Thinking of going with a professional

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Patrick

Patrick

Just One Day At A Time
Sep 2, 2011
1,490
813
53
Martinsburg WV
www.patrickryanlewis.com
Eric and I have been talking, and we are ready to start spending some money on a professional website redesign. We are looking for something that can incorporate our logo, and carry a wedding theme across the whole site, without alienating the other segments as well (mainly sweet 16s, corporate events and adult birthday parties). I would like for it to be able to also be linked right into our blog, so all I have to do is update the blog and not have to touch the site at all, and the updates will appear in a section on the site. Plus, twitter and facebook integration as well.

I am not sure how much something like that is going to run and was wondering is anyone could give me a ballpark of what we would be looking at spending
 
1 million 6 hundred thousand 535 dollars and 23 cents...
 
It's not a smart investment YOU Patrick. You are already busy. What is spending $1000+ dollars on the website really going to do for you? You are not some big multi-op.

Work on tweaking the actual service itself and the word of mouth will continue to work for you. It's the content of a website that people care about and not how pretty it is.

If you really want to change it, go to Intuit or one of those sites and find a wedding theme template.
 
Patrick,

You're already using WordPress for your blog, why not continue using it as your website engine as well? There are many templates/themes/skins that can be purchased for less than $50, with alot of options and plug-ins that can be added (also FREE).

My site -- www.partytunesdjservice.com -- is a WP site.

If you need help setting things up, just drop me a PM.
 
That is the third time someone has suggested Wordpress to me, but I am a little hesitant because of a couple things:

- Right now the site is hosted through Yahoo, so does that mean I will have to find another hosting site?
- One of the biggest things I am unhappy with is the "behind the scenes" stuff on the site. I know nothing about meta tags, headings, etc and was hoping with a professional redesign those would be done properly
- I want to incorporate more pictures and videos throughout the site, and not just on a dedicated page, but have never been able to do that how I want with Yahoo, is this something that can be done simply in Wordpress?
- How easy are things like Facebook and Twitter to merge into the site?
- In regards to the blog, ours is right now on Wordpress.com, and I heard that you can not take it over to .org, is that true? If I can, can it be right into the site and not a link that takes you somewhere else?

(as you can see, I am very unhappy with our site right now, I have been battling with it for over a year now and am tired of it not being the way I wanted)
 
Answers in red below....

sightsandsounds said:
That is the third time someone has suggested Wordpress to me, but I am a little hesitant because of a couple things:

- Right now the site is hosted through Yahoo, so does that mean I will have to find another hosting site? Not sure how Yahoo hosting works, so cannot say. But, I would use a host that has Cpanel access. I like my host and his pricing is very reasonable.
- One of the biggest things I am unhappy with is the "behind the scenes" stuff on the site. I know nothing about meta tags, headings, etc and was hoping with a professional redesign those would be done properly. All can be handled very easily with the WP plug-ins. My site is 1st page on Google, usually within top 3 spots with the search terms I set up.
- I want to incorporate more pictures and videos throughout the site, and not just on a dedicated page, but have never been able to do that how I want with Yahoo, is this something that can be done simply in Wordpress? Very easily done in WP's WYSIWYG editor.
- How easy are things like Facebook and Twitter to merge into the site? There are several cool plug-ins available for that. I use a social slider for just FB, but there are many more that can also be added by just inputting the url in the config area that is in the admin section.
- In regards to the blog, ours is right now on Wordpress.com, and I heard that you can not take it over to .org, is that true? If I can, can it be right into the site and not a link that takes you somewhere else? Not sure on the .org question and I'm not sure what you're asking in the second question. Are you wanting to have your blog and website hosted together and incooperated as one site? If so, YES, you can easily do that.

(as you can see, I am very unhappy with our site right now, I have been battling with it for over a year now and am tired of it not being the way I wanted)
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Pat, I have to agree with the others. While hiring a pro might sound like the easy way to get a great-looking site, I think you're going to regret it, once the process is done. You're still going to have to expend the energy/thought to give input and even then it's a pot-shot on whether you'll be pleased with the results. Much better to use some of the site-builder or templates already out there, expend the same amount of energy you would have otherwise, and do it yourself. IMHO, building a website is not just a job that you finish, then walk away. It's a continual, building process where the site evolves into what you envisioned.
 
Big Dan said:
You have to upload them to you Yahoo and create a database via Yahoo's control panel for Wordpress to use.

This should get you started: http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress
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OK, now I am really confused....I do not want anything showing until I have the site completed, won't putting these in my yahoo file show on the site? and I thought wordpress was a building program? I can't build the site offline so I can see everything first before it goes into yahoo?
 
Thanks Dan, but I made it about 4 sentences into that before I was already completely lost.....if anyone is interested in making some extra money, hit me up and let's talk...I am not even going to consider doing this myself anymore
 
sightsandsounds said:
Thanks Dan, but I made it about 4 sentences into that before I was already completely lost.....if anyone is interested in making some extra money, hit me up and let's talk...I am not even going to consider doing this myself anymore
Click to expand...

This is how I always feel.
 
djsarge said:
Bitnami Stack. Look it up. It installs everything you need to run WP on your machine to play with.
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LOL, I just looked at that because you posted it... my eyes glazed over and my brain shut down.
 
Papa Deuce said:
LOL, I just looked at that because you posted it... my eyes glazed over and my brain shut down.
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haha. If I can do it, you can too. Just download the stack and install it. Then you will have a menu choice like any other program. Start the stack, click the access link and there is your sample WP page. Log in with the username and password you gave it and there is the back end, ready for you to work with.
 
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