Hi my friend asked me to make a website for his gym. I made most of it using sublime text. Now he says he wants to add a blog to it. I thought that wordpress was perfect for this. I dont know wordpress at all and was wondering if its possible to use my already made sublime html code as the static front page of the website and having the blog tab linked under the navbar so he can use and update his site as he wishes. Am i on the right path? Or how else can i add a blog (that is easy to update on his end!!) to a website that is mostly made in sublimetext. It is not hosted yet and is just in a locally saved sublimetext html file as of right now. thanks!!
Yes, it’s totally possible to convert your website to WordPress, I’ve done it a few times. You’re going to need to decide several things though.
- Are you going to design the entire wordpress site in sublime including the blog?
- Are you going to use an already existing WordPress theme for the blog and other parts and want to just throw on your own landing page?
I’m going to assume you said number 2, because it is so much easier. Let me ask you the following questions then:
- Will your friend need to update the landing page at all?
- Is your friend capable of editing simple HTML markdown for a blog?
If number 4 is an option, I would try Jekyl. I’ve done more with WordPress than jekyl, but if your friend is capable of editing some markdown for his blog, jekyl would let you avoid wordpress altogether.
Alright, let's say you have to use wordpress for the blog though. You don't need to design the wordpress for the blog, you just want your landing page to sit alongside the blog like I mentioned above. There are two ways you can go about this:
-
Make the landing page and blog totally separate. Link them together with a subdomain.
This is rather straightforward, but it might not do everything you want. Let’s say your domain is"friendsgym.com". You would take your current website you build in sublime and host it wherever. Maybe Surge or GitHub Pages, whatever you are familiar with. You know how to do that, and that page should work perfectly fine. Now, you will create an entirely new WordPress site hosted somewhere else that is a blog. It will have it’s own theme and everything else. To make these sites work together, you will add a subdomain to your blog, something like"blog.friendsgym.com". You can then easily link to your blog from your static landing page. That’s option 1. You already have the landing page, and you can easily create a WordPress blog somewhere else. You can use a subdomain to tie the two together. -
This option is more complicated but more powerful. In this option, you will put your landing page on an existing WordPress website blog. You will first have to setup your wordpress site so that you have a blog page that is separate from your home page. This isn’t too hard. You will then have to take your current landing page, go into ftp, and stick it in your current themes folder. You will have to convert your HTML and CSS to PHP (not terribly difficult) and turn it into what is called a “Page Template”. You will then be able to go into WordPress settings and set your default home page as “Custom Page Template”. This is more challenging, but may be more profitable. With this setup, your home page and blog will all be under the same wordpress website. Since you are using WordPress, you can take advantage of that and give your friend options to edit the content in your landing page.
I know that's a lot of text, but I would start like this. See if jekyl is an option. If not, make a WordPress blog. Just anything really. Figure out how difficult or non-difficult managing a WordPress blog is. If you decide it works, try going the subdomain route. If you want more power, you can then try editing your theme with your landing page. I won't tell you how to do that right now, but if you decide to go that route, I can give you some more resources to help.
Wow can’t thank you enough! He really isn’t tech savvy so i will go with option 2 and link the 2 pages together with a subdomain. Thanks for your thorough reply!
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I think you replied to the wrong post 