As most of you all know, I am a doula and Childbirth Educator. I have my services advertised locally, but most of my clients come from word of mouth. I would really like to have a web page to attract more clients. I really am a bit slow when it comes to computer stuff, and I know there are several web savvy people on OS. So I am wondering if any of you have recommendations on how to create a website cheaply and easily?

I would recommend movabletype.com. You can download it for free, there are templates you can use for free that are already well designed, and it's easy to maintain. Then you just need to host it somewhere. We use hostgater and have been happy with them. They're $10 a month (or slightly more, they may just have gone up).

Mcglory- I checked out the site-it looks really complicated. Maybe I'm a little slow. I think I might need some help figuring it out. Maybe I'm in over my head. This might have to be put on the back burner till my geek hubby can take a look at it. Thank you for the recommendations though.

Hey, sorry to not give enough info. Basically you download the (free) program and then choose a template and enter information. It's really not that tricky, I don't think, but maybe I'm not the best judge.

I believe you when you say it's not tricky- I'm just not very computer savvy at all. Jimbo would probably be able to help out later this evening when the kids are in bed...probably a better time to fiddle with this anyways. Thank you.

I would say that something simpler than Movable Type is Wordpress, which we here use at Offsprung. Same deal with lots of templates. You have to upload/decompress all the files to your web host to make it work. That's the hard/geeky part. But if you get somebody to set it up for you it should go pretty smoothly.

Hi Sasychica

Both MovableType and WordPress are basically blogging software. I'm guessing that you might want something even more basic - A simple static page, with contact information, a couple of references and a list of services.

The easiest way to set this up (assuming you want your own domain / URL) is to get a cheap but reliable hosting service. A good hosting service comes with all the software you need (I would personally recommend http://a2hosting.com). Then simply log in, and go to their page builder tools (or equivalent). This will present you with a simple visual interface to set up your page. Enter all the content you want and you are done. No need to mess with templates etc.

The nice thing is that you can always add blogging functionality as you go. And feel free to contact me (or other techie OSers) if you get stuck in the process.

Sas-

All of the advice you've received is right on the money. If you're adventurous, you can try your hand at some HTML, but I see no reason to do that unless you have a burning desire to try and learn something new. At any rate, feel free to contact me as well. I'll be happy to help, time permitting.

Sasy, unless you want to do constantly updating content, Movable Type and Wordpress are probably more complicated than you need. If you do, they are both excellent solutions.

If you just want a static page or two (a page or four with a banner/logo, a menu to navigate, shreddd's advice is probably more useful.

Honestly, the easiest place to spend a lot of money is custom graphics. But they are very, very pretty. Feel free to email me privately if you want to talk more detail, I've been doing this professionally for about a decade now (not the art, but the coding "behind" a website).

Basically, you need to answer these questions:
1) What do I want this website to do for me?
2) What am I going to put there (and will it change frequently, infrequently or never?)
3) Am I okay with a boiler-plate template as long as the information is all there, or do I want an artistic touch?
4) What will my website be called (so are you going to be www.birtheducation.edu or yournamehere.wordpress.com, etc. etc.)

Anyway, like I said, message me through offsprung, I am happy to wax poetic and give lots of free advice.

On the off chance that you end up with Drupal or need a content managed site GoodBuddy can help. He made my sites.

Oh and if you need design help let me know.

Also, Etsy.com is great place to find really cheap design work.

Ooh... thanks for the suggestion for etsy.com Leighbie. We can do the stylesheets and things here, I just think they're a giant pain in the ass.

Wow your guys are great! Now I know I have a few things to think about before I jump into a web page. I think you all have great advise. Any great witty birthing web names for a doula or childbirth professional? I think that will be the hardest for me to come up with since I have just been using my name thus far.

sassy - you may want to consider using a blog instead of a standard webpage. It would be an interesting opportunity to easily upload content and get positive birthing stories and pictures (with parental permission) of births you assist in. You can also put your full contact info on the page. And better position yourself as a Douala expert by blogging about topics parents-to-be looking for a Douala would be interested in.

You can still get your own domain name with blogger or wordpress, but you really wouldn't even need it.