It's way OT but you all are my family.

My wife teaches yoga, and belongs to a loose association of yoga teachers at a community center. They currently are using Facebook but I think they need a site where they can post a calendar, some bios, and permanent info.

So can anyone recommend a free website? I don't think they want to register their own domain name (although I think they should), so something that might have THEIRYOGANAME@webprovidersname.com

I hope that explains it.

A "Leader" used to run everything, but she is moving away. I don't want to put it on the nortonmusic.com domain, but I don't mind working up a few web pages for them.

They are good teachers, but their philosophy is not to make huge profits, but to share the benefits. It's donation based and if people can't afford, they come anyway, and it's held at a community center.

They think the yoga studios that charge $15 per lesson is not the way to go.

Any suggestions?

Notes

Hey Notes, you can do what I've done in the past. You can get them their own domain name and use it as a sub-domain on your nortonmusic.com. Just a matter of working with your hosts to get it done. The yoga folks would have a sub-folder on your site but all references would just show their domain on the web.

I only pay like 10 bucks a year for my domains and maybe $20 a year for my storage space for those domains. It's definitely cheap.

Wix has a pretty full featured free site. I used the free verson until I upgraded, And you get a lot. Free has some ads, and they are mostly unobtrusive and many were just for Wix itself.

Check it out at wix.com

Second John's suggestion for +++ Wix.com +++ ? They can have a website for free, there are plenty of templates and stock material to choose from, videos and technical support give good FAQ / How To advice, Wix gives the website a distinct name and URL and it is super easy to upgrade to paid later on if there is a need to do so.

I hear lots of bad stuff about Wix. Main downside is they own your website. You cannot ever move it somewhere else. If that doesn't bother you though the price is right.

Many free services don't let to move your site. It's a matter of do you want free and easy, or are you going to be/hire an HTML programmer?

I agree with sslechta, as Notes has had a site for a long time.
He likely has a CPanel or other Hosting Account management tool.

If you understand simple DNS, and how to get the website alive, you could essentially only incur the cost of the additional domain name.

I've had 2 - 8 websites on my hosting account over the years, and actually they increased my storage to 'unlimited' for my plan recently. I use it for backups sometimes .. using FTP I can upload anything.

I pay a little more than sslechta ($100/year or so).
Not sure what Notes currently pays for hosting for a year.

GoDaddy, 1and1, Hostgator .. they all have ways to run multiple sites on a hosting plan. Most do.

In this part of the planet a number of ISPs in fact offer web space as a part of the services you pay for in your monthly fees. However, you have to design, setup and maintain your own site which usually gets neglected.

As far as domain goes it should be possible to create a sub domain and point it to wherever you have the server running the web site assuming you own the server and the original domain. Eg Fred.mydomain.com as a sub of mydomain.com or as is seen a lot au.mydomain.com or uk.mydomain.com all being parts of mydomain and these could be on different servers in different countries. ( it has been a while since troubleshooting these issues)

Tony

I've been with these guys for about 10 years. Great value, low price.

Host Cherry

My Plan, below:

Back when I had a web page I had a sub page that didn't even have a link that showed. (It was for 6 of us to talk about things that were best not discussed in public.) Depending on what your wife's group is after something like that would suffice. If it is just for member to see calendars and notices, they don't need much. If it is also for the public, then it is probably better that they have their own domain. It could be nortonmusic.com/yogastuff or something more meaningful. It wouldn't show on your page and unless some adventurous soul would have any kind of inkling that there is a sub page called yogastuff. (I changed my hidden extension word every month or so due to what was there. And it was ridiculous words like vanillabaseballs or flamingunderwear. Nothing a normal person would guess.)

On the "however" side, it costs, what, 10 bucks to buy a domain name and Steve has steered you toward $12 a year for hosting.

Does anybody in that group know how to maintain a web page? How to use an FTP client to move the files up and down? Of course YOU do but this sounds like it could end up as a new science project for you.

one of many google sites 2/0 tutorials


What can you do with the new Sites

Thanks all.

I am my own webmaster and did my Norton Music site http://www.nortonmusic.com and my Sophisticats site http://www.s-cats.com

If you go to my Sophisticats site, you see that it points to a sub on the Norton Music site.

I talked putting the yoga on my site the same way and Leilani thinks some of the girls wouldn't like that because if Leilani move on, they would want to keep their site.

I'd prefer a site where I can do my own HTML but if I need to use a template I will.

I'll look at the wix.com and see if that would work.

Thanks again,
Bob

Bob, just so you know, there is very likely a way to have the s-cats site not show as a NortonMusic URL if desired.

This type of DNS, Domain and Hosting work is my main gig.
I set up a couple sites a week on average. Some of them pretty complex, all intertwined and sharing resources, but still separate.

WomenMarines.org is one example; regular website (www), members area, ecommerce, convention booking and donation subdomains. And running in one root folder.
/They are separate enough to use differing payment gateways, which is why we needed all the subdomains to begin with.

I don't mind s-cats.com showing nortonmusic.com once they get there, but a couple of the other teachers don't want the site to be hosted by me.

I don't mind hosting it on my site, but I don't want anyone else to be able to log into my site and I think a couple of the girls are looking for some control.

They have mass mailings at vertical response and every one of the teachers can log in with the same credentials and send out class announcements for their own classes. I suppose they want the site to be flexible and elect someone different each year to have main control.

It's a strange group. They have great intentions. Most yoga classes in the area are $15 a class, and they figure if someone takes a few classes a week, it will cost too much.

They feel that they can have it donation based, make a little money, but by using the city rec center they can do it with no overhead and share the knowledge without breaking the bank.

Good intentions, but they are running it as a committee - and that complicates everything.

I'm just offering to help without getting too involved.

Notes

if their only reason for wanting a web site is to host permanent documents that don't scroll away and a calendar, FB can already do that.

Once you create a group (which I'm guessing Leilani's yoga friends have already done) it automatically includes the following sub-groups:

ABOUT (where you post the purpose of the group and any special info you want to be known about it, such as addresses, phone numbers etc)

DISCUSSION (where members post messages)

MEMBERS ( a searchable list of everyone who has joined)

EVENTS (not a full-fledged calendar, but scheduled events appear here where they can be found without having to sort through hundreds of messages)

VIDEOS (in the case of a yoga group, they could post instructional video here )

PHOTOS (for whatever purpose they might need)

FILES (using tools that are built into FB, they can create and edit text files for such purposes as group rules, sets of instructions, contact information etc etc etc. The FILES area can also be used for uploads/downloads of files the members may want to share.

GROUP INSIGHTS (not sure what this is for)


Advantages of staying with FB are as follows:

1) the members are already using it so there's no learning curve (except to use the features that are already there, but which they may not have been using)

2) it's free

3) whereas a website needs to be promoted and advertised in order to drive traffic to it, FB groups are instantly connected to an audience of millions if you make it an open group. If you want to keep it a small close knit group of friends, then make it a closed group.

4) the ability to moderate the site can be shared by one, many or all members, so no problem if Leilani (or anyone else) leaves the group.

Nice idea Pat
I don't FB, but there is also the Google Docs option if they just need a Calendar and Documents (with revisions), etc.

https://www.google.com/docs/about/

However, both of these options are much different than a website. As Pat noted "a website needs to be promoted and advertised in order to drive traffic to it" .. but only if driving traffic to it is one of the goals.
If they just need common access to some files, that's even easier.

I just went to Google Docs for the first time ever and in about 30 minutes I put together a web page for my life on the road, with 3 sub pages, links, pics....

Extremely simple to use.

Why pick one? Maybe the best of both worlds would be to stay on FB and post a sticky link to Google Docs?

That's good to know Pat.

However, I'm not as enthusiastic about FB as a lot of others are.

Why? Facebook is exclusive. There are plenty of people who will not do facebook - period. Either they know it's voluntary spyware, or just don't want to follow the herd.

The www is inclusive, anyone with a computer and Internet connection can see it. And a bookmark makes it instant, no logging in, no wading through a dozen or more items demanding your attention, etc.

The yoga girls used to have a website. The woman who started the group was well-to-do, and took care of all the expenses herself. Like the other teachers, the object was to share yoga with the community for both those who can and those who can't afford the lessons that the gyms and yoga studios charge.

But the woman who used to foot the bill for everything is moving 'up north'.

The lessons are donation based, and 30% goes to the community center for the use of the room.

The blankets, blocks, mats and other props are a shared expense now, and the girls are trying to keep their expenses low.

They use the free version of Vertical Response to announce their classes to a mailing list and add a post on FB.

But the web site used to have bios of all the teachers, some yoga philosophy, and other permanent pages, along with a calendar so the students could plan ahead to attend the teacher(s) they like the most.

The teachers use different styles, one does flow, Leilani does Iyengar, another does Ashtanga, and so on.

They don't want to abandon the FB page, but having a nice permanent home that can be accessed without logging in, or for those who are anti-Facebook is IMHO essential.

I subscribe to my friends/competitors bands' FB feed, and if I don't go directly to their page, their announcements come way down in my news feed, between cat pictures, political rants, pictures of people's kids/grandkids, and food pictures. Plus they are advertising to the world when they aren't at home.

And I have very few FB friends. I don't accept invitations from people I don't know, I don't solicit friends, I'm mainly on there because my x-wife and children live about 1500 miles away and they do FB instead of e-mail.

I try to minimize my time on FB - and yes - I know it's voluntary spyware. But that's another subject.

Insights and incites by Notes