I am looking for a hosting company that will allow me to design my own website. By my "own" website I mean that I do not want to have to use templates or the company's design software. I know absolutely nothing about site design, but I want the freedom to make my site whatever I want it to be. It also needs to be an ecommerce site. Does anyone know which hosting services will match my needs? Thanks in advance for your help!

So, you're basically looking for a hosting company w/ a web designer to design what you want?

Not exactly. I don't want anyone to design it for me. I want to be able to design it myself.

If you're not using their templates or their software, then you would have to learn website coding and/or get some software yourself
(such as dreamweaver or golive), which could be costly, if you're doing it all yourself. If you have something specific in your head, you could describe it in detail to a web designer (we do this, in case you're interested: www.leppdesign.com), then they could actually build it with code for you.

Some hosting companies do offer eccommerce software, but depending on the kind they've chosen to offer, you could be limited on the design of it.

As you said, I looked into some of the companies that offer ecommerce software but I was not happy with how limited I would be.

This is why I decided to just do the site myself. Now my issue is what hosting company to use. Do you happen to know which companies would give me complete design control? I keep running into the ones that only allow you to use their software.

Regarding a site designer, I always assumed that route would be more expensive than doing it myself. Am I wrong? What about changes and updates? After a while wouldn't it be more cost effective to know how to do these things myself?

Thanks for all your help!

We just started using hostgator for our clients and they seem to be a pretty good company for hosting. Any reliable hosting company will allow you to be able to create your own code and then upload it to their site. You said you don't know any code yet, though, correct? Most of them also provide software for do-it-yourself-ers.

Site designers can sometimes be costly, depending on your needs and their professionalism/experience. You could also have the web designer/developer add what's called a content management system. This allows you certain control over editing your website. We offer this on our Salted Websites (ready-made sites). However, if you are trying to put the site together yourself using web design software such as dreamweaver (cost is $399) and adding up all the time it takes to learn it, you could almost end up at the same cost. If you really want to learn this yourself by learning code and such, just be prepared to be really dedicated to learning it :) It took me 1-2 years to learn php, a certain website code, and I still feel like a beginner!

As far as ecommerce, there are some shopping cart software companies that allow you some flexibility in designing it. I use Avactis and have been really happy with them so far.

If you have any other website questions, feel free to ask!

I looked at your site. It seemed to be only for Christian companies. Is that the case or did I read it wrong?

No, our websites are not just for Christian companies. We are a Christian company, but we serve all clients, unless, of course it's something we don't feel is morally right, like inapropriate pictures or something. That's all :)

Oh ok. I'm still looking and really appreciate all your help!

No problem! Just let me know if you have any more questions !

Did you find a site yet. I have websites that are completly customizable by you. Once you purchase the site you can change anything on it including the whole design if you want. We have hundreds of templates to choose from. Professional Tech support and you will also be added to over 165,000 web portals for free. We currently have over 3 million customers. There is some free advertising for you. We also have free lifetime upgrades. COntact me if you are interested.

Try pagebuzz.com they have simple to use tools, layouts and hosting. They also have great support by phone so when you don't know something you can call.

Regular hosts wont answer HTML questions or help you build pages. But pagebuzz is designed for people that don't know what they are doing but need a website. So they are used to dealing with people who have no experience.

Their shopping cart is also a monster of a program. I heard they were up for best shopping cart of the year, that should tell you something.

They have a working demo, so you can go in and test it out and see how it works before you buy it.

i can host your site for you, check out my site, i won't help you build it but if you have questions on design i will give you tips, lets talk.

I was looking at Microsoft Office Live but they recently decided to stop offering ecommerce. They are recommending Zoovy, but I don't know anything about them yet. Every time I think I'm starting to figure something out there is some sort of problem!