really important to me that it's both free, and has no advertising. I am not completely averse to getting some hosting, but I would prefer not to if possible. From what I understand I need a site design, hosting and a content management system, but I'm not sure if that's right, and indeed which ones would be the best for me.
Basically, I know very little about this kind of stuff, and I bet someone here can either tell me what I know, or link to a good tutorial, and probably provide me with some good alternatives to blogger.
So suggestions?
LewieP on
0
Posts
That's this version of Wordpress. The other version - which you set up on your own web space - is free and doesn't do that. And you should be able to accomplish most or all of your list by customizing the css, html, or php (or having someone else do it for you).
You probably won't get the ad-freeness, open source, and customization you want on a freebie blog with free hosting by the blog company itself.
I have to agree, at some point you're going to have to pay for something. If the blog company is hosting you, they're going to want something out of the deal, and that's probably advertising.
The host your own wordpress is pretty good, really flexible and you should be able to get pretty much everything you want. The downside is that you have to set it up yourself, and if you don't code you might have problems getting what you want. There's an almost infinate number of wordpress themes out there, but most of them carry a "designed by" tag at the bottom. I suspect if you negotiated with someone to build you one specifically they might not require that, as long as you weren't distributing the theme.
Hosting varies, depending on the traffic your blog generates and the storage space you need. There are lots of options, and I know there are some past threads with hosting recommendations.