A web site is business’ window to the online world. Where customers used to walk down Main Street and peer into shop windows, they now sit in the comfort of their home and browse a businesses services and products on the World Wide Web. It is important to make sure that a web site is attractive, easy to navigate and consistent across all pages. While it is easy to find many professional web designers that will design an attractive web site, but many small business owners with a limited budget decide to do it themselves.
Even small business owners can design their own web site with easy site creators that are available free or for a small fee from many hosting companies, but there are some things a savvy business owner should look for when creating a site using one of these site builders.
Almost all site builders offer a selection of predesigned templates that users can choose from. The choices range from a low of 40 to up to 800 templates. While it is tempting to go for a site builder with many template choices, a business owner should make sure the template choices are appropriate for his business.
Another thing to consider when looking at the selection of templates is the customization options each template provides. Some templates have extensive modifications available, from added pictures to font changes, but others don’t allow any changes at all.
A business owner should know if the template is usable as is. If not, he should make sure that the template can be edited before making his choice. Templates have different levels of available customization. Some templates allow for color changes. Other will allow customization to such a degree that the final web site will bear little resemblance to the original template.
While most site builders are easy to use and provide options that allow business owners to simply add a logo and web content, many are much more complicated. In some cases, site builders can be as complicated and hard to figure out as professional web authoring software. If at all possible, a potential web master should be allowed to spend some time with a site builder to get a feel for the ease of use the software provides.
If a business plans to offer products or services for sale online, a web site building tool should allow seamless integration to an ecommerce shopping cart platform. Ideally, the web site builder should be compatible with any shopping cart platform, but in lieu of this, a site builder should at least offer its own premade shopping cart.
As a business grows, the web site should grow with it. Web sites created with a template should be able to support such growth. Templates should offer page templates for different purposes, such as a Contact form and a About Us page, as well as blank pages for customized content.
A professional looking web site can be created with a site builder, but business owners should know what to look for when selecting the right one for their needs.
Tags: site builder, software, templates
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March 2nd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
The use of web builders can be a great help to the novice but I still think that nothing beats getting your hands dirty and actually trying to code a simple page, or taking a template apart to see how it all works.
Even if you choose to use something else, I’d say that at least knowing what the code looks like can be a great help.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I have to agree with mambios. Personally I like to get familiar with all my code, and attempt to fully understand every detail of what is happening. It takes longer, sure, but it helps in the end.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I would also agree with Mambios, it may be more difficult to build a site from scratch, but the the skills you gain from a bare bones start are priceless. The more you know about web design, the better, it will help you solve problems and create better sites.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I think that the best way to learn how to design web pages is to get a good software program such as nvu. You should get an easy template and then copy and paste it into nvu. Then you can see the code and learn more about designing web pages. It is important to learn the code but I do not think that a newbie should let the fact that they do not know html hinder them from starting their online business.
April 12th, 2008 at 4:23 am
Hi,
I have to agree with you to, I’m not a web site builder fan neither, and i hate those sites and softwares that gives you a site in 3-4 pushes of a button….Mostly because I ran into people who were very found with their creations, and they called themselves ‘web designers’. But on the other hand put your self in a small company owner’s position…you just started your business and you know you need a site but you are not ready to spend 2,3 maybe 400$ on a web site…..I think it’s a good solution… But use it for personal bsiness….don’t call your self a designer or devoloper…
April 15th, 2008 at 4:06 am
I think I’m one of those who are having a hard time building and managing a site. Your template is very important and once you have chosen one, you should stick with it. I think learning how to write the program is the best thing to do to ensure that you know what is going on in your site.
April 20th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I think a small business owner who is not really a tech person may be better off getting a professional design to start with. But they should be sure to get one that is easily updates by the business staff, not one that requires paying the designer every time they want a new article. Get recommendations from people whose sites look like what you want.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:20 am
I think its not easy to find a ready to use template software with a good premade shopping cart. However usually people use this kind of software for personal or community site, or a general company site. I think we must be specific everytime we want to search the best software that suits our need. We must learn about the features, of course the customer support.
May 10th, 2008 at 6:25 am
These days it’s become ever so easy. Now you don’t even have to know html to design a website. Drag and drop site builders have made website designing into child’s play. One of the site builders that I like is Blue voda. They don’t just have videos that explain exactly how to go about building your website, they even give you all the help you need to build it and of course, it doesn’t need html knowledge. They already have many templates to choose from but creating a new one is preferable because for one you get a unique template and two it’s exciting. There are a few other website builders that are almost as good, especially for building marketing websites.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
If you’re serious about building a business, then I wouldn’t suggest a website builder. Most are fairly limited in the long run, and will only look nice in certain browsers… whereas you want your website to look good in all browsers for all customers. Hire a pro who knows what they’re doing, have a website designed specifically for your business and your needs. In the end, it’s well worth the money.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:06 am
As rightly said, the template selected must fit future expectations and it should also accommodate future changes. Business websites typically demand more changes as their customer base increasing.
May 25th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
To me, the most important thing is to have one that has the ability to render in both Gecko (the better engine used by Opera and Firefox) and Explorer (the pathetic one used by IE). Being a strict Firefox user, IE can kiss my ass when I make a webpage, but if I have to constantly tweak it to make it work in Firefox because it doesn’t use the FF rendering engine, it’s not good enough to me.