Going round in circles .........

[ppentertainments]

I know to some this is going to sound like Groundhog Day, but can anyone recommend a good website designer or someone who can set me off with a Wordpress Site that I can upgrade myself - needs to be 'offline' to design it as will take me a while lol

I have had a go at doing one of my sites but can't get it to rank well, hence why I am looking for someone to help me along the way. I have forked out money for one, but to be honest the end result is poor and very confusing to navigate etc. Had looked at tweaking it, but think going back to the drawing board will be simpler in the long run.

Price wise I have had £400 to £3500 quoted for what appears to be the same job which adds to the confusion.

Anyone out there have any help or advise ?

PS I won't go with Wix, GoDaddy type companies :)

[mbp]

I use a very easy website designer software called 'Mobirise' - it's FREE and its drag and drop format is simple..

[ppentertainments]

I use a very easy website designer software called 'Mobirise' - it's FREE and its drag and drop format is simple..

I won't use any free website builder - except maybe Wordpress if someone starts me off on it.

[Marc J]

WordPress offline becomes problematic - it only works on a web server, so if you want to do it truly offline you need to run a local (on your PC) LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server, like XAMPP (https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html) or WAMP (http://www.wampserver.com/en/).

What I usually do for clients who want to try out WordPress, or develop a WordPress site while their existing website is still live, is to put it up on a spare domain or a subdomain on their existing site (for example wip.ppentertainments.co.uk). It's then fairly straightforward to move this to the "live" location when they're happy with it.

Get in touch if you want to try it out, I'm sure I could find a spare domain you could try it out on to see if it's for you...

EDIT: Sorry. I just noticed your existing site is actually WP so you do have experience of it. Re-reading your original post, it looks like you're looking for a designer to get you started. Very little is designed from scratch these days, most agencies are using customised themes usually from somewhere like Themeforest (https://themeforest.net/category/wordpress). You just pick one you like, buy it & install it...then customise to your needs.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

What's wrong with wix?

I use it and only moderately blowing my own trumpet - I get nothing but praise for it, and it ranks well enough to keep me busy without having to deal with all the maniacs that google GLASGOW WEDDING DJ with a budget of 4 quid and a packet of haribo...

If you're dead set on wordpress I'd suggest learning it yourself and building from scratch (that's what I did with wix) took a good while but I got exactly what I wanted and I update it whenever I want with ease.

[ckpr2]

Serif Webplus is OK.
Its ok for quick websites.

I have been a programmer for many years so I use asp.net.
I use Winserve to host my websites as they are about the cheapest I could find.

[SC Events]

Build the site live, but put up a coming soon page, so it is not visible to the public until you choose for it to be. Coming Soon Pro is the name of the app, if I remember rightly.

[Marc J]

Build the site live, but put up a coming soon page, so it is not visible to the public until you choose for it to be. Coming Soon Pro is the name of the app, if I remember rightly.

That's great if you don't currently have a site on the domain you're using - but if you do have a site there which you want to keep until you're ready to switch to the new site, the best solution is to develop on a subdomain or spare domain.

[ppentertainments]

Sorry to not have answered this.

The website in question is my wedding dj one – www.premierweddingdj.co.uk

I have now got someone who has started me off with a wordpress site, I am currently adding content, before he will check, make sure seo is ok, then make it live (ie all the bits I can’t do lol)

The problem I had was people were producing sites that I just didn’t like, to be honest they were far better than what I can do, but it wasn’t me.

WIX – my only air of caution is that I know a lot of people with WIX sites who have struggled with regards to SEO and google rankings, good sites but failing to deliver. I know some are ok, but didn’t want to take that risk. I do have a site through 1&1 which again just doesn’t rank in google.

Saying all that, I have come to the conclusion that google rankings aren’t as important as I think they are. Yes it can help, but have spoke to 8 other DJs whos website ranks really well, and they all say that they get little work direct from the website. I also know of people with really good sites, but stock photos etc and it just isn’t THEM, and they say they get enquiries but cannot convert bookings – hence the reason the website has to be ME.

I may be going totally off track, but I think by having a website that is me and getting my word out through other means should be the way forward.

[ppentertainments]

Just to update, we are 80% complete but now live - www.premierweddingdj.co.uk

Once you get your head around it, Wordpress is a doddle :o

[ckpr2]

I just recently tried wordpress after hearing good comments and was pleased with it.

I can program websites also using .ASP and SQL server.
I was thinking about doing a full blown website where you can order a disco and pay for it straight away.
The website would give lots of options that you can add to your basket and then pay for it.
Clearly you would also need to reserve a date as well.

[ppentertainments]

I just recently tried wordpress after hearing good comments and was pleased with it.

I can program websites also using .ASP and SQL server.
I was thinking about doing a full blown website where you can order a disco and pay for it straight away.
The website would give lots of options that you can add to your basket and then pay for it.
Clearly you would also need to reserve a date as well.
I thought about that, but didn't want to automate too much

[discomobiledj]

All my websites I design are in WordPress. If I'd seen this earlier I would have offered my services.

Let me know if you need any help in the future with anything.

[ppentertainments]

All my websites I design are in WordPress. If I'd seen this earlier I would have offered my services.

Let me know if you need any help in the future with anything.

Cheers for the offer, once you get your head around it Wordpress is really simple and (so far) managed to maintain my google rankings.

[discomobiledj]

Yoast is a great plugin for SEO. Make sure you keep everything up to date or you'll get hacked!

[Marc J]

For those with a Wordpress site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38930428

Update ASAP - Especially if you already updated recently (this security hole was introduced in an update from the end of 2016).

[ppentertainments]

For those with a Wordpress site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38930428

Update ASAP - Especially if you already updated recently (this security hole was introduced in an update from the end of 2016).

Cheers for the warning Marc.

On a similar note - what to people use to backup their wordpress site, ideally looking to back it up to dropbox but there are loads of plugins etc which seem over complicated - not sure whether to just export the site to a dropbox folder ??

[rth_discos]

what to people use to backup their wordpress site


https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-clone-by-wp-academy/

It's a great plugin.

Not only is it easy to backup, but more importantly, easy to restore (and that's the bit people don't test until it's too late)!

You can get back up and running from a blank wordpress install within a couple of minutes.

[ppentertainments]

https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-clone-by-wp-academy/

It's a great plugin.

Not only is it easy to backup, but more importantly, easy to restore (and that's the bit people don't test until it's too late)!

You can get back up and running from a blank wordpress install within a couple of minutes.

Cheers - job for tomorrow :D

[Marc J]

Cheers for the warning Marc.

On a similar note - what to people use to backup their wordpress site, ideally looking to back it up to dropbox but there are loads of plugins etc which seem over complicated - not sure whether to just export the site to a dropbox folder ??

Rather than use a backup / restore that requires Wordpress to be installed...if you install Wordpress through Softaculous (a one click installer used on many hosting control panels) then you can take backups with that. They're one click to backup, one to restore, and you can also set scheduled backups with how many to keep at any one time. If you don't know what Softaculous is, though, you probably didn't install WP using it.

Even if you didn't install via Softaculous, if your host uses it you can import the Wordpress instance into it and start backing up from there.

For disaster recovery, most hosts will keep a daily / weekly / monthly backup so you can restore from these in a worst case scenario - but don't depend on them, and many hosts don't offer this.