Creating a Simple Website for a Club

[GeoffF100]

I want to create a simple website with its own domain name for a club. Google found this, which looks simple enough:

https://websitesetup.org/

He recommends Bluehost in the US. Is that a good choice?

I would like the website to be in the club's name rather than my own. I expect that I will have to give a name and postal address, but the club will have a bank account and perhaps a debit card. Are there any complications here?

Do I have to do anything to ensure that the website is found by Google?

[kyu66]

I want to create a simple website with its own domain name for a club. Google found this, which looks simple enough:

https://websitesetup.org/

He recommends Bluehost in the US. Is that a good choice?

I would like the website to be in the club's name rather than my own. I expect that I will have to give a name and postal address, but the club will have a bank account and perhaps a debit card. Are there any complications here?

Do I have to do anything to ensure that the website is found by Google?

A lot depends on how technically minded the ultimate users/administrators of the website are.

I concur with the use of Wordpress (WP) as the website 'builder' . Like it or loathe it (it is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut for the majority of websites) but it is ubiquitous, lots of online help and importantly most (if not all) webhosting companies have either a one-click install or a fully managed Wordpress solution.

Savvy users/admins could go for a self-managed WP install, but for a bit more on the monthly fee, you can get a fully-managed WP solution which takes care of WP backups, keeping WP updated etc etc.

I have never used Bluehost but I assume they are all much of a muchness, and it all gets down to price. I have used 1and1 (now rebranded ionos), GoDaddy, 123-Reg, others I know have used tsohosts. I think these days they are all pretty much the same TBH.

Google finds everything, as soon as your website goes live, it will start to get visits from Google bots. If you want to make it more easily found e.g. appear higher on ranking lists then links to/from the site helps, but if the website is mainly used by club members then this is a non issue.

A family member has just gone through a similar process to update an club website from a hand-crafted one built 10 years ago which has never been updated because no-one at the club had any experience/knowledge to do it. They opted for a managed WP site from their existing webhost as the simplest, easiest to maintain solution.

NB. The reason for their update was because they got hacked and it was due to the aging software that was used (nothing to do with passwords etc, but an underlying flaw), hence the need to move to a solution which required zero input to keep the site up-to-date re security patches etc.

Re ownership, make sure it is all done through the club secretary with club name and bank accounts etc, you don't want a situation where the owner of the domain and webhosting packages etc are different people/organisations. I would check with the webhosting company on the specifics.

HTH
kyu66

[tjh290633]

I run a couple of websites hosted by tcohost.co.uk.

Economical and we have our own domains.

See what they have to offer. I use plain HTML to compose my pages, and FileZilla to upload them by FTP, but they may offer something to your liking.

TJH

[GeoffF100]

Thank you very much for that.

The technical level of the users/administrators is complete goons who can mess up anything, when they get around to it.

The main purpose of the website is recruit members. If people become aware of our existence, we want them to be able to find our website with Google. The website will then tell them what we do, and give them instructions on how to join.

Security probably is not a significant issue here. The site would only be a bulletin board with links to sites run by more savvy organisations. If we collect membership fees electronically, that would be done via a third party website.

[kyu66]

Thank you very much for that.

The technical level of the users/administrators is complete goons who can mess up anything, when they get around to it.

Sounds just like the situation I mentioned, no way they could use anything other than simple posting, even ftp'ing would confuse them.

The main purpose of the website is recruit members. If people become aware of our existence, we want them to be able to find our website with Google. The website will then tell them what we do, and give them instructions on how to join.

Nothing special needed for this, Google will index the site as long as it is public. You or other users could specifically do some Google searches - which in itself will boost ranking. Depending on the type of club, links to/from governing bodies or other related websites, and social media sites also helps improve 'searchability'. Also using keywords such as your location in site content is worth doing.

Security probably is not a significant issue here. The site would only be a bulletin board with links to sites run by more savvy organisations. If we collect membership fees electronically, that would be done via a third party website.

Security is not only about potential financial loss, there is also reputation and black-listing of your domain (which could also affect email addresses associated with the domain.) Do not underestimate it.

As mentioned previously, the club website was hacked, it resulted in anyone arriving at the site via a Google, Bing, Yahoo etc search being redirected to a site selling dodgy medicine even though their domain name appeared in the browser URI bar and some of their content was displayed. Not so bad, but it could easily have been a porn site or worse!

[Infrasonic]

Security is not only about potential financial loss, there is also reputation and black-listing of your domain (which could also affect email addresses associated with the domain.) Do not underestimate it.

Agreed.

You can get free domain blacklisting monitors, I currently use...https://mxtoolbox.com/NetworkTools.aspx
It will monitor one domain for free, updating every 7 days, and if you get any issues it will send you an email.
The paid for options tend to be quite pricey, but I haven't really shopped around much on that front. If I ever need multi domain monitoring plus all the other network monitoring services then I might investigate further on the price differentials.

[GeoffF100]

Thank you very much for that.

The technical level of the users/administrators is complete goons who can mess up anything, when they get around to it.

Sounds just like the situation I mentioned, no way they could use anything other than simple posting, even ftp'ing would confuse them.

The main purpose of the website is recruit members. If people become aware of our existence, we want them to be able to find our website with Google. The website will then tell them what we do, and give them instructions on how to join.

Nothing special needed for this, Google will index the site as long as it is public. You or other users could specifically do some Google searches - which in itself will boost ranking. Depending on the type of club, links to/from governing bodies or other related websites, and social media sites also helps improve 'searchability'. Also using keywords such as your location in site content is worth doing.

Security probably is not a significant issue here. The site would only be a bulletin board with links to sites run by more savvy organisations. If we collect membership fees electronically, that would be done via a third party website.

Security is not only about potential financial loss, there is also reputation and black-listing of your domain (which could also affect email addresses associated with the domain.) Do not underestimate it.

As mentioned previously, the club website was hacked, it resulted in anyone arriving at the site via a Google, Bing, Yahoo etc search being redirected to a site selling dodgy medicine even though their domain name appeared in the browser URI bar and some of their content was displayed. Not so bad, but it could easily have been a porn site or worse!

I take your point, security is important. What is your recommendation?

[GeoffF100]

Security is not only about potential financial loss, there is also reputation and black-listing of your domain (which could also affect email addresses associated with the domain.) Do not underestimate it.

Agreed.

You can get free domain blacklisting monitors, I currently use...https://mxtoolbox.com/NetworkTools.aspx
It will monitor one domain for free, updating every 7 days, and if you get any issues it will send you an email.
The paid for options tend to be quite pricey, but I haven't really shopped around much on that front. If I ever need multi domain monitoring plus all the other network monitoring services then I might investigate further on the price differentials.

That looks for too technical. I offered to knock up a site in Blogger. It would look like a thinly disguised blog, and be .blogspot.com rather than .org, but it would be free, do the job, and I could put it up in an hour. "Oh. No. We don't want that. We want a professional website." Someone then said they knew a professional who might do it for the cost of the domain......... Nothing materialised.

[kyu66]

I take your point, security is important. What is your recommendation?

Go for a solution that requires the least amount of admin - even if it costs a little more e.g £1 or £2 per month.

If you go down the Wordpress route than a 'managed' Wordpress solution takes care of a lot of software updates, backups etc

e.g. by way of example. other hosts will probably offer something similar
https://www.bluehost.com/wordpress/wordpress-hosting
https://uk.godaddy.com/hosting/wordpress-hosting

It is worth getting in touch with the providers to make sure their offerings align with what you actually want to achieve.

HTH

[tjh290633]

I run a couple of websites hosted by tcohost.co.uk.

Economical and we have our own domains.

See what they have to offer. I use plain HTML to compose my pages, and FileZilla to upload them by FTP, but they may offer something to your liking.

TJH

Correction to that, they are https://www.tsohost.com/ and they offer Wordpress hosting and other methods.

TJH

[GeoffF100]

Thank you both for that. tsohost looks the least expensive of the three, but it is minefield of first year pricing.

[Infrasonic]

Security is not only about potential financial loss, there is also reputation and black-listing of your domain (which could also affect email addresses associated with the domain.) Do not underestimate it.

Agreed.

You can get free domain blacklisting monitors, I currently use...https://mxtoolbox.com/NetworkTools.aspx
It will monitor one domain for free, updating every 7 days, and if you get any issues it will send you an email.
The paid for options tend to be quite pricey, but I haven't really shopped around much on that front. If I ever need multi domain monitoring plus all the other network monitoring services then I might investigate further on the price differentials.

That looks for too technical. I offered to knock up a site in Blogger. It would look like a thinly disguised blog, and be .blogspot.com rather than .org, but it would be free, do the job, and I could put it up in an hour. "Oh. No. We don't want that. We want a professional website." Someone then said they knew a professional who might do it for the cost of the domain......... Nothing materialised.

For clarity, the only bit you need to use is the top middle box. (All the other bits are the paid for options).

blacklist Check IP or host

Put your domain into it e.g Geoff100.org and it will offer to set up a free blacklist monitoring account. I put a real email address in for the alerts and faked the rest of the contact info like telephone numbers (000000000).
Takes about 1m to set up.

Online monitor looks like this.

[GeoffF100]

They decide to go with the Blogger option in the end. Free, and it does not look bad.