Fast and Cost Effective Ways to Start a Website
Setting up a website is not so difficult. There are specialized tools that will let anyone who can point the mouse and click to create websites that are cool looking. Website design becomes a costly thing when you approach web designing companies. The work they do is uber professional and so it will be to the tunes of hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars or more.
If you want to create a website where you want to share your family photos or promote affiliate products, you will not need the services of such companies. Using free tools and by learning some new stuff, you can easily setup your website within a short span of time. This post deals with two such simple ways which you can use to create a website in a matter of days.
Using Free Templates
Free templates are a cost effective way to start your websites. Web designing is an art and some people can design better web page layouts because they are more creative. Many a time, they release the layouts they create for free use by anyone and everyone. You can download them and change them in anyway you want (i.e. change the text, colors, etc) and upload them to your website. And voila! you have a cool looking website!
In order to use free templates, you will need a HTML editor or a WYSIWYG editor. You can use notepad (yes! notepad that pops up when you type “notepad” in the run dialog box!) to edit HTML. Notepad++ is another free notepad alternative. Dreamweaver is the best bet when it comes to a WYSIWYG editor. However, like with everything else, there are many alternatives that are cheaper. Some web hosting companies provide online site builders that offer WYSIWYG functionality. If you have not already signed up for hosting, I would recommend opting for a web host that provides one such tool for free or a small fee.
There are specific websites that are dedicated to free website templates. For example: Open Source Website Design (www.oswd.org). And also many bloggers and webmasters provide templates for free on the sites. And then there are memberships sites that provide quality templates for a small fee. Certain hosting companies also provide free templates as long as you host with them. For example: Hostgator.com provides about 4000 templates catered to many niches.
While using free templates, most of the cases, you will have to provide a link to the creators site. These links usually will be in the footer. This is a way of paying back the creator of the template for his/her time and effort. However, for some templates linking back is optional and so you can remove the links.
There are certain disadvantages with free templates:
- You will have to teach yourself HTML, CSS and other stuff. If you do not have any prior experience with HTML, it may be time consuming to hack the templates using the good old “plug-n-chug” method and get going. However, you can always pay someone to customize the templates. Usually this costs much less than creating unique layouts. In fact, many freelance programmers who create sites for others use free templates which they modify according to the need.
- You may have to provide a link to the creator’s site. Linking to the creator’s site will not affect your site in anyway, but still…
- Many people will use the same template and so your site will not be unique. However, you can make it unique by customizing the layout and adding images, flash animations and changing the typography.
Using Wordpress
Wordpress is a content management system/blogging software. However, it is very flexible and can be customized to create any type of website. I have people use Wordpress to create blogs, information websites, photo galleries, article directories and even web directories. Many bigshots in online marketing business use it to power their sites. Wordpress is very easy to use and comes with a WYSIWYG editor.
Wordpress is free. It is an open source project and so it is under constant development. New features are being added continuously and bugs (i.e. software flaws) are fixed as soon as they are discovered. And then there are many third party themes and plugins that can enhance and add new functionality. Adding and removing themes is very easy-all that you have to do is upload them to the correct folder and activate them.
In order to use Wordpress, you will need a web hosting account that supports PHP and MySQL. Most hosts support these by default. Most web hosts also provide an automated installer that will allow you to install Wordpress (and other scripts) with a few clicks of the mice. It is also possible to install it manually. The installation process is not so complicated and besides there are many tutorials and lots of documentation is available on this topic.
Other content management systems to consider
There are other content management system that can be used to create websites efficiently and effectively. I have used a content management system called Websitebaker in the past. Almost all content management systems come with WYSIWYG functionality and let us bother only with content creation rather than layout and typography. If you plan to create a site with more number of pages (say like 20 or more pages), a content management system is a good option.
