As some of you may know, Bertie our mutt has had a cruciate ligament operation which means that for about 10-12 weeks he has to be kept strictly under control (no jumping, running, playing, short 5-minute walks). Some dogs can be kept in cages and can be left. He can’t – he suffers from major separation anxiety. So the kitchen has become his cage – and mine! Someone has to be with him the whole time, so he doesn’t do anything foolish. Obviously OH and I are sharing this, but I am going stir crazy, basically sitting at my computer in a corner in the kitchen playing computer games and reading the news and SF. And knowing that I’ve got another 8-10 weeks of this!!! So, it has occurred to me, there is something useful / purposeful I can do and that is create a marketing website for the photo club I belong to.
So I’m looking for suggestions please for a straightforward website builder.
I’ve used Wordpress for my gite and I find it too complicated. So I’m looking for something simpler. Also we are a small club so there is not a large budget.
This will be a marketing/information site with lots of photos and some text (French and English). It needs the facility to upload jpg/pdf presentation charts easily so that people can see what topics we cover in our weekly meetings.
I’d be grateful for thoughts/suggestions. Thanks
In reality there’s not much to choose - the basics are usually the same
Wix and Weebly are simple enough to use.
But who do you host the website/domain with? Most of those have web site builders included.
Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, Zyro are all drag and drop. They all have their foibles, but you get used to them once you get going. I have used Weebly for a few years now and I also have a small Zyro site just to try it out.
Thanks @chrisell and @Fleur . I wondered about Weebly. Does it matter that it’s an American company if I want a website that’s only aimed at the French market?
People looking at a Weebly site can’t tell its American. I feel that it may take a little longer to load pages at times that it might do if hosted in France. I believe it’s all hosted on Amazon. I haven’t come across a suitable French-based website builder.
You could try zyro.com by Hostinger, based in Lithuania. It is the cheapest as far as I know. It has lots of features. You can try it for 30 days then cancel if you don’t like it.
I know you say you have tried WordPress but personally I think it’s worth persevering with - the trouble with the “easy to use” hosted options such as Squarespace and Wix is that they are proprietary platforms, so if the system doesn’t do something you need as standard, you are out of luck. Also if they go out of business or put their prices up, or their servers turn out to be too slow, you can’t move the site elsewhere - you have to start from scratch.
WordPress is the world’s most popular site builder and as such has a gazillion of plugins that you can add to it if needed - mostly free. And it’s supported by every web hosting company out there, who will usually move your site across for you if you decide to switch.
I appreciate it can seem complicated at first sight, but there are lots of tutorials on YouTube to help you get your head around it.
Just a thought!!
Hello Chris, thanks for the thought, but I am so out of my depth with Wordpress - all these emails I get from them telling me there are problems on my site - I have NO idea what they are talking about, which add-ons I’m using or what.
What is a website for a photo club? It’s really, really simple and only needs a really really simple set up: pages of our best photos which we regularly update; this coming year’s calendar; some charts from the presentations we give to members; a bit about the club and where we meet; contact details. That’s it.
I don’t need gazillons of ad-ons and lots of tutorials. I actually need something that I can read or watch in an hour and then create the club site.
I think people who are into this have no idea just how deeply and totally incomprehensible it all is for those of us who do not want to become experts. For example, I would like to tell the club treasurer how much all of this is likely to cost us - it may not be worth doing. Do you think there is a clear, total, straightforward cost for everything - domain, build, hosting? No there’s not. And I’m looking at the reviews and really haven’t a clue which one is the best option for us.
Sorry - you’ve just caught me at the end of another frustrating day - none of this aimed at you. 
No affiliation to either the reviewing site nor the web builders
I don’t know about the others but this certainly isn’t true for Squarespace which I use a lot, it has so much ability for custom CSS etc these days that there’s little that I’ve found that isn’t possible one way or another. There are limitations but then there are for Wordpress but the direction of travel is generally away from Wordpress these days, perhaps foolishly, because it too has limitations and just isn’t where people want to be. Not that I’m suggesting it isn’t a great platform or one I don’t recommend, but I moved stuff away from there to elsewhere, Squarespace, wordflow and Shopify mainly.
Yes of course - I do understand it can be intimidating… it sounds like you may have a WordPress setup (maybe that someone else set up?) that’s got too much “stuff” installed (i.e. lots of plugins)?
FWIW, I am a professional photographer and have been building websites with WordPress for 15 years or so - if you’d like me to take a look at your current site and make some suggestions I am happy to do so.
It’s up to you - if you feel that something else is going to be easier to follow then of course go with that!
Thanks Chris for the offer - sending you a PM
Yeah, rather a lot seems to have been crammed into CSS these days so it can achieve what would previously have required JavaScript. One advantage of declarative systems is, of course, they are easier to verify.
But all of these things constrain you to a framework which has limitations eventually.
Have you looked at Ionos 1&1? They used to host my websites although I made mine with Serif webplus at the time.
Wix, I would stay well clear of, they add adverts and keep content behind their firewall so you have to ask to change content and pay to do so.
I thought that was only if you took their free version - I am expecting to pay - just a question of how much.
Its, WIX, still the last place I would go.
Thanks Billy, having initially assumed I would be going with either wix or weebly, I am now coming round to squarespace, so thanks for the link, this tends to confirm my thinking - very useful.
Personally I would avoid IONOS / 1and1 like the plague - I have used them in the past and wasn’t thrilled - and I have helped out other photographers who have had similar experiences. They used to charge extra for an SSL certificate, for example (though now I think they do include this).
If you want to build it yourself then Mobirise(.com) is one of the easiest and you can update yourself. I would avoid Wix et al as support is generally not personal. I design websites (libertybs.co.uk) if you are interested in having one built for you. If you go down the D-I-Y route I can host it for you £96/year). PM me if any questions.
Here is one I’ve just revamped for a long standing client back in the UK (I am in France).
dragonsdensoftplay.co.uk
Peter Jones…? 