When it comes to actually creating a website there are a myriad of ways to do it. Which method you choose will depend upon your budget and your technical and creative abilities.
Many enthusiastic company owners have decided to ‘give it a go’ and have discovered that they have a hidden talent for website design. Building your own website can be very rewarding, but understandably many people prefer to leave it to the professionals.
Though I have probably left some options out, here are a few of the ways you can create a website.
- Raw html hand coding
- WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) Editor
- Content Management System
- E-Commerce System
- Blogging
- Free Website Hosting Services
- Save as Html from an office type application
Raw HTML Coding in Notepad
This is how many web designers got their start in web design. Many of today’s top designers would have once sat at their desk with an ‘HTML for Beginners’ book and a blank Notepad window. Though most designers will now use an application like Dreamweaver to create html, many will go back to hand coding when they can’t get something to work just the way they want it to. Apparently the first lesson at many web design courses is still raw html. Hand coding a website takes a lot of time and patience. Most professionals just simply don’t have the time (nor the inclination) to continue hand coding their sites.
WYSIWYG Website Design
There are many different html editors available in various price ranges. Probably the two most well know are Microsoft’s FrontPage and Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. Essentially these editors allow you to create a website offline and upload it to your web server. Though you can use both of these editors without knowing html, I would strongly recommend learning it. On the whole, most professional web designers use Macromedia’s Dreamweaver.
Content Management Systems
Content management systems have been around for quite a while and have come down in price so that even small businesses can afford to have their site powered by CMS product. Content management is available in many different levels, from basic or ‘lite’ to e-business, and full enterprise solutions. All content management systems let the website owner (or the end user) make live updates to their website without the need to know any HTML. This is usually done through an online content editor that looks like any other word processing package – except that it saves content as HTML. For more information on content management read our content management page.
E-Commerce
An e-commerce site is a site which accepts orders and payment online. Many e-commerce websites are also part CMS in that they allow the end user to update their own product information such as specifications and pricing. This is invaluable if you want to be able to make quick changes for specials.
Blogging
Blogging (Web Logging) has been around for a few years now and has become very popular.
Free Website Builders & Hosting
Most of the free hosting services also provide online editors (like a CMS) with their hosting services. If you want a professional website I strongly recommend that you do not use a free hosting service as you need to have your own domain name.
Save HTML from an Office Application
Though it is possible to create a website with an application
