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Creating a Web Site


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So I have an idea for a web site as a hobby, the site would be relatively basic, just a central place for information on a common topic that I think people would be interested in (no not porn). Basically mining other sites.

Not looking to make money on it but would like to cover costs through ads etc.I realize ads/revenue come with site visits/clicks.

For those of you more web savvy than me (probably most of you) I have a few questions:

1. What is the cost to set up/host a site?

2. How do you drive initial traffic to a site?

3. What else should I know?

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  • 3 years later...

3. What else should I know?


You need to seriously learn about/hire web app security…. It’s seriously gotten out of hand.

If you go Wordpress hosted, pay for wordfence. Regardless of hosting, have them do the patching and maintenance. Ensure they are doing all three:
- static code scans
- secure composition analysis
- dynamic scans
Put in the contract to patch all zero days within 12 hours and all criticals within 48.

Have then do a 3rd party pen test.

Security is a pain in the ass and it’s expensive but shit has seriously gotten out of hand.
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The title says you'd like to "create" a site.  And no where did you mention anything about building the assets : ) I mention this because it's important to properly categorize the web publishing work ahead of you:  create, host, market, secure, and maintain your digital property--just to name a few.  And if you rely on a publishing host/service, you will never "own" your digital property.  So keep that in mind.  If you ever need to migrate from one service to another, it could be a pain. For most, it usually is.

1. What is the cost to set up/host a site?

Depends.  If you can reduce digital assets to static form, you can host the site on AWS S3 for $3-$15/month.  If you need a full-blown dynamic site, with web-app behavior, you can use serverless cloud services to save quite a bit of $$$.  You will only be charged for what you use.  There's no running meter to charge up the CC.  You should invest in someone doing the initial work for you, learn how things work, then try to learn how to maintain things on your own.  If not, you can use managed apps with any typical host (Linode, Digitial Ocean, etc).  Their services abstract the complexity so you can point-and-clickity-click your way to noob site building.  Just keep in mind, you have almost 0 flexibility for customization.  And when you decide to customize--because you will---you'll pay out the nose for some hipster to do side projects for  you.  This will increase your costs over time, because when said hipster is too busy partying in BKN and you need something done, the next hipster working on your site needs to understand all the L33t cODe the previous hipster wrote before he/she/it/they gets any traction in the codebase.  Hosting plans vary, but most are affordable.  You will only pay $$$ if your site goes main stream.

 

2. How do you drive initial traffic to a site?

Depends.  Who is your target market? What's the demographic?  Generating traffic can be as easy as paying Google. OR you can establish a youtube channel, build up followers (~150K is good, 1M+ is better and youtube sends YOU a check every month), then send followers to your site ("click the link in the description!!").  So many ways to drive traffic.  They key is not to rely on one method and wait for site visitors to flood your host.

 

3. What else should I know?

LOTS.  But you have to start somewhere. amirite?

 

 

PS:

I know this was a pre-covid thread.  Adding my opinion just in case it helps others.  If anyone disagrees with my opinion, fuck it--neg me!

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
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  • 8 months later...
On 4/16/2022 at 12:53 PM, Neonmoon said:

Anyone recommend a great web designer and web developer?

 

On 4/19/2022 at 1:50 PM, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

Seconded. I need a pretty custom site made that I don't think wordpress or like can handle.

did y'all end up finding anyone who is halfway decent and also anywhere close to reasonably priced?

at this point we are getting quotes for $15-$30k to build a <20 page website (can honestly be built with 10 pages if i do it on my own), where we are providing all the content (updated text from our current website, picture, content and everything else), where the vendor is basically cloning our existing wordpress site and then updating it with what we give them. this seems seems completely insane to me. am i off my rocker here or is that just the cost of business these days?

this is not some website with a ton of integrations - literally everything we thought we needed to integrate would be an outbound link.

i don't want to have to try and build this myself - my only experience with building/hosting websites was with geocities like 20 years ago - but for that much money i think i will be doing it on my own or hopefully with minimal help.

open to any recs for developers that will be even halfway reasonably priced (assuming this is as crazy as i think it is??) located literally anywhere.

feel free to reply or shoot me a PM if you have anything close to a good experience or a company to rec

Edited by NoName
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Are you talking about a website that's essentially a brochure? That does seem high.

To be honest, Wordpress has a bit of a learning curve, but if you pay for a theme, then it's much easier. And then you can Google the rest of it.

Even starting from scratch with no experience, I'd think in a week you could easily build a site. 

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17 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Are you talking about a website that's essentially a brochure? That does seem high.

To be honest, Wordpress has a bit of a learning curve, but if you pay for a theme, then it's much easier. And then you can Google the rest of it.

Even starting from scratch with no experience, I'd think in a week you could easily build a site. 

Haha I feel like this is what is going to end up happening is that I create it. I know it's do-able but really really don't want to have to fall back on this.

It's just incredible that we are cloning a website that is already developed, asking them to literally change the colors/text/font, we are providing ALL content and it costs that much!

16 minutes ago, Handcruser said:

Y’all call tiny frog.

thanks for the rec, seriously. I reached out this AM. the person I need to talk to is OOO so hoping to hear back Monday!

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Are you cloning your own site? Is it already on Wordpress? Cause I know on my stuff I could do that literally in a span of a few hours. 

The more time-consuming part would be the populate the pages with the new content. 

 

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