The second option you can consider is using a free website builder. A free website builder is a piece of software that is provided by a software developer for the use of creating a website in less than 5 minutes using simple web tools for anybody who is not a developer to create a quick website, and there is no need to understand coding such as HTML or CSS because it is already setup on the back end with free hosting. It contains little to no work at all other than choosing a domain name, a website template, colors, logo, adding content, and pictures. With free website builders the heavy building is done for you, and all you need to do is dedicate your time on focusing on your business, products, and customers. So which do you choose, let's get into greater depth.
1. Should I Try a Free Website Builder?
These are what we call wysiwyg - "what you see is what you get", and that is fine just as long as it is serving the purpose, and that purpose is reaching your ideal customer. Your customer really don't care about how the website looks just as long a it serves their purpose. Now, I'm not saying you should place adds about keeping your body slim on a website about wrestling, your theme has to match your offerings so you look very legitimate. Here's a list of type of people and reasons you might want to use free builder software:
Who Uses Free Website Builders?
- Free Builder Software for Kids - Kids uses free web builders if they are performing some sort of project for their school.
- Small business uses free website builders to keep in contact with customers by placing their business phone numbers, addresses, and services on tabs tagged to the front page of the website. It is an affordable way to get on the internet rather than being exclusive to social networks.
- Professional web builders use them as anchorage for their preexisting websites ie. SEO, Linking.
Now, the question remain is what are you using them for? You probably already know why you are using them so let's map out the benefits you gain by using a free website builder:
Free Website Builders Benefits
- The Free Trial - Test drive the software before investing your money into it. You are provided with an sub domain and a opportunity to upgrade your domain to a custom domain.
- No Programming Experience - You don't need to know how to code a thing. All you need to know is which logo you wish to upload that'll match your product theme, have ideal colors, good articles, and a imagination.
- Hosting - You may know how to make a website, but hosting is a whole different story. With a free website builder you pay a monthly or yearly maintenance fee and they take care of your hosting after you've completed the 30 day trial.
Overall, I think a free website builder is going to cost you less because you are not dealing with code, you are maintaining your business instead. On the other hand, I recommend you learn programming so you are not left vulnerable over simple situations you may come face to face with such as tables, div, span, font, br, a, and many others. Staying prepared and keeping updated on the main forms of programming which are Javascript, HTML, CSS will ensure that you are ahead of what is going on with your website.
Here are some Free Website Builders I Use:
2. Should I Learn HTML & CSS to Build a Website
During the 1990s it was virtually difficult to create a website of your own if you didn't understand "HTML" which stands for hyper-text markup language. HTML is the standard structure of every website you visit on the web, rather if you find a web page through search engines or somebody refer a website to you %100 of all websites are created with HTML. The "CSS" which stands for Custom or Cascading StyleSheets used for adding detailed style to your website after applying HTML to your pages. Applying CSS to your website includes colors, design, and a much easier way of changing and designing fonts, sizes, editing HTML forms, and much more. The fact remains that you must have complete knowledge of using HTML and CSS if you desire to have a fully functional website. Here are a list of benefits you will receive upon learning HTML & CSS:
HTML & CSS Benefits:
- Gain Knowledge and Understanding with Web Development.
- Create Websites for Money
- Develop a Skill and Build Upon It
- Possibility You'd Create Something Bigger
Start teaching yourself HTML by clicking here --> Learn HTML
Start teaching yourself CSS by clicking here --> Learn CSS
You've Gained Programming Skills, Cool, Now What? Start Developing and Upload
1. Start creating your first webpage by utilizing your web browser and text file. Download conTEXT by clicking here -->conTEXT.
2. After downloading open up conTEXT(Great tool for web developers), press "file" and "save as" index.html(This is where the homepage of all websites begin, index.php, index.html, use the keyword "index". All search engines look for this file before indexing, pages you create follows your index file. Without uploading an index.html file the web server will not understand where your website begins, otherwise putting in "www.whateveryouwebsitenameis.com" will only display "index/" with your pages underneath so please create and upload a index.html file to your server or you will not be able to display your homepage correctly.).
3. place the file on your desktop so it is easy to access or create a folder for it. Upon saving the file it should have parsed itself in the format of whichever default web browser you are currently using. Every web browser has the capability of parsing and exposing HTML, CSS, and Javascript code which is generally a fantastic way to have look at your web page before uploading to your web host.
4. FileZilla - It can be a headache logging into your hosting account in order to upload files to your server so a couple of brilliant software engineers came up with a bright idea to create a connection between your hosting and your desktop computer, and it is called Filezilla. It is the answer you are looking for when uploading video, pictures or any other files to your website on the fly. All you need is your login details from your hosting company and frequency to connect which is 21. Go here --> Filezilla to download.
Choosing a domain name and a host is not hard at all, but you will have to come up with at least 100 dollars a year for web hosting. You can go to godaddy.com to purchase the domain name for a couple of dollars then have it uploaded to a hosting company such as Dreamhost or Bluehost. Personally I pay for a yearly hosting package and domain for $120 a year at Bluehost.com or you could do the same at Godaddy.com. The choice is yours, after you've found the hosting company that you want to host your files then upload them.
SUGGESTIONS
Remember, you are in control of all files being ran on the server, that means all work performed by you belongs to you. I do not suggest that you create and upload files over, at, near or above 100mb for bandwidth reasons. Let me explain, when people visit your website they are downloading images, text files, and videos meaning that bandwidth is building up overtime. Most hosting companies say you are going to receive unlimited bandwidth which is not true. Most hosting companies do not expect you to waste so much bandwidth so they'd pitch you a nice deal by throwing in 'unlimited' in order to entice you to purchase their service.
Here is the reality, if you receive over 1,000 visitors a day then you've lost 100,000mb which adds up as 100gb so think about the size of the files being uploaded to your server because the hosting company will shut you down for using so much bandwidth. Remember, more likely you are going to start off using shared servers meaning other people are using the same server which could possibly shut down other people's website for overusing bandwidth, so be considerate. If you can, stick to kilobytes as much as possible rather than megabytes.
As you can see there are tools out available that'll teach you how to create a website. So, do you think creating your own website is the answer you are looking for?
