Options for a small community website builder, Squarespace/Wix or pay a designer ?

[Rob_B]

Hi all,

My local community council need a new website as the current one is from the 90s using Spangelfish (?!) As someone who knows how to build PCs clearly I'm the one to ask for how to also build a website.... it's not my thing I'm afraid and I don't have the time to dedicate to learning or supporting it though.

The options for something simple to post minutes, a few old documents and add news etc seem to be Squarespace or Wix however as a small operation the costs eat into an already tight budget.

I know I'm asking the usual "I want a good thing for free or near enough free" but can anyone help with suggestions? The alternative is to pay for someone to design and do all the work but the issues are probably a) Upfront large cost b) Ongoing support (they're not the most technical of folk)

Any help appreciated!

Rob

[jimbouk]

Re cost - places may have a not for profit / charity rate which could make it more affordable. You might also be able to find someone locally who (a) knows websites and (b) gets some 'charity says' from their employer who could do the initial setup/design with a couple of those.

I spent a joyous(!) day tidying up the wordpress site of a charity a few years ago; tweaking pages/layout/menus, getting the embedded maps to work after Google changed the API/started charging.

Despite the current nonsense going on, a manager wordpress instance might be sensible. Avoid lots of plugins/themes (the theme used for the above had an ongoing cost!) and keep it simple. There's auto update on wordpress / plugins these days and with auto renewing SSL certs and DNS setup even self hosted 'should' be straight forward, but you don't want to be the person they keep going to when they've done something silly and deleted it all. A managed instance should just mean they have to do content.

A decently themed wiki could be another option (we used wikidot for organising group holidays with 20 people, don't do anything with the layout however).

Sadly things do cost money,, I don't know if you can still get "have your own free website but it'll be covered in adverts" as an offering but you probably wouldn't want it! Best advice is probably find someone else to pass this onto if it's not in your expertise.

[ik9000]

I found wix quite user friendly. If you just want to use their tools and templates I would say anyone could do it. You have the option to script some html if you're more advanced, but for a basic community thing their customisable UX templates and interface should be fine.

I would help them get a colour scheme and fonts etc agreed then set up the landing page and any core sections. Then make a hidden template that the admin can duplicate and edit as the need arises for new material, updates etc.

[Percy1983]

How big is the site? Wordpress is a good platform generationally.

I am happy to host a wordpress install on my server deal for a small cost if not too big, of course I am not building/creating content or managing the domain. I usually keep admin access just in case if urgent security updates.

I say this as when I was starting out somebody did the same for me.

[Rob_B]

Pretty small site, news, minutes, calendar, a few files maybe, visitor numbers will likely be in the tens I imagine

That's a kind offer thanks, I really don't want to get stuck with the support and admin of it though and WordPress might do that to me?

As mentioned its really not my area of expertise so I have no idea how to do any of it

[AGTDenton]

Could a website like Fiverr or Upwork be of interest here?

Perhaps one way of avoiding a huge upfront cost is for the council to decide on a priority list of features, and then all the other features can follow in the future as the budget allows.

[Rob_B]

Could be an option yeah, or chatgpt it

I don't mind setting something up one time so maybe it'll end up being Wix, I'll have to dedicate some time to look at it.