Dear Computer Lady,
I noticed you said you were re-doing your website in your newsletter. Obviously, we all like new things, but it seems like a lot of work.
What would be the advantage of redesigning an existing business website that has loads of information?
Will you transfer your archived information over? Just wondering because I have thought about doing the same for my website, but it’s old and has lots of links.
Thanks, as always, for all your great insight!
Steve
Dear Steve,
I first created my website in 1998 when I was first learning HTML and I wrote the HTML code myself.
That first website worked great for a while, but as the site grew, and I added articles from my newsletter, it got too big to update manually. Each time I added a page, I had to go in and change the menus on each page in the site.
At that time, I redesigned my site in a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) web design program from Serif Software named, WebPlus.
WebPlus worked great for me until my site got up to about the 200 page mark. Every time I added a page, WebPlus would automatically recreate all the links and menus for me so I could just concentrate on adding new pages.
Unfortunately, when my site got to be about 200 pages in size, it was too much for WebPlus to handle, and the program slowed down to a crawl. Eventually, I would create a new page and then have to let the computer work for a couple of hours while it recreated all the menus and uploaded the files.
That is when I discovered WordPress. WordPress is a blogging platform, but because it is made to organize past blog posts, it was perfect for my question and answer format. You can see the WordPress part of my site at www.askthecomputerlady.com/questions
The part of my website that I am redoing is the part that I can no longer edit with the WYSIWYG software. I need to be able to make small changes to the site when I need to, and I have some beautiful new graphics that are more modern that I want to use. I also want to go back to writing the HTML myself because there is so much more that I can do with it than I can do with a program that makes the code for me. The part of my site that I need to re-do is at www.asktcl.com As you can see, there are missing graphics and it needs to be updated.
Once I have re-created the site in HTML, I will not be stuck with a website that I can’t edit like I am now. All my questions and answers will still be there, along with new, updated information.
I hope this helps as you decide what to do with your site. If you are looking for someone to redesign your site for you, let me know and I would be happy to give you a quote.
Elizabeth
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Elizabeth Boston is a Web designer, Social Media Consultant and managing editor of, “Ask The Computer Lady”.
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