Creating a website

TheMTtakeover

New member
I was thinking of creating my own website to publish my beats on. I was looking at using squarespace. Has anyone here used squarespace? Are you happy with it? What are you guys using to create your sites?
 
Sites like squarespace are cool but if you really wanna do it right you should think long-term.

That said, here's a lil advice on Websites coming from someone who's been building websites for 5+ years..

If your ultimate goal is to build up a web presence / business online and want full control of your content you should:

Start by learning the basics of HTML and CSS. (Youtube classes are always in session) Down the road: PHP - Javascript.

Start by researching different hosting companies and their hosting packages. (Like Godaddy, Hostgator, etc.)
Luckily for you plenty of people have done this work for you. Google is your friend.

Learn about wordpress, joomla and other content management systems. (Again, YouTube.)

It may seem like a lot at first but eventually you will see how they all work in concert with one another.

The knowledge you gain from this will carry you a long way and help provide you with the solid foundation required to be successful in your online endeavors.

Good luck.
 
If I was a beginner and I read SFTRAXX post... I'd be very overwhelmed. If you google what he suggests... Then you probably won't get anywhere... So if you have, don't get too discouraged.

Not knocking what he's said by the way... All very useful information.

In regards to hosting: Godaddy and Bluehost get big NO's from me. According to a friend who's opinion I hold in high regard, Hostgator is worse than Bluehost..

If I were you I'd start off by:

1. Finding a reputable host that supports Wordpress
2. Install wordpress (hosts usually offer a 1 click install)
3. Play around with wordpress
4. Learn what wordpress offers and what you should be aiming to create.
5. Plan your website/content
6. Find a wordpress theme that will suit your needs (plus any plugins)
7. Start creating/blogging and try not to get too distracted by the millions of possibilities.

A couple of things you should consider when creating your website - depending on what you want to achieve:

1. Newsletter <- priority over social media
2. Layout and content plan
3. E-commerce set up (I recommend woocommerce)

I'm always going through these processes of late, as I'm still structuring my Internal Affairs blog. Wordpress is definitely a route I recommend.

Hope I've helped.
 
when choosing hosting make sure that you understand what they mean by unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth: in most cases they do not actually mean unlimited but more small scale production sites (I have learnt this the hard way with two hosting companies now); cheaper is not ever going to better: high volume sites mean at a minimum virtual servers, if not premium servers

If you use the site to sell from or as part of your marketing then as long as you are registered as a business/sole trader these costs are tax deductible

as for the rest: learn what you need to be in charge of your image; this may mean learn the whole chain of skills and techniques or learn how to ensure that you can hire someone to do it for you
 
If I was a beginner and I read SFTRAXX post... I'd be very overwhelmed...

I hear you but a lot of this stuff can be learned via YouTube over a weekend.

Granted, most wont be a 'master' at web design over a weekend but most will be able to grasp the basic concepts.

+1 for WordPress.

Tons of video's on YouTube pertaining to Wordpress and WP plugins as well.


Also: If you're looking for a 'turnkey' beat selling website built on WordPress definitely check out the music maker theme.

Its responsive, updated regularly and has a ton of features.

Good luck.
 
not so much daily traffic as cpu usage (they tend to use cpu usage as a measure of bandwidth) - if it gets above 10% they shut you down without warning. The only way i knew was folks complaining that they couldn't access my site -> as I try to verify/resolve, I can't access my site or even my cpanel; discussion with tech support follows and they have cut me off because someone was using too much cpu for a download or other access to my site. Short story - I have to remove high volume download files for them to restore my account, "hasta la vista" to those two companies.

current mob are not much better either, but at least they use bandwidth as a measure of bandwidth rather than just cpu usage - I had a lot of issues in 2012 from the looks of tech support tickets - needing to increase bandwidth in march, april, june, july then in September 2012 they shut me down for another large volume file the Mattias Westlund Symphony Orchestra sfz zipped file. No issues since.
 
not so much daily traffic as cpu usage (they tend to use cpu usage as a measure of bandwidth) - if it gets above 10% they shut you down without warning. The only way i knew was folks complaining that they couldn't access my site -> as I try to verify/resolve, I can't access my site or even my cpanel; discussion with tech support follows and they have cut me off because someone was using too much cpu for a download or other access to my site. Short story - I have to remove high volume download files for them to restore my account, "hasta la vista" to those two companies.

current mob are not much better either, but at least they use bandwidth as a measure of bandwidth rather than just cpu usage - I had a lot of issues in 2012 from the looks of tech support tickets - needing to increase bandwidth in march, april, june, july then in September 2012 they shut me down for another large volume file the Mattias Westlund Symphony Orchestra sfz zipped file. No issues since.

Weird. Soundfonts tend to be smaller in size. I guess that one is the exception? (Or maybe tons of people downloading it)

I actually dealt with a similar scenario myself. The tech support couldn't tell me exactly what was causing the cpu usage so I just went and removed larger and excessive files from the server and no complaints since. At least in my particular scenario they shot me an email before pulling my site.
(Basically got a 'warning' email)
 
yeah, MWSSO is very large: 438 MB and a single contiguous file, which under the mirroring agreement can-not be broken into smaller files. If you get half a dozen people all trying to download it, cpu usage on the servers gets above 50% quickly. the shut down occurred after I had mentioned it in a thread here at fp

I'm sticking with this mob only because I still have two years left on my hosting contract (5 years (60 months) total contract period to get the best price possible ($2 a month))

One of the telling e-mails I sent them in response to the suggestion that I move to one their higher cost accounts (which only had options to pay for six months at a time) was "what part of unlimited bandwith does not apply to my account?" I got an e-mail back upgrading my bandwith almost immediately

So my advice stands; understand what your bandwidth could be and plan your hosting accordingly:

hosting newsletters,
hosting blogs that people actually visit,
running e-mail campaigns,
having good content,
selling content

will all increase bandwidth usage, both as uploads and downloads
 
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You can try with wordpress.com, you don't have to learn how to create your website, just register, select skin and start creating content.
 
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