When you have your domain name and hosting in place, you are almost ready to start creating your web pages. Before doing that, you need to decide on the type of site you will have and it's look and feel.

Selecting the type of site

There are many different types of site available, but most information giving sites can be categorised into one of the types given in this table.

To help you decide what sort of system you should have, more information is provided below.

HTML Site

If you know HTML, along with some PHP or ASP and are familiar with databases and graphic packages, you will probably develop a HTML site. This site was created and is maintained using HTML/PHP. It is fairly typical of a HTML site that we would create for you. We use specialised editors to create the pages and graphics and then upload these to our website. This gives maximum flexibility, but demands a higher level of knowledge than other systems. Adding features such as logon areas are much harder to add using this type of site, but anything is possible. If you want us to design and maintain your site and are not interested in adding content yourself, we will use this model, unless there are features of a CMS that would be beneficial. If you want to do it yourself but don't know html, then one of the other models would be a better bet.

Site Builders

Online Site Builders are provided with a number of hosting plans. Normally you have to pay extra per month for each site you create with them and the amount you pay varies according to the number of pages on your site. They can work out expensive. The quality of online site builders varies enormously and they very often limit what can be achieved. Add-on features can often be very difficult or impossible to add with these systems.

We sell access to an online site builder on our shopping site at shop.gizagoo.com. You can select from thousands of pre-defined templates. Our prices are $euro;0.99 a month for a one page site, €1.99 for a 15 page site, €2.99 for a 50 page site or €3.99 for up to 500 pages with an online store. You can start small and upgrade as required. You can see the type of results that can be obtained with this tool at our sample site, welovegizagoo.com or go to our shop and try the online demo.

Site builders can also be downloaded. You then produce your website locally and upload it, typically using ftp, when finished. The standard of site that can be achieved using these systems is generally better than the online versions. If you know what you want to achieve and can try it out before purchasing, then this option may suit you.

CMS Systems

An increasing number of sites use Content Management Systems. With this type of site the content (text and pictures) can be added and edited online by multiple users. Many hosting plans allow you to install Joomla, Wordpress and other systems very easily. You can then select a template and add your content. Add-on features can be added through the control panel provided after installation.

Wordpress

This is an open source publishing system, which can be used as a basic CMS. It is used by over 200 million websites and is powered by PHP and MySQL. It is primarily a blog publishing tool and is ideal for sites that are essential fancy blogs. It can also be used for straight forward presentation websites, but there are limitations on what can be easily achieved. The control panel is not too complicated and easy for newcomers to understand. View The Church Of Apathy to see a typical Wordpress site that we created.

Joomla!

This is an open source Content Management System. It is estimated to be used by over 20 million websites and is also powered by PHP and MySQL. It has a multitude of add-ons covering almost anything you could think of using. While many add-ons are free, some must be purchased. The concept of a page is somewhat hidden within Joomla, making it harder for newcomers to get started. View Aladdin's Corner or Clancon Construction to see typical Joomla sites that we created.