Build a complete web site, not just a blog?

[StuartR]

I have a blog at WordPress, and was wondering, how would I go about turning it into a website? Is that what the upgrades are for, to allow me to edit my blog however I like, and therefore turning it into a complete website?

[dECLAN]

Stuart - you can't really turn a Wordpress blog into a website as such BUT you can make your blog LOOK more like a website with a static front page and key sections that visitors can go to if they haven't visited the site previously.

Darren Rowse' Problogger.net is a good example of a blog that has successfully achieved this.

[Dani]

Or get a more powerful CMS like joomla or Drupl

There are lots of neat plugins for wordpress, but I just couldn't get any real power out of them.

But A fully grown CMS usually has guts to spare.

[StuartR]

What are the disadvantages to creating a website in Frontpage and getting it hosted?

[Dani]

Because Frontpage sucks maybe?

Its ugly, produces heavy bloated code. Can cause problems on your server. It has no idea about SEO, has no idea about security. Need I go on?

The sites are no where near as powerful as you can build in a good CMS.

e.g. I put this together for someone in about 20 hours with Joomla. To do that in Frontpage would take weeks if not longer.

[drakedee]

how bout just starting from scratch w/ your website...
Im building hosteed by gate.com for 20 buck a months...
Once my traffic starts flowing it'll be well worth the dub !

[dor]

Originally Posted by Dani

Because Frontpage sucks maybe?

Its ugly, produces heavy bloated code. Can cause problems on your server. It has no idea about SEO, has no idea about security. Need I go on?

The sites are no where near as powerful as you can build in a good CMS.

e.g. I put this together for someone in about 20 hours with Joomla. To do that in Frontpage would take weeks if not longer.

Joomla is probably the best way go

Word press can be altered to not look like a blog. But it takes some tweaking, and yes, like most everything from microsoft, frontpage is bloated ugly crap.

[Pagoda]

StuartR,

My website has evolved through all 3 (wordpress, joomla, drupal.) We finally had to go to Drupal because of all the coding with member points, badges, spotlight intention selection, etc.

If we would have had a better vision of how our site was going to evolve we would have started with drupal. Do you know exactly what features you want?

[StuartR]

I want to have a Blog, Articles, eventually Forums, and a couple more pages that would be easy to construct.

[poupsytops]

Hey I know a site where you can create your own site like you want it (Free) and their is also a lot of entertainment on this site more than 1000 free games, webmaster tools, forums, news, auctions, free emails, stores, and much more...
LaFoi.Com/Advanced Portal :: News

If you check it out tell me about it and I would like to know other other sites that you find cool please feel free to share with me...

I've been a user for the longest time of this site, I think there is a lot of useful informations.

[poupsytops]

Hey I know a site where you can create your own site like you want it (Free) and their is also a lot of entertainment on this site more than 1000 free games, webmaster tools, forums, news, auctions, free emails, stores, and much more...
LaFoi.Com/Advanced Portal :: News

If you check it out tell me about it and I would like to know other other sites that you find cool please feel free to share with me...

I've been a user for the longest time of this site, I think there is a lot of useful informations.

[StuartR]

Actually, I think I got it figured out. I found a Joomla tutorial, and I like what it has to offer. Thanks everyone.

[Johnny]

1. Create your own content

2. Download and then install the latest version of Wordpress - I used 1.5 in this example. I created the database on my server, updated the config.php file in the wordpress folder (which I renamed to blog) and then uploaded the whole deal. If you have fantastico available through your hosting provider, use that .

3. Check and make sure 'sall good - I viewed my /blog directory and yup, there she is.. the wordpress installation in its full untouched glory. Hehe.. not for long . The installation is good to go, I've updated my admin password and saved it in a secure location, and I'm ready.

4. Time to mod! - Alright, lets get down to it. What we're going to do is create our own Wordpress theme. Wordpress runs on themes and I've gotta hand it to the boys and girls who built wordpress, its done VERY well. So, this is what we're after:

A blog that looks like its a part of our site
A blog that integrates seamlessly with our site
A blog/admin interface that's cleaned up of alll the extra features we (or our client) won't need
With that in mind.. our goal is to develop a Wordpress theme that will "include" the rest of our site into it. Because we're using PHP and because this is all dynamic, it can all be done.

Alright, back to work!


5. Setup our theme workplace - Browse locally to wp-content/themes and copy/rename the "classic" theme. This is going to be our work area. Give it a name that reflects the site you intend to integrate it with. Edit the .css and change the "theme name" in the comments (not sure if this affects the installation, but it seemed to for me).. Then, upload your folder into your remote installation (your server). Finally, login to your Wordpress admin and then on over to "Presentation" and themes. "Install" your new theme. If its not there? Make sure you finished uploading it and that the folder has a unique name. Set your new theme to default, test it by visiting your blog (Your website and then /blog) and we're ready to roll.


6. Scary stuff: Modifying the theme - Alright, you've got the default working and that's great.. but we want it to look like OUR site! So, time to get messy.. For this, I'm using my own HEADER and my own CSS sheet. Alright, lets open up our theme's header.php (located in our theme's folder) and get busy. You should see all the lovely code. For this tutorial we only care about a few things. First, lets fix that CSS sheet:

Original:

<style type="text/css" media="screen">
@import url( <?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?> );
</style>

Our Mod:

<link href="http://www.yoursiteurl.com/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />


Great! Now lets keep going! Next we've got some CSS stuff to play with.