Website Design - The DYI Approach
When you cannot afford to have a
website built for you, the other option to look at is the DYI
or do it yourself approach. Building your own website has many advantages and it isn’t
nearly as complicated as it sounds like it should be.
However, the first warning that I can give you about
building your own website is ‘don’t do shortcuts’, no matter
how tempting the offer.
The concept of something is
better than nothing does not apply to website design.
There’s also a reason why companies charge as much as
they do to design a website.
It takes someone with a decent eye and there is a learning
curve. A good looking
website won’t happen on your first try if you are starting from
scratch. While a
designer could probably have a site ready for you in a few days,
doing this in your spare time and doing a good job of it could
take you several months.
You can get relatively cheap
hosting these days at even under $100 per year for a quality host.
You can also pick up a good website building kit for $100
to $150 and use it for years to do an unlimited number of
websites. If you get
cheaper than that, in almost every case, you end up with a site
that looks cheap. Building the freebie-hosted, freebie-constructed site will
simply chew up your time and nobody will ever see it.
The
other warning is to look at your site objectively as you go along.
It’s easy to be excited when you finish your first page.
Let it sit for awhile and then go back and look at it
again. Try to look at
it as though you are your customer and you are trying to decide
which company to contact first.
Is your site impressive, does it fit right into the
average, or does it look hokey and amateurish?
