Advice needed on designing a simple web site please

[Johnogroats]

We have a small holiday house that we rent out at a nominal value to friends and relations. It seems increasingly obvious that we should have a simple website so that when people ask about the house and area, we can just send them a link as opposed to random photos and blurb.

I think I am just about capable of designing the site...I know what content I need, and have photos etc, however, I don't know where to start with online web companies.

I would probably want 5 pages...

1. Home page - about the house
2. Winter activities
3. Summer activities
4. Comments?
5. Photos

I don't need on line booking, although possibly a calendar with availability might be useful.

Do I need to pay a monthly fee...what pitfalls are there? Can anyone recommend a good basic package? We don't make much money from this, so I don't want to spend loads. What's realistic?

Thanks in advance!

I would also want a password so that only people I now can access it.

Thanks!

if you are sure it's just for friends and relatives, then yes, it can be done for pretty much £0 per month.

but for it to be free you'd have to make a couple of compromises (which might be less of an issue if you don't make it public).

using something like Microsoft Azure you can host it for free as long as:
you don't have more than 165mb of traffic a month.
use one of there web addresses (so its something like myholidayhome.azurewebsites.net
don't use more than 1gb of space (pictures would take up most of this but should be okay for your scenario).

the calendar and login are also simple to do, but if you aren't sure how to do it yourself, your only cost would really be getting someone to help with that.

there are a couple of companies that do similar things... in that they start of free and you only pay when you start going over the entry restrictions (you won't just get billed, they'll tell you you are approaching the limit so you are aware), and I only mention the Microsoft one as its a company you'd more than likely have heard of and possibly trust.

Thanks Bee. I will look into that - sounds as though it might fit the bill. Traffic isn't going to be high!

Some time ago I did a website for a couple with a villa in Italy. I don't think they needed a calendar (but I'm guessing it should be possible nowadays to include display of a Google calendar {and I would suggest getting a GMail account in your name, but with the holiday house name as the username, so you can modify "its" calendar with bookings, without ever being tied to any calendar for a personal GMail account}).

I've not tried anything like that {yet} myself but may try over the weekend... just that before then I've got a second internet line being installed on Friday and have 2/3 rooms with clutter to be tidied up / moved around, so it will be a case of several computers, desks and bookcases being humped about... in the next 30 hours before 0800 Fri.

Hosting can be had quite cheaply, though some of those offering 'website templates' / 'WYSIWYG web design facility' charge from 4 pounds a month (which I think too high - sure it gives many small firms the ability to change the design quickly, but for many, they have only enough time / cash to do this once perhaps changing the style again every year or more, but are stung for the ability to change the design every day).

Some people (technology specialists, media people, etc) do update every day, with blog entries, new pages (product reviews, etc) and where those keep them in the top rankings, and allow them to get sponsorship / commission from web links, the return is far higher than the cost so no brainer, but for many others a 20-30 quid limit seems more reasonable to me.

Do you have a domain name ? (Free is certainly possible, as in BeeRaven's example 'myholidayhome.azurewebsites.net' but might automatically be listed in some index they have of sites and therefore more easily found by people without there {usually} being the option of password protection).

WordPress is an easy way to do this - you can set up a site very easily and add pictures etc.

Have you considered just giving it a facebook page? A closed group would allow you to control access.