Monday, May 7, 2012

My new website and website hosts

I've been working on updating my website the last few weeks.  I used to have my website with OfficeLive, part of MSN.  Then they wrote to let me know they'd be closing OfficeLive and transitioning to a new service with fees attached.  Bummer!  I'd been so satisfied with their service up til then, especially because it was free.

So I began researching other website hosts: Artspan.com, 1and1.com, GoDaddy (no way - their ads are way too sexist), GreenGeeks.com, and Wix.com.  I decided not to go with Artspan b/c their fees looked too high.  1and1 I'd been with before and couldn't really make heads or tails of their templates.  I loved GreenGeeks - their customer service was fantastic!  And their fees weren't too bad.  The only problem was that their template for non html-saavy people was terrible - clunky, slow, frustrating, and not sophisticated enough.  They have tons of Word Press plug ins you can use, but I couldn't figure out how to even begin with those, so I had to sadly bit adieu to them.  Darn it.  I really liked their service.  It only took me 30 seconds to reach a real live person who spoke English with an accent similar to mine.  They would have talked me through figuring out the Word Press, and I thought about doing that, but I really want to paint - not spend my time designing my website, so I canceled that service.

A friend told me about Wix.com.  She has done 3 websites with them and loves all they have to offer.  I checked it out.  They have tons of very easy templates which are perfect for pure beginners.  They offer a free site that has decent capabilities, but I decided to pay for more services so I can sell my work online as well.  So the last few weeks I've been working on transitioning into that new site - so much to learn!  I got frustrated as heck and left it for a week because I couldn't figure out how to get part of it to work.  Then today I took the time to start over almost from the beginning and managed to not make the same mistakes again.  After 9 hours of work, I have a website that is functional and manageable.  I have lots more to do - like including a shopping cart! - I haven't begun to figure out how to do that - but at least it's good enough for now!  Each set of software for each hosting site is different and takes hours to learn and probably months or years to master.  I'm glad to have this done!

If you're curious, you can take a look and let me know what you think:  www.susansinger.com.  I welcome feedback, especially if you find something which isn't working!

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