You can pay a couple hundred and let a professional design it, but they can only do what you tell them.
You can buy Microsoft Front Page and make it yourself. You can use the web design software that most hosts include free. I am hosted on JustHost. They were the cheapest at the time.
Word, spreadsheet and graphic programs let you save as html, but it may not include all the features of a dedicated web design program.

 

mleck,
One really easy solution is a product like microsoft office live. No need to write any code, no need for software, completely template driven, about $15/yr for domain name otherwise no cost. I have written many websites from scratch but chose officelive for our bee club to keep it simple and so that I could allow anyone to take over the upkeep if need be.
www.officelive.com
www.northcentralbeekeepers.com

 

I use GoDaddy.com. They have web hosting and do-it-yourself website building for a cheap price. Works great and you're up and running in no time.

 

I'd recommend checking out Wordpress. You need somewhere to host it, but it's free and once set up you can add pages very easily. It's really a blog software but that can actually be a good thing because it's so easy to add information about shows you might be going to, prices, what you currently have to sell, etc. It's in use all over the globe by probably what amounts to millions of blogs.

 

First of all:

- Are you going to sell anything online? If yes, do you want to do credit card transactions, or PayPal only, or both?

- How often will you update the site?

- How literate are you with computers? Are you a quick study with new software?

- What else do you want to do with that website?

 

justhost is $4.45 a month with free site builder, they also do free commerce (online catalogs) with oscommerce

 

I kind of do this for a living.

I would do A real cheap GoDaddy Wordpress plan.

Buy a dummies guide to Wordpress.

And you are on your way. This is a good plan for the short run and long run.

In terms of selling I would start with simple Paypal buttons and the move to an actual Wordpress ecommerce shopping cart as you broadened what you were doing.

Quint

 

That's exactly the setup I'm personally working on for my own honey business: GoDaddy for hosting, WordPress for the platform (been a WP guy since version 1.1), and the ecommerce plug-in (which I haven't used yet).

 

Very good information. Thanks alot for your help. However I still think i need someone to design me a web site. I think i can learn how to keep it up and update when needed but my design skills would be very limited.

 

I kinda do this for a living too, and I second WordPress.

You are worried about design, but there are tens of thousands of free templates available for WordPress, and you can always have someone design one custom for you if you can't find what you are looking for. If you find something close, you can tweak it to your liking pretty easily.

I happen to hate GoDaddy, but a lot of people love them. I use Bluehost. Setting up a WordPress site on the Bluehost server is a piece of cake, it is built into their C-Panel (as I assume GoDaddy does now too). Choose a hosting company that offers what you need, has good customer service, and is priced right.

Good luck!

 

Visitaprint.com will help you build a website. Pretty cheap I buy my business cards from them. In fact, I need to print up some new cards that are just for my Apiary business (honey, wax, Perma-Guard Diatometious Earth, Honey-B-Healthy).

If you are on comcast, you can get a website for free (I think).

 

Just start a free blog, you don't need to 'build a website'. I like using Blogger/Blogspot for my blogs. Wordpress is the other popular blogging choice.

 

here is my site - http://thevalleysbuzz.webs.com/

i used Webs.com - simple and cheap
i build the site in under 3 hrs - and im not a tech guy - so its that simple - no codes

 

I recommended WordPress. Find someone who knows the basics of creating a website with WordPress:

http://wordpress.com/

Signing up is free and so is creating and hosting your web site. They have a default template (or theme or web site design) these days that looks good and is easy to use.

I set up my website with a simple WordPress theme...

http://mudsongs.org

...then I slowly redesigned it as I learned how to use WordPress. Once you get the basics under your belt, it doesn't take a great deal of effort to maintain the site yourself, and the final result will generally look much better than anything on Blogger / Blogspot, or any kind of basic HTML site. (And no, I don't work for WordPress.)

If you start up a site on the free WordPress server, and you like it, it's not difficult to switch to a paid-for hosting service with a unique URL (web site address), and for a low-traffic simple website, hosting is cheap (I pay less than $5/month). But I'd take it one step at a time. You might be happy with the free WordPress hosting service with nothing fancy.

If you want to get really basic, though not necessarily any easier, you can try to create your own HTML pages with something like Microsoft FrontPage, though I don't know if I've ever seen a web site created on FrontPage that didn't look kind of junky. At least with something like WordPress, there are many free themes (web site designs) you can use that will likely look much more professional than anything you'll get out of FrontPage.

There are many ways to create simple but functional web sites. I've experimented with many of them. WordPress is the best I've found so far.

 

I've been doing web design on and off since 95....and the biggest, most important thing has not changed.

You need good content, and a web designer (or a web design template) cannot do this for you.

Once you have some copy written (it doesn't have to be perfect...but you need something to start with), _then_ it is time to start figuring out how to go about designing your site. It is much easier to design (or get someone else to design) a site around existing content.

deknow

 

This is what I use for creating and modifying my website http://www.coffeecup.com/html-editor/

I would stay away from frontpage if I were you. I tried front page years ago but thought it was too difficult to use.

I use register.com for my domain name and web hosting. Up until yesterday I hosted on my own server, but i needed something more reliable so I purchased a two year hosting deal from register.com

 

I'd say it depends on what you want. If all you are doing is creating a static 5 page website, then any of the cheap free services or pieces of design software will work (microsoft, google, coffeecup, etc. There are hundred of them).

But if you want a website that you will gradually add content and will grow with you, then a CMS is worth the effort (Content Management System). Some require a lot of knowledge of html, php and other 3 and 4 letter words. Others are very simple by comparison and have plenty of support, addons and templates that anyone can install and use.

For a CMS anymore I'd suggest wordpress. Easy to use, 1000's of templates and doesn't have to look or act like a blog at all anymore. Just look at the homepage of Beesource for one example, Michigan State Beekeepers Association for another off the top of my head.

Still as others have said, it comes down to content. You won't get any visits without good content.

-Tim

 

I guess I am lucky with the regards of making my website as I am an application developer by profession. Not that my site has all the gizmos and gadgets that clutter webpages which can make it more difficult to navigate, it does look fine for a small farm operation and I have not had any complaints.

As far as who can do it. My cousin works for a marketing firm in Fl and I know she does this as well as other marketing aspects. If I were you I would locate a small marketing agency in your area and ask them to professionally set it up. They can also set you up with a biz logo unique for you. I had my cousin's firm do my business logo and it cost me less than one hundred dollars.