Website hosts

[Ray H]

Our club's website is looking very dated and hasn't been updated for a while as it isn't the easiest thing to do.

 

As a result we're looking at options for starting again with a different host.

 

We're not a big club - circa 20 members - so cost is relevant.

 

Can anyone recommend a website host that offers a reasonably reliable service without costing an arm and a leg for it?

 

I doubt we'll need to make updates too frequently but hopefully it'll be a bit more often than our last posting on the present site which is dated 2013!

 

I have had some involvement with a different organisation that uses/used Wordpress which I found difficult to get to grips with so that's probably best ignored if possible.

 

Many thanks.  

[Bucoops]

My colleague runs a small business with hosting, building websites etc. I believe most sites he has done uses Wordpress - my limited experience with websites is that Wordpress is quite easy to use, but there are of course other options.

 

https://www.digibulb.co.uk/

[Miss Prism]

There are lots of hosting operations out there, some rather overpriced imo (memory is very cheap these days). Most of the hosting companies play on people's ignorance or wariness of 'building the site yourself', and offer a range of starting templates and bolt-ons, so If you can handle your own code, so much the better. I suggest you avoid anywhere where you don't have complete ownership of your website code. Companies offer attractive starting rates for hosting (1&1, aka Ionos, is offering £1/month for 12 months, at the moment). After the 12-month start, most prices for a single domain are consistent at about £60 or £70 p.a. (ex-VAT). It's a bit of a cartel, in my view.

 

There is also the option of 'free' hosting, but most involve the display of ads and/or various degrees of unfriendliness or complexity or flakiness. Here's quite a good guide:

https://www.techradar.com/uk/web-hosting/best-free-web-hosting

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Miss Prism

[AMJ]

Mine are hosted on Web Wiz and have used Zen in the past.  It depends upon the complexity or the technologies used for your site as to which is the best package and host to use.

 

These days as a small club you might be better running a FaceBook page as that will be most economical.  An advert for say your exhibition could be a pinned post which will stay at the top.  Many google searches these days bring up FB pages.

[Quarryscapes]

I use HostPresto for my sites, all are based on Wordpress which is pretty powerful and readily customisable to suit all sorts of applications. It helps to have a little knowledge of CSS or PHP to make a really good site, but it's plenty accessible enough for beginners to manage something respectable.