Best way to go?

[MikeTX]

I'm looking to build a website for my dogs, the website will be to promote my Sire and litters between my Sire and Dam (we have Labradors). I will also use the site to promote my friends dogs too (Goldens). I want to have a homepage, about us page, our dog pages and then in the future a section where others can post stud dogs and litters (they will only be able to have access to their listings).

What is the best route to go. Anything recommended to use for this? The last part is not a must right off the bat ]but in the near future.

I have hosting and can have most software installed by asking.

Suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[mlseim]

Sounds like a WordPress site would work good for you. You can get a webhost account and domain name account (example, with GoDaddy) or any other webhost. They can install wordpress into your website automatically. You will then find a wp theme that works for your dog site and then plugins to handle members only posting or viewing. You'll have to learn how to use wordpress, but there are tons of tutorials online.

[MikeTX]

So this is what i started on, barely, a few months ago but the template seemed awkward to work on.

Hunting Club |.

Ive been told the template is out dated and should go with a more modern one. The dogs are Gun Dogs/Hunting Dogs.

Input would also be great if people think 1 page per our personal dogs is better or if 1 page for all of our personal.

Im open for suggestions and input.

[mlseim]

I think that's a perfectly good template. It's even responsive and looks good on small screens. The main page slider has a vignette (hazy border). Maybe someone thinks that is "out-dated"? That can be easy to fix. There is probably a slider setting to turn that off. But to me it seems to match the look and content of your site. It's about dogs, not about hip-hop music.

I would do one page about all your dogs so people could scroll up and down to see them all. But that is really your own personal decision.

All wordpress themes will seem "awkward". That's because they come with sample content and you will be removing or altering the layouts for what you need. You may not need all of the features that are offered.

Keep going with it. Once you get your media (photos, etc) uploaded and get content (posts, pages, categories), you can switch themes to see how it looks in a different setting. Themes switch and your content remains the same.

[zipzapzoo]

The site is coming along nicely, I don't think it is awkward at all. Honestly I can't say I've ever built a site where, at some point, it didn't feel awkward or clumsy when populating content on the pages. But I think that's because when you're working on the site, you're almost "too close" to it. Everything feels awkward as you're doing it. Fast forward a month and you'll think it looks fine. Or ask a friend.

I would equate the awkward feeling to hanging pictures in your house. When you've got an empty spot, you toss up a picture. You go through the whole "oh gosh, is this hung too high? Do I center it off the window or the furniture? What size picture fills this spot?" ... that sort of thing. Hanging pictures, to me, always feels really awkward. But when you go into someone else's house the pictures always look just fine. Kind of the same thing once you've installed your template or while you're moving site elements around.