Easiest Way to Build a Website
 

What is the easiest way to build a website?
I need a Content Management System..
I have HTML knowledge...
I have little photoshop experience
I need a website with great future expandability, and it's used primarily for delivering information only..
Already have existing domain

Is there a software that can help me accomplish this?

You're going to need more than HTML. You're gonna need to know CSS, XHTML, some sort of PHP knowledge, JS if you want to add more functionality.

All the CMS's I know of need you to know most of the above. If you want basic and info delivering only, try WordPress.

Because if you don't want to learn said above, you could always get the free themes that are all over the net.

if you have no photoshop skills and want it to be presentable, consider blogger or anything else similar. you won't go far with just html; at least i think it'll be a nightmare to maintain once it gets past 10 pages.

most common tool for building websites is dreamweaver. if you don't know that already, i wouldn't recommend building one on your own.

if you do go the building route and want to implement a CMS, consider Cushy (http://www.cushycms.com/). never used it myself, but seems easy enough to implement; expect spending some time learning it though.

I don't think I should have taken upon this task in the beginning. =(

Thanks for the info so far guy.

Where can I get these themes? Do you mean CSS templates?

i can't use Wordpress, they said it lacks professionalism.

I can't use blogging sites. This site will be for a Non-profit, not the route they want me to take.

Yes, I know Dreamweaver, I prefer not to hard code. =(

There are a ton of nice CMS back-ends out there, you don't need to know CSS, PHP, XML, etc. to use them. Most will install and run with little to no knowledge of these things, and most you can install pre-made templates and modules with no knowledge either.

It certainly HELPS if you can hack some CSS and PHP to fine-tune and customize your look, but it's not generally NECESSARY.

Some others to look at: Joomla, Xoops, OpenCMS, PHP-Fusion, phpwcms... or just google "free php cms". Most of them use MySQL as well, and a few require you to create the database first (they'll build their own tables after that), so a little MySQL knowledge can be helpful.

If this is for a non-profit, I assume you're doing it on a volunteer basis? Maybe they shouldn't be so picky about "free" help... an old phrase about beggars being choosers comes to mind.

Install Wordpress
Install a nice theme
Write your content
Done

WordPress is so easy to use, even i can do it. i bought a domain name and host for two years for about $125.


you say it's just for delivering information(re:nothing fancy), definitely an easy route to go.

in his second/third post he already stated he can't use wordpress because it lacks professionalism and the website is for a non-profit organization.

this commercial is always aired during big main events (i.e. superbowl) but you can look up godaddy.com
the name is incredibly weird, but hopefully it doesn't show up in the link when you sign up a webpage.

how about typo3? its open source, and a decent cms. it's relatively easy to use, similar to editing a document in ms word.

Would hiring someone be better for your needs?

There aren't a lot of CMSs that are likely to look any more "professional" than Wordpress without either a custom theme template, or a LOT of work. This outfit is probably basing their veto of it based on one or two lame out-of-the-box, un-tweaked sites they've seen using it. Give'em a fully tweaked version and they'd never even know it's Wordpress.

Not saying that's the only way to go, just that their prejudice against a specific platform is based mainly on ignorance and someone really needs to get their head on straight.

And again I say, if they're a non-profit, they really don't have a lot of room to be so picky, especially if the OP is doing this on a volunteer basis. If Wordpress turns out to be the best thing for the job, then it should be the thing used.

I don't see how Wordpress can be "not professional enough." It gets the job done and it's not just for blogs. Lots of static sites use WP as the backend.

Whoever said WP is not professional enough obviously has no idea what he/she is talking about. I meet enough clients to hear this type of thing all day long. People who think they know but don't know a thing at all.

Much like people and cars! =D

Probably some suit who got told by a "friend" that WP was "unprofessional". Odds-on that this "friend" wanted the job for some outrageous sum, while the suit said they just wanted to use WP to keep it cheap, so the "friend" told him that it would be ugly and "unprofessional".