Question about CMS/Blog for non-coding e-business owner

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1

Hi all,

My daughter has a growing online business: http://blossomweddingflowers.co.nz/

Until now I’ve been co-opted to help with coding and design but I’m getting on and won’t be around to hand-hold forever.

She’s stubborn as hell and wants to do it all herself but is admant she does not want to learn Dreamweaver!!

I was researching what her options might be so she can publish, administrate, edit etc without having to hire a web designer (she’s on a tight budget at the moment).

She seems to have fallen for Wix but I’m not at all sure about Flash-based design and the impact this may have on her business.

So I’m back to a CMS or Blog (with comments turned off) :slight_smile:

I would really appreciate suggestions and comments. My own minimal blog experience starts and stops at WordPress.

Many thanks!

2

I absolutely agree that she should go wordpress. Its absolutely amazing what can be done with it :slight_smile:

3

Thanks createdevelop. My daughter is way more stubborn than I am, but yes, I’ve passed on the recommendations for Wordpress. Over to her now :slight_smile:

4

Thanks ralph.m – I’ll pass that on and I much appreciate your help and time.

5

Thanks Ralph.M

This is Wix home page: http://www.wix.com/

Some Wix websites can be found here: http://www.wix.com/news/testimonials

John

6

Ah, I see, those are the flash sites you were talking about.

I would avoid this like the plague. Flash sites tend to be very inaccessible. If you want to steer your daughter away from them, tell her that here sites will be blank on iPhones and iPads, making her site very uncool! With Apple turning away from Flash, I fear the end is nigh for that technology. If not now, in a few years her site could be completely defunct if she goes down that route.

And even now, if someone has Flash turned off, or if their plugin is not up to date, they won’t be able to access the site properly.

AND, it won’t rank well in Google.

AND it will probably be inaccessible to users with disabilities (who use screen readers etc)…

7

Thanks Ralph.M

The site she already runs was created in Dreamweaver using extensions for the main menu and image galleries. The gallery extention in particular works well but is a real pain to use for big galleries, because of (window’s/dreamweaver’s) way of handling the panels and info used by extensions.

So a sub-question to my original one is: is it possible to replicate this or a similar gallery structure in Wordpress, since we won’t be able to use these extentions?

May I also ask what you think of Wix type web sites?

8

Yes, there are lots of very nice gallery plugins for WP, which will be a lot easier to use than the Dw kind.

May I also ask what you think of Wix type web sites?

Unfortunately, I’ve never heard of them. Do you have a link to an example?

9

And so it should! WP is by far the best option, so it’s great that you are laready familiar with it. It has far outstripped the other options, so I’d recommend installing this for her. You can easily replicate the look of the site in WP, and she’ll be good to go. AND, if she does need help in future, the fact that she’s using WP will give her the best chance that the web people out there will be able to step in and help.

10

If she is set on flash, there are ways to add flash into wordpress and its templates.

If she wants a website that will still be relevant next year, she should use wordpress. The way things are going, Flash will probably change into something of a relic in 12 months time.