Have you tried a free website builder
Have you tried a free
website builder
If you are looking for a low cost way to get your business
onto the web then using a free website builder might be the answer you have
been looking for. This article explains
more.
What is a site
builder?
There are a number of software products around that Web
hosting companies can setup on their servers, which allow their customers to
create professional looking websites using a wizard type tool this means that
it is possible to build a DIY website, in something like the way you can create
a presentation using MS Powerpoint.
What are the
advantages of a site builder?
Typically site builders or website builders as they are
sometimes known are bundled up within a web hosting package and are therefore
free once webhosting is purchased. Here
are some other benefits:-
Easy to use -
normally there are a series of steps, first choose a template, then select a
colour, then page by page you can create a website
No coding or design skills
required, building a web site needs a combination of a creative skill to put
together a design and technical skill to create html code for each page, a web
site builder does that automatically which means that you don't need either of
these skills.
Feature rich -
Often site builders will include features such as contact us form, guest books
or even flash effects, all of which are hard for novice users to implement
alone.
No software needed
- Creating a website normally requires web design software such as Macromedia
Dreamweaver and publishing software known as FTP software. With a site builder all that is automated so
you don't need to spend money on expensive software.
Speed - typically
you can build and publish a respectable looking website in less than 15 minutes
and if you have a few hours to really work on it you can build something
reasonably good.
Experiment - If you
are new to website design then its sometimes good to have somewhere to start,
once you have written your text and seen it on a webpage then you get ideas for
what to do next, it is hard to do that
when you have no point of reference or previous experience.
Web Presence - If
you are looking for a web presence then a site builder is an ideal way to put
basic information online such as Contact details, name address and directions.
Search Engines -
Recently Google the leading search engine has started excluding parking pages
from the search results, also known as SERPS, so having a basic holding page
created using free site builder is a great way to start your web history with
Google, the age of pages and links are an important factor in the Search Engine
Algorithms.
Are there any disadvantages?
There is a difference between the sort of quality you can
reasonably expect from a free site builder and
a professionally built website which may cost several thousand pounds. Here are some more differences:-
Templates -
Whilst templates can look and feel professional they will always be generic and
are not going to exactly match your own brand
Unique -
templates are just that, designed to be used by lots of difference business
websites, so your website design will not be unique.
Reflection of your
business - Increasingly customers are expecting to see professional
websites, that reflect the type of business they are dealing with, if you have
a free template that will not necessarily give the right impression to your
prospective customers.
Time - Creating a
professional website can take some time, typically between 2 weeks and 2 months
depending on the complexity involved.
DIY - You can end
up spending a lot of time working on a website when that time would be better
spent promoting or working on your own business projects.
Professionals -
If you have a budget then sometimes its better to get professional web
designers to work on your project for you.
You would use a Lawyer for your legal work, web designers are professionals also.
Summary
DIY website builders are a great option, particularly if you
have no budget for web design work, you might also want to get a quote for a
professional web design.
How can Discount
Domains help?
Here at Discount Domains we have our own in house team of
web designers and coders, plus a free web site builder. That means that you can have the best of both
worlds. You can start with a free DIY
website, then talk to our team about taking the next step upwards.
We can handle almost all web design projects.
Static website, Ecommerce stores such as Prestashop sites
and Content Management sites using Wordpress or CMS made simple.
If you need help or advice with any web project, reach out
to our team and we will be delighted to quote for a bespoke project or give you
an introduction to our own site builder product.
Adrian Lawrence is the author of this article and is one of
the webmasters at Discount Domains https://plus.google.com/u/0/106088322856862782725/posts
