Do-It-Yourself Web Design Options: WebSite Builders

You want a website and it’s time to look around for options- cheap and best. You’d soon realize that web designers are not a negotiable and cost-effective species. A simple site can cost you hundreds of dollars. Now, if you have already looked around and are seriously considering some DIY ( Do It Yourself) options we have exactly that lined up for you in this article.

To start with you can explore two straightforward options. First, get your hands on those website builders. Two, buy pre-made web templates and simply install them.

If we start with website builders, there are a few available in market. Macromedia Dreamweaver,  Coffecup, GoLive etc. Now, first thing you’d notice when you explore this option is the price of these softwares. They are not cheap by any means. Well, of course they are cheaper than hiring a web designer for you but still they are not available for peanuts. Even though there is a free one, Frontpage that comes with your MS Office there is an issue yet that makes this option a bit tricky.

These are not simple things to operate. Even though Coffecup and other similar tools promise that anyone who can write a post in Word can create a webpage with their software it’s far from truth. The point is even if the cost is okay with you the steep learning curve will make it nearly impossible for an absolute newbie to put together webpages this way.

Now, if you have time and patience and can put in enough hours to train yourself to use one of those softwares nothing will beat that. You don’t have to acquire a pro designer’s skills but just get good enough to  handle that software to chalk out your own simple website.

Things to keep in mind

Firstly, decide on the price you are willing to pay. There is an option in the market for every pocket. Checkout enough about it because you have to learn the software so don’t go for a really complex one.

Buy a software that is available to be installed on your local machine. There are a lot of services available out there that charge a smaller montly fee and that can rope you in due to price difference. Beware of that. You want a software not a service. You want a piece of program that you can own. Why? Simple because the service can disappear and leave you in the lurch. More importantly, a lot of such service force you to host your completed site son their servers only. It’s also not uncommon to see these services adding a logo or link to your site. Not good.

Website Builder Plus Templates

Now, the best bit of advice is here- once you have your website builder. You have explored its tools and capabilities and you can think you can roll on. It’s time to go buy a website template. Thousands of them are available for free and on a fee. All you have to do with a template then is to customize it using the program. See you are not re-inventing wheel again. Just add your logo, change colors, add pages, and change things around to make it unique to your taste. And lo, you have a brand new site without hiring a designer and you have gained valuable skills in the process.

Victor Solovey likes to analyze CMS and Wordpress based sites. He works as a leading developer in his web design agency. Victor can be contacted to do psd to xhtml conversions quickly.