If you think it’s worth investing in a little custom work up front, I have a guy who does something like Wordpress but it’s custom-built. It has a “back end” like Wordpress where you can log in and add articles, pages, images, etc. I was looking for something that my clients could change and maintain themselves -but that we could set up exactly the way they wanted it to start with - and this has worked really well. He started off doing a site for a llama breeder, so it has a built-in pedigree chart and some other cool features. Let me know if anyone wants more info.
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And people pay waaaay too much for it. And they think they got the best of the best because it was made by a big name web design company.[/QUOTE]
While I agree with you that if people are paying for stock-standard templates without any customization, they’re probably being ripped off, there is a large amount of back end work that goes into SEO optimization that people aren’t aware of, and certainly don’t see when they look a page.
When we design a site for someone, even a wordpress template site, there’s usually 5-10 hours of strict design work and another 20 hours of development work that has to occur. It’s not an accident when someone ends up on the front page of google. It may not be important to SEO if most people are searching for you by name - because they’re going to find you. But in the situation of someone searching “dressage lessons austin, tx” or whatever, it’s probably worth it.
for the OP - if you’ve got to rapidly develop large content, drupal may be the way to go. although you do need to know coding.
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for the OP - if you’ve got to rapidly develop large content, drupal may be the way to go. although you do need to know coding.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t wish Drupal on my least favorite client. If the OP is looking for something easy to maintain and update, Drupal can be a major headache.
NaniLio - what sort of package do you use - assume you pay for one of Wix’s premium packages? Your website is very interesting and its good to see how Wix can be used for a stud farm
Yes Sacha, I use the premium package. I browse their templates and find one that has a general feel that I like and customize from there. The site ends up looking much different from the template but when I start from scratch it just seems too daunting!
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Yes Sacha, I use the premium package. I browse their templates and find one that has a general feel that I like and customize from there. The site ends up looking much different from the template but when I start from scratch it just seems too daunting![/QUOTE]
Your site is very nice!
When choosing how your site will look and behave, it’s important that you evaluate the overall functionality. I haven’t seen a Wix site that I like as much as this one before and it works very well for it’s purpose. If you want a site that has different sidebars, or video grids, etc. This type of platform won’t give you that functionality. It’s all about what you want the site to do for you.
Gonna throw in a vote for squarespace if you are looking for an option with customizeable templates. While there aren’t a wealth of pre-made templates available (compared to, say, wordpress) they do work pretty well out-of-the-box and can be manipulated to an impressive degree if you are willing to dig into the code. The back end is a little more WYSIWYG/user-friendly for people that are not used to the separation of content & design, which I think is where wordpress confuses folks.
For the web designers on here I’m going to offer a huge, giant, standing ovation recommendation for expressionengine. Has the beauty & ease of a CMS like wordpress plus the expansion capabilities of drupal & joomla, without all the head-banging that goes along with drupal & joomla. Seriously, I’m not sure there’s anything expressionengine can’t do. And if there is then chances are the work-around has already been conceived and built by someone in their fantastic 3rd Party/Add-On community.
Dreamweaver is no longer necessary. I still do my coding in it because I’ve been coding in it since 1998, but I could accomplish everything I need to do with Notepad+ at a fraction of the price. If you are looking to build yourself a site but really don’t know HTML/CSS you need to stay very, very far away from Dreamweaver.
For people considering Wix, you may want to be aware that its performance is poor across the board for anyone who is not on high speed internet. I’m not talking about extremely slow connections, either. I can stream video, etc, just fine from my connection – but it takes 60+ seconds for a Wix homepage to load and 30+ seconds for every additional page. I spend more time staring at loading symbols than content, and I am invariably irritated as I browse the site.
If I browse–honestly, these days, I’m so fed up with Wix that it takes an act of Congress to knowingly visit a Wix-hosted site.
I love Squarespace! Here is one completely done and maintained with Squarespace… SO easy. However the premium packages are worth it.
