[EdLUG] Hosting for small community website

[Ian Stuart]

On 26/04/2021 11:58, Keith Wyse wrote:
> Hi all;
> I've been 'volunteered' to look after a small community website for
> Grantshouse on the A1.
>
> I am planning to build the website on Wordpress.
> It won't have a lot of traffic, mainly just community activities,
> community council updates, pictures, in a blog sort of fashion.
> After lockdown, it may grow a bit more, but probably not by much.
>
> Does anyone here run a similar site?
> Is there hosting out there for such sites?
> This is my first time deploying a site.

Speaking as someone who's managed club websites for 25 years, a couple
of thoughts before you leap.

Before you think of the technology.... work out some of the requirements
you'll have - these have all caught me out, one way or another:

* How many people will be adding/editing content?
* Will you want to upload pictures?
* Will you want to upload documents? (yes, they can be different,
depending on how you want to interact with them)
* Will you want the menu to grow with the content, or that fundamentally
static?
* Do you need to partition data so some is restricted (members only,
committee only, woodland walks group only, etc)
* Is your information essentially blog-like, or is it more complex?
* If you're going with a free hosting platform, do you accept there will
be adverts pushed into your website?

With regard to choices, you have a wealth of options

* Wordpress is the clear & undisputed leader - 44% CMS market share (and
40% of all websites) says something.
* https://firstsiteguide.com/cms-stats/ is interesting reading - and
will tell you which options have free hosting. All these "bigger name"
organisations will have decent [tech] support, and reasonable up-time
stats.... just don't expect much in the way of hand-holding

--
Ian Stuart.
Perl & Python developer,
EDINA,
The University of Edinburgh.
🚙
http://edina.ac.uk/
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336.