I have a rough plan to start a fan site for MMA (professional fighting). However, I know minimal web programming, and when I built my own website (which is just a few pages showing my presentations and computer models and things), it was very, very challenging for me. I used Joomla, which I now regret because the community was completely unhelpful in answering questions (unlike with Blender, GIMP, Inkscape, etc.) So I assume my best option for this site will be Wordpress (even though this site will be much larger and more elaborate than my simple site).
But beyond that, I would like some general advice on how to build it.
- Which software should I use? Joomla worked well, but the community was unhelpful, and most every template was very expensive. How does Wordpress compare to this?
- I hope to earn lots of web traffic. What should be done to prepare for this?
- I plan on monetizing the site. What is the best way to do this?
- How about templates? Assuming I use Wordpress, does anybody have any suggestions on inexpensive templates which are reliably updated for when the CMS gets updated?
If I follow through on this, I really want to be as diligent in my preparation as possible, because I don’t have the financial wiggle room to spend tons and tons of time on making tweaks and correcting bugs.