Options On Building A Website
There are several options available for building your website. It all depends on what you wish to do with your website. Don't just fall into a plan because some one else did it. Don't let price alone dictate what you do. Look into all possible plans with your website in mind. Below we will look at different scenarios and see how they might fit your needs.
1. The Do It Yourself Website.
Virtually all hosting services have a web builder with templates free and fee based. Even the free hosting packages have programs to help you build your website. These are fine for family or individual websites. The free sites have advertising that appears at the top of the site you build and target the advertising to the content of the site you are building. They extract words from your content and fit ads to reflect those words. Before signing up, take a view of some of the websites hosted by them. Usually they have featured sites for their free hosting. If the featured sites have no advertising on them then you are looking at paid hosting or they are paying a fee to stop the advertising. Check it all out. Perhaps the paid hosting for one hosting service is less than paying to stop advertising on the free hosting service. Generally I would stay away from free hosting for a business website. The above is not set in stone. There may be free hosting with no advertising. Search the web using "Free hosting" as your key words.
There are other pitfalls to building your own website. We will be glad to answer your questions even if you plan to build your own website.
2. Free or paid website templates:
You may find a website template that looks just like what you want your website to look like. You can be limited to what you can alter with these templates and what web builder (HTML Editor) you can use. Microsoft templates usually mean you'll need FrontPage or whatever new form of web builder they now have. This can be costly especially if you only use it to build your own website and maintain it. Many web builders have templates that they offer for free, but the better ones will cost you. Prices will vary. They can also present problems if you just happen to adjust or alter some of the code, thus becoming unusable. Always back up your work. That way you can return to the last creation. Even with templates, it is wise to know some HTML. You may have to spend some time learning HTML and the functions of the web builder. Many, but not all, are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors, but subtle changes often have to be made with knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). As with the do it yourself section you will have to spend time learning and designing.
3. Have some one build your site free:
Usually this means a high school student, college student or family member or friend builds you a website. They may have Microsoft FrontPage, Publisher, or Word and know enough to build you a website. They even sign you up to a web host that they use for their own website (good or bad host). Many are decent looking websites, but what happens when they leave (Graduate or move out of town). Will they take time, if you can find them, to update your website. Can you duplicate what they did and make alterations to your site.
4. Have some one Build your website for a fee:
Number one, make sure that they are in the business of building websites. Prices will vary depending on who the designer is. If the designer is from a hosting service or from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) the fees may be higher. Large design companies whether they host or just build websites can be costly too. Independent designers, depending on how long they have been doing it can range in prices from dirt cheap to extraordinarily pricey. You will need to talk to them and determine if they can produce the website within your budget. Check out the prices form various web designers. Some will only quote a price after you contact them and tell them what you want. In most cases you can get a ballpark cost, realizing that once you actually sit down and put ideas together that price may go up.
I know that we have discussed mostly the building of the website and not the actual hosting, but again it all depends on who is building your website. If you fall under option 2. (paid) or option 4. free hosting should not be discussed. If you are paying for building your website, why place it on free hosting. With options 1, 2(free),or 3, free hosting can be an option for you.
Whose going to maintain your website?
Option 1 and 2 are good candidates for you doing the maintenance. Option 3 and 4 may be more difficult. It all depends on what the designer of your website used to create your website. Do you have the same program they had? Did they use special language to create aspects of your website. (PHP, JAVA, or DHTML scripts). Can you follow the code they created. If you plan to add and delete content from your website, be sure the designer places documentation into the code that tells you what not to change or where changes can be made. Follow those documentation directives or you may find your website is no longer useable. If you feel confident that you need to only make changes to content and the designer has placed documentation to avoid problems you may be able to maintain your own site. Caution: You may still want to know HTML before jumping into maintaining your website.
Option 3 is a shot in the dark. Usually the build for free option is handled by the person who built it as time permits. This week or may be next week. Or they have left to pursue other ventures hundreds or thousands of miles away. Good Luck! If you have a personal website very little damage is done, you just make a new one. If it is your business website you have problems, either with outdated information or if you tried to fix it yourself it comes up with errors or not at all. Now you have problems. Maybe it can be resurrected or you'll have to rebuild it or have it rebuilt. This could cost you.
Option 4 can be maintained by you, if it is constructed to allow it. You really need some knowledge of the language used to build your website. HTML is probably the easiest for you. Have the designer use html if you plan to maintain your site. If he uses JAVA or DHTML be sure he documents what you can change and how you change it. PHP could present problems, but the designer may be able to instruct you on what you can change in the various modules he builds like the heading section or content section. If you doubt that you have the knowledge and or time to do this you might consider having a maintenance contract or paying for hosting that includes maintenance.
In all cases above be sure you get a copy of your website when it is finished, documentation of your Domain and registrar, and all documentation on the hosting service (username password etc.
We will be glad to consult with you on building your web site. Free 1 hour consulting even if you build the site yourself.