Want to revamp company website. Which software should I use?

[Boma]

I'm working onThe Birdwell Company, and would like to revamp the website. I've done some basic website creation in school, but haven't kept up within the last 4 years. What software should I use?

 

[CrazeD]

What does the website do? What are you changing? Do you know any coding languages? What software does the website have now?

 

[Lexluethar]

Ya you need to be more specific, anything you prefer over the other? As CrazeD said, we need the answer to those questions first.

If you are revamping a website, and not totally redoing it or creating it from the ground up you won't really have a choice but to use the language the website is in now. If you are able to do the website over from start to finish I'm a fan of Flash. I just enjoy being able to have that dynamic look to a website and really having few boundaries when it comes to interaction with the website visitor.

 

[CrazeD]

Ya you need to be more specific, anything you prefer over the other? As CrazeD said, we need the answer to those questions first.

If you are revamping a website, and not totally redoing it or creating it from the ground up you won't really have a choice but to use the language the website is in now. If you are able to do the website over from start to finish I'm a fan of Flash. I just enjoy being able to have that dynamic look to a website and really having few boundaries when it comes to interaction with the website visitor.

Definitely don't use Flash for a company website, or really, for any website.

Anyone with slow internet is going to get very tired of waiting for some massive Flash file to load, and leave. Also, it's not as compatible on some platforms such as older PC's, older browsers, and mobile devices.

Flash is good for small embedded scrips, but it is not good for full out website.

 

[Boma]

The website is The Birdwell Company . It's a basic website that gives product information, company info... contact information..

I would like to make it look better. Just change the presentation/look of it, not neccessarily add more content.

I have little html programming experience, I know C, done a little visualstudio.net.

I don't know what software this website has. I know it uses HTML.

 

[CrazeD]

After looking at the source, I have noticed a pretty disgusting layout job. If I were you, I would first recode the whole template to proper xhtml and CSS 2.0 standards. As it stands, there is only a very very small amount of CSS and a broken and battered transitional HTML 4.0 template.

That aside, all the links break the template and have a look of their own. A solution to that would be to use PHP to make the content dynamic and thus never break the template.

That may sound like a lot of work, but that would be my personal approach.

 

[Kerrick]

CrazeD is right, that site does need a complete overhaul. One way to easily get it done would be to use a CMS, or Content Management System, such as WordPress (Yes, it makes a good CMS). That way, you make one design (a 'theme'), and can just paste the content into individual pages.

 

[Boma]

Thanks all. I will try wordpress!

 

[CrazeD]

WordPress is really geared for blogs, I dunno how well it would be suited for your situation.

Something like Drupal may be better.

 

[Boma]

I'm reading the Drupal installation instructions. How do I install and test out Drupal so it won't affect the website? Thx!