Cheap Professional Website Builder
From LoveToKnow Web-Design
A cheap professional website builder can be a great asset for any new company. Every business and organization needs to have some kind of presence on the web, but they don't all need to have the same kind of site. The following are a few ways to determine the best solution to meet your website needs cheaply and professionally.
Which Kind of Cheap Professional Website Builder is Right for You?
Think about what your organization hopes to get out of the website. It may be tempting to want all kinds of bells and whistles, but if they aren't needed, not only are they going to cost money but they will distract from the primary message of the website. Instead of asking, "What should our website look like?" it may be more helpful to ask, "What do we want people who see our website to learn? What do we want them to do?" Those answers will be the key to the type of cheap professional website builder that you choose.
The One-Page Wonder
One of the easiest ways to get a professional-looking, but low-cost site, is to make use of one of the many templates that large site-hosting companies such as GoDaddy or Network Solutions offer. For a low fee, you choose from hundreds of templates, then fill out the information about your company or organization. Sometimes you can also upload a logo or other image, and like magic, you have a single web page with your contact information, email, and some information about your company.
For many people this is all they need for a website, and since it is directly connected to the place where their site and domain name is hosted, there is very little that can go wrong. Often, your hosting company will have fairly easy ways to make small changes to the site, but for the most part these are what are known as "static" pages. They do not offer the ability to update things like "latest news," to blog or to use other social media tools. They also do not provide things like image galleries or forums, but if those become necessary, there are always services such as Flickr that you can link to from that single page.
The Quick-and-Dirty Site Builder
There are other companies on the web, such as CoffeeCup, that offer very user-friendly software to create specific websites of various kinds. Need shopping cart software? They've got the program for you. Need a Flash banner? They've got a nifty little program called Firestarter that will do it for you. Best of all, you can download all of their software in trial versions that will help you figure out if it really meets your needs.
Homestead is another combination webhost/sitebuilder company that can build somewhat more complex sites, with navigation automatically generated to pages like product listings, photo galleries, "about us" pages, and more. The interface for building the sites is point-and-click WYSISWYG type, with over 200 templates to choose from that will give a coherent style to your entire site. There are other benefits to using this kind of service, as they include search-engine optimization services and other bonuses such as integration with an online version of Quickbooks, the popular accounting software.
The Complete Package
Some websites need to be customizable at the code level - meta-tags, javascript, AJAX, CSS codes and other web 2.0 tools and technologies. In that case, a more fully-featured web design program such as Dreamweaver, where you can access both a WYSIWYG and code view, is necessary. While you can download a fully-functioning demo of Dreamweaver, once the trial period runs out, paying for the full version can cost you hundreds of dollars.
However, there are alternatives. NetObjects Fusion has many features that are similar to Dreamweaver, and it even offers a "lite" version for free that has many of the basic features that web designers need. Other cheaper but still professional design applications include HotDogPro and Microsoft's successor to FrontPage, Expression. The latter is especially useful if you happen to use ASP in your web pages.
Open Source
Some people feel the need to pay for their software, and use the accompanying value-added services of tech support, warranties, and updates. However, there are many open-source, free software packages that will serve your web design needs. Kompozer is one example that has a very strong following, and many forums that support the software package. Other content management systems, such as Drupal, also work as site design and maintenance platforms, though they require a bit more knowledge of web design than most other WYSIWYG editors.
Once you choose your website builder, familiarize yourself with it's capabilities and always keep in mind that content is king. If your website conveys the message you want, it will be beautiful - not the other way around.
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