Website change

turbo

We have a website but haven't got a clue how to make changes. The company that set up the website went out of business shortly afterwards so we have had no support. Can anyone point me in the direction of a guide explaining how to make changes to a website. I am thinking in terms of replacing photos and changing text.


Turbo

trcooke

Some advice from a friendly web developer:

Unfortunately this is not something that you're going to be able to pick up overnight. There's a fair amount of skill involved and even then you'd need to find out what tools your previous company used so you learn the right ones.

As a basis you'll need to learn HTML and CSS and then whatever other tools they have used. For example, Server Side scripting such as PHP, JSP or ASP (you can easily determine this by looking at the file extension of your web pages, e.g. index.php tells you they've used PHP), and Client Side scripting such as JavaScript. This site is an excellent resource for learning all the relevant tools. Even after years of working as a Software Engineer / Web Developer I, and many of my colleagues, still refer to this site regularly. http://www.w3schools.com/

The other hurdle for you to overcome is gaining access to your website hosting account. If you have the login details for this then you're ok but if your previous company took this with them then you'll have to get on to the hosting company and try and convince them that you're the owner of the site.

Unless you're really interested in learning all about this yourself then I'd recommend that you get in touch with another web developer to help you out. It'll be much much quicker and you'll get the support with it.

turbo

Thanks trcooke, Our website is now hosted by BT so we can access the files. When we moved to BT they were very helpful and managed to access all our website files. Having had a bad experience when our website was set up 10 years ago (and for which we paid £2000) I am reluctant to pay another company in case they go out of business aswell. I will speak to BT and see if they can help.

Turbo

trcooke

£2000 !! Wow. Things were crazy back then weren't they. Web Devs pretty much charged what they liked because nobody could argue with them.

Things are different today though, unless you've got a super complicated site then you'll not be needing to shell out anywhere near that now. If it's just minor updates and such then it'll probably not cost you much at all. There's lots of freelance web developers like myself that will happily take on jobs like this and they won't charge you the earth for it.

I'd be interested to hear what BT have to say. Please let us know what they have to say for themselves.

[Deleted User]

My advice.. pick up a demo of Contribute - http://www.adobe.com/products/contribute/

It's a web editor, by the people who made Dreamweaver, but designed for use by non-technical staff to edit existing websites. You should be able to change your site pretty easily with it (even easier if they used Dreamweaver)

esuhl

For very small changes (like swapping photos and changing text), you *might* be able to do it yourself with very little knowledge, though as trcooke says any complex changes will require a lot more expertise.

If you want to learn the basics yourself, this site is brilliant: http://www.w3schools.com

isofa

I doubt BT will say anything, they won't be interested in helping an end user adjust content on a hosted site, unless you've paid them for that service - and I doubt that's a service a company like BT offers at all.

If you aren't skilled in web development, or don't know the basics of HTML or your way around a designer program, I'd suggest you contact a good local web designer, who be able to make the changes to your files for you.

It is irrelevant if they go out of business, if you are just paying for updates as you go, as any good developer will be able to pick off where they left off, unless you are using a bespoke technology for your website. Just ensure you always have a copy of the HTML files and direct access to your FTP upload site, to pass on files to anyone who may need to make changes later on.

For a quality small website 2K isn't much at all, for what I charge out per day as a professionally, you wouldn't get much of my time for that - but I'm in a slightly different IT sector if someone is a good designer, and is creating a design from scratch, then coding the site, designing the graphics, you'll obviously be paying for their time, either on an hourly/day rate, or a fixed rate for the project.

For updates, you could negotiate either a one off fee when they are required, or a basic on-going contract - but minor updates shouldn't cost much at all - however it does all depend on the site design, content, technology, size and so forth.

turbo

Thanks trcooke ringo_24601, esuhl, isofa. I have made a note of the websites suggested. I have spoken to BT and they accessed my PC remotely but couldn't really help. My IT knowledge is so limited that we will have to get someone in. Thank you again for your helpful replies.

Turbo