Website Design?

I'm moving this to Tech Help.

Alessandra, you can have the Google data, just use a free plugin.

egoodlett I'd go with WordPress or Blogger, hosted on your own domain. Register a domain, and let Google host, if you want to save costs. If you like Blogger you can create the entire site with Blogger using static Blogger pages as well as blog posts.

Alternatively, you can import your Blogger posts to WordPress.

If you're going to hire a designer, I'd pick a WordPress template and hire a graphic artist to customize it for/with you.

At OP:

Any basic shared hosting will allow you total freedom of design, and most will support a Wordpress installation. (You need a database to use Wordpress.)

Dreamhost, HostGator, etc. are all pretty interchangeable. Most have shared hosting plans that range from $5-$10 a month. You'll install Wordpress and then either tweak an existing WP theme, or have someone design a new theme for you from the ground up.

Here's an example of a YA author site I did recently for a friend. The site is hosted with Dreamhost on their basic shared hosting plan, and is powered entirely by Wordpress (custom graphics/theme).

I have a free website from weebly.com. Purchased my domain name from GoDaddy and direct it there. It meets my current needs and I still have room to expand it and still keep it free. No adds. Also, I can do it all by myself so I ever have to wait on a web designer or pay more fees.

I need to figure out my blog frame but that sounds tedious!

Edited to add--my humble blogspot blog gets five times more traffic than the website. Since I can have pages there, I have most stuff duplicated.

Might as well toss in my $0.02Cdn worth . . .

Do not allow your webhost to register your domain for you. Always do it yourself, so that you won't lose it if your host has a hissy fit and kicks you off. GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar at the moment, but Namecheap had a better reputation the last time I had reason to check into this stuff.

Be cautious of free hosts that don't place ads, as they have a tendency to bait-and-switch by offering you ad-free space initially and then changing their minds later.

Also be cautious about hosts that offer you "unlimited" anything, because this is usually code for, "we'll kick you off/push you into the next price bracket without asking permission if you use too much of this resource, but we're not going to tell you how much 'too much' is." (This doesn't mean don't sign with them, it just means that you need to be aware of the potential pitfalls before you do.)

Good luck.

I recommend GoDaddy for sure. I've used them for years, and have never had a problem.

For someone just starting out with a website, then a shared hosting account with someone like Hostgator or Dreamhost is fine. Most of the larger shared hosting companies will have automatic installation and upgrading of Wordpress and several other blogging and content management platforms and many will offer a free backup service, so, if you don't want to mess about with the backend of your site, then this is really helpful.

But be aware that, if your site or blog becomes quite popular (or even if one of your posts for some reason goes viral and attracts thousands of visitors), you could be in trouble with a shared hosting account.
When hosts talk along the lines of unlimited everything, you need to read the small print.

You may well be offered unlimited domains and unlimited bandwidth, but it is the CPU (central processing unit) usage which can get your website taken offline or you may be asked to upgrade your hosting plan.

Websites and blogs using WordPress or other similar systems are served by databases and each time there is a call on a database it uses up CPU. Wordpress in particular may use a lot of CPU, especially on a site with many posts, pages, categories, tags, etc, all being called when someone arrives on your site.

But, having said all that, once your site gets that popular, you will probably be able to afford a better hosting plan anyway.

Buying a domain name - I would choose either Namecheap or GoDaddy (I use both with no problems).

I'm a self-hosted WordPress fangirl, so that would be my suggestion.

As for domains, don't ever pay more than about $9/year for a basic one (before adding WHOIS privacy and stuff). I've bought many domains from cheap-domainnames.com over the course of 10+ years, and have no reason to go anywhere else.

And I have to say, as someone who made a side living building WP based ecommerce sites for a while, GoDaddy's setup sucks (and I feel that they are way expensive). Just figuring out how to get to the damn database creation area was ridiculous, not to mention setting one up and figuring out their FTP stuff. The last time I looked, they did offer more space than the host that I've used (Total Choice Hosting, who I've also been with for over 10 years), but honestly, unless you become like, Stephenie Meyer huge, you don't need that much. I ran a pretty successful music webzine (with some large name band interviews and photo galleries), including an active forum, on TCH's $5/mo plan for years, and never exceeded bandwidth or space limits.