06-12-2009, 11:34 AM
You should first identify exactly what you want out of your website. Do you have relatively static content that will only be updated occasionally? Do you have dynamic content that would be best served from a backend database? Do you want a storefront with e-commerce?
Sketch out a rough 'wireframe' of every page on your site , its content, and how they hook together. This will help you identify what you need. It sounds to me like you need something dynamic (like a CMS) at the very least or even e-commerce if this is a business selling products.
From there you need to look at how you will host the website. Your hosting plays a big part in how you can implement the website. If you have a static website any cheap hosting will do. If you want some backend capability, all of the cheaper website hosting runs php as your only real option for backend languages. php has many CMS frameworks and ecommerce applications you can take advantage of. A decent php hosting plan will be under $20/ month. If you would like to run a java or .net backend which are more powerful , but hosting is more expensive and there may not be as many open source frameworks to use. Usually this hosting is $40 or so.
after you get your hosting, if youre willing to learn and do this stuff yourself then do what gerald said and get a book and stat reading tutorials on the web. Plan to spend a lot of time learning this stuff! Its actually really fun to learn and build things once you get past the first wave of being overwhelmed. If it turns out you hate it then its time to look at paying someone to do it. Plan to pay at least $75 - $100 / hr for a good developer.
most frameworks have lots of good looking themes that you can utilize so you wont have to do your own graphic design or layout. Just put your logo and text at the top and go.
Sketch out a rough 'wireframe' of every page on your site , its content, and how they hook together. This will help you identify what you need. It sounds to me like you need something dynamic (like a CMS) at the very least or even e-commerce if this is a business selling products.
From there you need to look at how you will host the website. Your hosting plays a big part in how you can implement the website. If you have a static website any cheap hosting will do. If you want some backend capability, all of the cheaper website hosting runs php as your only real option for backend languages. php has many CMS frameworks and ecommerce applications you can take advantage of. A decent php hosting plan will be under $20/ month. If you would like to run a java or .net backend which are more powerful , but hosting is more expensive and there may not be as many open source frameworks to use. Usually this hosting is $40 or so.
after you get your hosting, if youre willing to learn and do this stuff yourself then do what gerald said and get a book and stat reading tutorials on the web. Plan to spend a lot of time learning this stuff! Its actually really fun to learn and build things once you get past the first wave of being overwhelmed. If it turns out you hate it then its time to look at paying someone to do it. Plan to pay at least $75 - $100 / hr for a good developer.
most frameworks have lots of good looking themes that you can utilize so you wont have to do your own graphic design or layout. Just put your logo and text at the top and go.