New Website Help

[Breakfast Diva]

I'm going to create a separate website for our new intimate wedding/elopements. I've built a template website before (not b&b), but this time I want to do a Word Press site. I'm a total newbie to WP.
I'm planning on the site to be only a few pages. Do just download the regular WP or is there a' theme' that would be good for this?
I've chosen a domain name and will be using 1and1
All suggestions are appreciated!I
I plan on also adding a page to my b&b website, but since I use a design company, all added pages to that site will cost $$$. I will have links on the b&b page to the separate wedding site. Another reason for having a separate site is that we will offer a package where lodging is not included. In the summer, last minute elopements often will find our rooms full, but we can still do a ceremony.
Thanks!

 

[swirt]

Just downloading the regular wordpress is the start. After that you can either choose from the themes in the theme gallery of look for a custom paid theme company. (Empty Nest has one theme company that she really likes)

 

[Arks]

Whatever theme you install, it's just a template. You can customize it however you wish.
Just make sure it's a fully responsive theme, so it automatically handles any screen size. I use one called Coherence but there are probably better ones out there now (Coherence is a couple of years old). These days that's SO important, and many of our friends here suffer a little because they don't have responsive websites that work on phones as well as on desktops.
One other tip is, set your site up so you can give your pages names like "mywebsite.com/rooms" rather than something like "mywebsite.com/?page_id=471".
Just be sure the theme is responsive, not just "promised to be responsive some day". I'm thinking of one of our friends here who worked hard and finished her new site months ago, with the promise that it will soon be updated to be responsive, and it's still not. That's not acceptable.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Just downloading the regular wordpress is the start. After that you can either choose from the themes in the theme gallery of look for a custom paid theme company. (Empty Nest has one theme company that she really likes).

Thanks swirt. I just purchased the domain name and hosting, so I'll download the regular wordpress. I've searched previous threads and got a couple names EN has suggested. It's kind of overwhelming.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Whatever theme you install, it's just a template. You can customize it however you wish.
Just make sure it's a fully responsive theme, so it automatically handles any screen size. I use one called Coherence but there are probably better ones out there now (Coherence is a couple of years old). These days that's SO important, and many of our friends here suffer a little because they don't have responsive websites that work on phones as well as on desktops.
One other tip is, set your site up so you can give your pages names like "mywebsite.com/rooms" rather than something like "mywebsite.com/?page_id=471".
Just be sure the theme is responsive, not just "promised to be responsive some day". I'm thinking of one of our friends here who worked hard and finished her new site months ago, with the promise that it will soon be updated to be responsive, and it's still not. That's not acceptable..

Thanks Arkie for the page name tip. I'll probably have more questions once I've downloaded wordpress.
If this small site goes well, who knows, I might try my hand on doing my b&b site some day.

 

[EmptyNest]

Whatever theme you install, it's just a template. You can customize it however you wish.
Just make sure it's a fully responsive theme, so it automatically handles any screen size. I use one called Coherence but there are probably better ones out there now (Coherence is a couple of years old). These days that's SO important, and many of our friends here suffer a little because they don't have responsive websites that work on phones as well as on desktops.
One other tip is, set your site up so you can give your pages names like "mywebsite.com/rooms" rather than something like "mywebsite.com/?page_id=471".
Just be sure the theme is responsive, not just "promised to be responsive some day". I'm thinking of one of our friends here who worked hard and finished her new site months ago, with the promise that it will soon be updated to be responsive, and it's still not. That's not acceptable..

It is responsive now...if I know who you are talking about

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Last night I ordered my new domain and hosting on 1 and 1. This morning, I have an e-mail saying that they need this information:
- Accounts ordered under Personal name/information:
One of the following Photo ID's issued by a government agency:
Driver's License
Passport
National ID
Immigration Visa
Military ID
- Accounts ordered under a Business name/information:
One of the above Personal Photo ID's for the listed administrative contact in your order, and one of the following:
Business Registration Documents
Articles of Incorporation
Tax Documents
Other forms of ID will be reviewed and accepted at our discretion.
Does this seem right to you? I ordered it under our corporation name. There's NO WAY I'm going to give them tax documents!!! Why do they need all this? I've never had to do this with any other domain I've bought.

 

[EmptyNest]

Last night I ordered my new domain and hosting on 1 and 1. This morning, I have an e-mail saying that they need this information:
- Accounts ordered under Personal name/information:
One of the following Photo ID's issued by a government agency:
Driver's License
Passport
National ID
Immigration Visa
Military ID
- Accounts ordered under a Business name/information:
One of the above Personal Photo ID's for the listed administrative contact in your order, and one of the following:
Business Registration Documents
Articles of Incorporation
Tax Documents
Other forms of ID will be reviewed and accepted at our discretion.
Does this seem right to you? I ordered it under our corporation name. There's NO WAY I'm going to give them tax documents!!! Why do they need all this? I've never had to do this with any other domain I've bought..

NOne of their business. I have not heard very good things about 1 & 1.

 

[Madeleine]

Last night I ordered my new domain and hosting on 1 and 1. This morning, I have an e-mail saying that they need this information:
- Accounts ordered under Personal name/information:
One of the following Photo ID's issued by a government agency:
Driver's License
Passport
National ID
Immigration Visa
Military ID
- Accounts ordered under a Business name/information:
One of the above Personal Photo ID's for the listed administrative contact in your order, and one of the following:
Business Registration Documents
Articles of Incorporation
Tax Documents
Other forms of ID will be reviewed and accepted at our discretion.
Does this seem right to you? I ordered it under our corporation name. There's NO WAY I'm going to give them tax documents!!! Why do they need all this? I've never had to do this with any other domain I've bought..

Given the number of spammy / scammy websites that show up everyday it doesn't seem like anyone is really reviewing the info!

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Last night I ordered my new domain and hosting on 1 and 1. This morning, I have an e-mail saying that they need this information:
- Accounts ordered under Personal name/information:
One of the following Photo ID's issued by a government agency:
Driver's License
Passport
National ID
Immigration Visa
Military ID
- Accounts ordered under a Business name/information:
One of the above Personal Photo ID's for the listed administrative contact in your order, and one of the following:
Business Registration Documents
Articles of Incorporation
Tax Documents
Other forms of ID will be reviewed and accepted at our discretion.
Does this seem right to you? I ordered it under our corporation name. There's NO WAY I'm going to give them tax documents!!! Why do they need all this? I've never had to do this with any other domain I've bought..

NOne of their business. I have not heard very good things about 1 & 1.
.

I did search posts here for hosting and it's one that swirt recommends and a couple other people use them also.

 

[EmptyNest]

Last night I ordered my new domain and hosting on 1 and 1. This morning, I have an e-mail saying that they need this information:
- Accounts ordered under Personal name/information:
One of the following Photo ID's issued by a government agency:
Driver's License
Passport
National ID
Immigration Visa
Military ID
- Accounts ordered under a Business name/information:
One of the above Personal Photo ID's for the listed administrative contact in your order, and one of the following:
Business Registration Documents
Articles of Incorporation
Tax Documents
Other forms of ID will be reviewed and accepted at our discretion.
Does this seem right to you? I ordered it under our corporation name. There's NO WAY I'm going to give them tax documents!!! Why do they need all this? I've never had to do this with any other domain I've bought..

NOne of their business. I have not heard very good things about 1 & 1.
.

I did search posts here for hosting and it's one that swirt recommends and a couple other people use them also.
.

Maybe I am thinking of another hosting company. If SWIRT said ok, then it must be ok.

 

[dumitru]

Personally I've been using mostly HostGator and always recommend it to my customers. At least I've never heard customers complain about them, so there's that.
As for domains, for the last 2 years I've been with name.com.
If you decide to go with a premium WordPress theme, then there are a lot of digest-type websites that collect information about all the latest releases.
Probably the most popular one is PremiumWP.com, it has screen-shots, prices, links, etc.
As Arkansawyer mentioned, make sure that you review all the available options in Dashboard > Settings. Probably the most important thing to do is set a good structure (options are available) in Settings > Permalinks.

After that, I recommend installing and setting up these plugins:
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
2. Jetpack by WordPress.com
3. WP Super Cache

These are probably the 3 must-have for any website.

 

[gillumhouse]

Last night I ordered my new domain and hosting on 1 and 1. This morning, I have an e-mail saying that they need this information:
- Accounts ordered under Personal name/information:
One of the following Photo ID's issued by a government agency:
Driver's License
Passport
National ID
Immigration Visa
Military ID
- Accounts ordered under a Business name/information:
One of the above Personal Photo ID's for the listed administrative contact in your order, and one of the following:
Business Registration Documents
Articles of Incorporation
Tax Documents
Other forms of ID will be reviewed and accepted at our discretion.
Does this seem right to you? I ordered it under our corporation name. There's NO WAY I'm going to give them tax documents!!! Why do they need all this? I've never had to do this with any other domain I've bought..

NOne of their business. I have not heard very good things about 1 & 1.
.

I did search posts here for hosting and it's one that swirt recommends and a couple other people use them also.
.

Maybe I am thinking of another hosting company. If SWIRT said ok, then it must be ok.
.

Swirt set me up with 1and1 for my hosting and I had the rail-trail site moved to them for hosting - was not asked for any of that. I buy my domain names from that well-known Go Papa site, cheap and have not had any of that stuff. And I JUST bought my elopement domain a couple months ago. Still have to work on getting that done - but I have my domain!!

 

[EmptyNest]

Personally I've been using mostly HostGator and always recommend it to my customers. At least I've never heard customers complain about them, so there's that.
As for domains, for the last 2 years I've been with name.com.
If you decide to go with a premium WordPress theme, then there are a lot of digest-type websites that collect information about all the latest releases.
Probably the most popular one is PremiumWP.com, it has screen-shots, prices, links, etc.
As Arkansawyer mentioned, make sure that you review all the available options in Dashboard > Settings. Probably the most important thing to do is set a good structure (options are available) in Settings > Permalinks.

After that, I recommend installing and setting up these plugins:
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
2. Jetpack by WordPress.com
3. WP Super Cache

These are probably the 3 must-have for any website..

Do not use any cache program until you have completed your site or you will run into issues as you work on your site. I have never heard a good thing about JetPack. Never use it. See no point. I always delete it from Go Daddy accounts. Maybe some are successful with it..but many problems with incompatibility with some themes.
YES YES..on Wordpress SEO

 

[Arks]

And there you go: the world of computers. I love JetPack. Would not live without it. No compatibility issues. It does SO many things for me, and does them well.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Personally I've been using mostly HostGator and always recommend it to my customers. At least I've never heard customers complain about them, so there's that.
As for domains, for the last 2 years I've been with name.com.
If you decide to go with a premium WordPress theme, then there are a lot of digest-type websites that collect information about all the latest releases.
Probably the most popular one is PremiumWP.com, it has screen-shots, prices, links, etc.
As Arkansawyer mentioned, make sure that you review all the available options in Dashboard > Settings. Probably the most important thing to do is set a good structure (options are available) in Settings > Permalinks.

After that, I recommend installing and setting up these plugins:
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
2. Jetpack by WordPress.com
3. WP Super Cache

These are probably the 3 must-have for any website..

Personally I've been using mostly HostGator and always recommend it to my customers. At least I've never heard customers complain about them, so there's that.
As for domains, for the last 2 years I've been with name.com.
If you decide to go with a premium WordPress theme, then there are a lot of digest-type websites that collect information about all the latest releases.
Probably the most popular one is PremiumWP.com, it has screen-shots, prices, links, etc.
As Arkansawyer mentioned, make sure that you review all the available options in Dashboard > Settings. Probably the most important thing to do is set a good structure (options are available) in Settings > Permalinks.

After that, I recommend installing and setting up these plugins:
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
2. Jetpack by WordPress.com
3. WP Super Cache

These are probably the 3 must-have for any website.

dumitru,
I really appreciate your help and suggestions here, but I didn't appreciate the offline contact solicitation from you. The best thing you can do is to continue posting your thoughts and help so we get to know you and your work. It's a 2 way street on this forum, we help each other, but if you contact members whenever we're talking about a new project, I'm afraid it won't go well for you.

 

[EmptyNest]

And there you go: the world of computers. I love JetPack. Would not live without it. No compatibility issues. It does SO many things for me, and does them well..

Glad to hear that I know GO Dad dy includes with it's wordpress. Maybe I will investigate further but have not needed it in the past.
Here's what a guru friend of mine had to say about it. Just an FYI.
"It has some useful utilities, but every feature in it can also be found in other free plugins. Jetpack more or less aggregates all the functions you noted into one macro plugin.
The issue has been in the past that Jetpack often has interfered with premium theme functions as its coding assumed that it would be the only function in the theme employing any advanced js or css classes. Really, like most other wp.com products, it was designed to create obstacles such that users, after pulling their hair out for a while in frustration, decided to head over to wordpress.com to buy their services.
We have many threads on the forum about Jetpack usage with our theme. I think the current assessment is that most of the basic features work with it, but possibly one or two of its components are problematic.
Our recommendation is that if one installs it, one should do so only after all the other components of a site are completed (if possible, which is not always the case). Then activate the desired Jetpack components one by one, checking all your site pages for full functionality between each activation."

 

[Arks]

And there you go: the world of computers. I love JetPack. Would not live without it. No compatibility issues. It does SO many things for me, and does them well..

Glad to hear that I know GO Dad dy includes with it's wordpress. Maybe I will investigate further but have not needed it in the past.
Here's what a guru friend of mine had to say about it. Just an FYI.
"It has some useful utilities, but every feature in it can also be found in other free plugins. Jetpack more or less aggregates all the functions you noted into one macro plugin.
The issue has been in the past that Jetpack often has interfered with premium theme functions as its coding assumed that it would be the only function in the theme employing any advanced js or css classes. Really, like most other wp.com products, it was designed to create obstacles such that users, after pulling their hair out for a while in frustration, decided to head over to wordpress.com to buy their services.
We have many threads on the forum about Jetpack usage with our theme. I think the current assessment is that most of the basic features work with it, but possibly one or two of its components are problematic.
Our recommendation is that if one installs it, one should do so only after all the other components of a site are completed (if possible, which is not always the case). Then activate the desired Jetpack components one by one, checking all your site pages for full functionality between each activation."
.

Glad to hear that I know GO Dad dy includes with it's wordpress. Maybe I will investigate further but have not needed it in the past.
Here's what a guru friend of mine had to say about it. Just an FYI.
Our recommendation is that if one installs it, one should do so only after all the other components of a site are completed (if possible, which is not always the case). Then activate the desired Jetpack components one by one, checking all your site pages for full functionality between each activation."

That's good advice. You just activate the components you want and can do them one-by-one to check compatibility, same as you'd do if you got all the utilities one by one from other sources.
It's just really convenient to have them all in one package controlled from one control center and all kept updated by just updating Jetpack, rather than having to deal with a bunch of separate utilities to keep updated.
Here are some of the components I use the most:

• Great display of all my WordPress stats, stuff I'd otherwise have to go to Google Analytics to check. Analytics gives a lot more info, but for quick daily looks, JetPack tells me where people came from to get to my site, what search terms they used, what pages they looked at, and what links they clicked from my site.
• Lets me easily insert shortcode for columns, dividers like lines and lines with link back to top of page, dropcaps, and other stuff I couldn't do with the WP editor alone.
• Adds the FB Like and Share buttons and Twitter buttons to the bottom of each blog post, as well as other posts.
• Good spell checker and grammar suggester.
• Provides a good contact form for my Contact Us page.

And a lot more

 

[EmptyNest]

And there you go: the world of computers. I love JetPack. Would not live without it. No compatibility issues. It does SO many things for me, and does them well..

Glad to hear that I know GO Dad dy includes with it's wordpress. Maybe I will investigate further but have not needed it in the past.
Here's what a guru friend of mine had to say about it. Just an FYI.
"It has some useful utilities, but every feature in it can also be found in other free plugins. Jetpack more or less aggregates all the functions you noted into one macro plugin.
The issue has been in the past that Jetpack often has interfered with premium theme functions as its coding assumed that it would be the only function in the theme employing any advanced js or css classes. Really, like most other wp.com products, it was designed to create obstacles such that users, after pulling their hair out for a while in frustration, decided to head over to wordpress.com to buy their services.
We have many threads on the forum about Jetpack usage with our theme. I think the current assessment is that most of the basic features work with it, but possibly one or two of its components are problematic.
Our recommendation is that if one installs it, one should do so only after all the other components of a site are completed (if possible, which is not always the case). Then activate the desired Jetpack components one by one, checking all your site pages for full functionality between each activation."
.

Glad to hear that I know GO Dad dy includes with it's wordpress. Maybe I will investigate further but have not needed it in the past.
Here's what a guru friend of mine had to say about it. Just an FYI.
Our recommendation is that if one installs it, one should do so only after all the other components of a site are completed (if possible, which is not always the case). Then activate the desired Jetpack components one by one, checking all your site pages for full functionality between each activation."

That's good advice. You just activate the components you want and can do them one-by-one to check compatibility, same as you'd do if you got all the utilities one by one from other sources.
It's just really convenient to have them all in one package controlled from one control center and all kept updated by just updating Jetpack, rather than having to deal with a bunch of separate utilities to keep updated.
Here are some of the components I use the most:

• Great display of all my WordPress stats, stuff I'd otherwise have to go to Google Analytics to check. Analytics gives a lot more info, but for quick daily looks, JetPack tells me where people came from to get to my site, what search terms they used, what pages they looked at, and what links they clicked from my site.
• Lets me easily insert shortcode for columns, dividers like lines and lines with link back to top of page, dropcaps, and other stuff I couldn't do with the WP editor alone.
• Adds the FB Like and Share buttons and Twitter buttons to the bottom of each blog post, as well as other posts.
• Good spell checker and grammar suggester.
• Provides a good contact form for my Contact Us page.

And a lot more
.

See..the theme I use most of the time, has tons of built in shortcodes so I have no need for it, it also has all the social icons and a great contact forms built into it as well as Google Maps and a zillion other things....So other than stats which I use GA for...I have no need for it.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

[h2]
EMPTYNEST ROCKS!!!![/h2]