anyone know any good pre-made ones I would rather not spend 3 years coding :)
I built ours on iWeb. I think it's a pretty clean and easy to navigate layout, didn't take much coding knowledge to build it out. Only down side is that it isn't incredibly Google friendly without some extra software to clean up the stuff that spiders like.
www.ok113.org (http://www.ok113.org)
Yeah, spiders and bots don't like frames.
There are a lot of free templates available. My unit's site is hosted on the free earthlink account and we use their online site builder. It's pretty easy to learn and has a reasonably good selection of formats available.
http://www.squadron304.us
A blog format might work well for you, too. WordPress has some very nice layouts available, plus there are lots of widgets you can add for various sidebar, editing, and security upgrades. My personal site http://ezine.lbdunversity.com uses the Magazine Basic template. I'm still developing it, so the header is pretty primitive, but I really like the overall layout.
I'm just ramping up into using blogger, I've avoided it on purpose because as an IT professional it feels like a "cheat", however at the end of the day, something is better than nothing, which is what I have now.
There are literally hundreds of good templates and gadgets for blogger.
Lancer turned me onto Weebly (http://weebly.com). I soon revamped my unit's website (http://www.foxcitiescap.org) with it. Lots of drag-n-drop goodness, plus templates. There are free and paid versions, but I opted to pay since I'll be using it for more sites.
Quote from: tedda on May 14, 2009, 04:19:38 PM
Lancer turned me onto Weebly (http://weebly.com). I soon revamped my unit's website (http://www.foxcitiescap.org) with it. Lots of drag-n-drop goodness, plus templates. There are free and paid versions, but I opted to pay since I'll be using it for more sites.
Thanks for the props Tedda... Yeah, if the uninitiated can't make a decent CAP website with Weebly, I feel sorry for them. This is the next best thing since, well...since you know what.
The Fox Cities website is pretty awesome looking there Tedda, but would we expect anything less from the likes of you?
Developing a good site does not take "3 years" nor does it necessarily require significant levels of coding. Regardless, while layout and navigation certainly play a big role in the appeal of a site, do not lose sight of the fact that content is what your site is truly all about. The content will either keep people coming back or drive them away.
I built my squad's site (http://nassau-cap.us.to/) using cap.gov's source code (I was lucky I thought ahead enough to re-host everything linked to .gov before that changeover to gocivilairpatrol.com) - but it took months of fine tuning and even removing some stuff from the cap.gov template when I first did it, and I'm still going around making improvements.
I'm happy how it turned out since I worked hard on it (I'd love to actually get .gov to go with it).
Anyway, to the topic, a squadron here on Long Island did a pretty good job with freewebs, and use their own domain name (http://www.cap-ny153.org/)
There was one place I found recently that would be good for a flash site: http://www.wix.com/
I've seen a few CAP sites using the free Earthlink account (mentioned in a post above).
Speaking of good web layouts though, I really wish many wing websites would get a makeover. Florida Wing (http://flwg.sercap.us/) has a pretty good template that I think other wings should try to adopt.
If you can't get a decent looking site done in a few hours with Blogger, Wordpress, or Weebly, you probably don't have enough content to bother with a web site.
Working on the paid domain.....
www.dmmcs.weebly.com