So you want to make a website? Cool. There are many ways available to build a website these days, from custom sites like the one you’re on now to pre-made templates where you just fill in the blanks (or so they say).
La web design is an art as well as a science – after all, there is a lot going on behind the scenes of the marvelous content-rich sites out there today. Whether you’re looking to market your business or just want a place to put videos your cat chasing a laser, there’s a way to build a website for that!
Option 1:
Free. Careful now, although you may be frantically searching for the link that to a free website, it’s not here. For good reason, I assure you. There are indeed companies out there that tout about giving you a free website. After all, we live in a nation where complete strangers give each other things for absolutely nothing in return. If you believe that, talk to me about a bridge afterwards.
How do I get a free website? If you type free web site into Google you’ll find plenty of eager hosts out there ready to house your site, in exchange for a little ad space or maybe redirecting some of your traffic to their affiliates. If you’re serious about what you’re putting ON the site, you should be serious about how to GET your website.
1) You won’t look very professional with the free web host’s ads all over the place.
2)The time spent trying to get your site to work in a fly-by-night web host could be better spent doing what you make money to do.
3)There are bad eggs out there that practice domain hijacking and other illicit activities.
Option 2:
Use a do-it-yourself website with a company like 1and1 or Homestead. Review these companies carefully – although they offer an interface that most people can create a decent looking site (or even great looking), there are some major pitfalls of the WYSIWYG option.
WYSIWYG stands for What you see is what you get
1) You’re still spending time that could be better spent doing what you’re already experienced with instead of trying to figure out how to get your site just right.
2) Limited features. There are several different components that make the web the rich and engaging place that it is. Unfortunately, when using a DIY WYSIWYG editor, you are limited to what you can really do with your new website.
3) The long term cost. These companies charge quite a bit compared to a professional web hosting services that experienced web designers use (personally, I like LunarPages best).
Although visual web site builders seem like a good idea, in the long run they are serious barriers that you’ll have to later overcome. After spending weeks (even months) building your site, it’s insult to injury to have to pay a professional to re-work everything. How do I know? Because I went this route long ago.
Just because you CAN do something yourself doesn’t mean you should.
Option 3:
Learn to program. I think learning is great. In fact, I spend hours every week reading any and everything that interests me (usually tech, design, trends – you know, the geeky stuff you want your marketer to know). So this next statement goes against my general nature – but for good reason: This is not a good option. It’s here to be thorough. To make a complete list. Coding is a complex and meticulous process with many intricate inner workings that make what you see on the web become a reality.
In order to program a professional website, you’ll need to learn enough technical mumbo-jumbo to make the complete works of Plato look like light reading. Additionally, unlike Plato’s work, things change – will continue to change – and are being changed right now. Personally, I went this route only after spending over 150 hours (yes, almost a solid week, or 19 eight hour days) getting my 20 page looking just right in a do-it-yourself app (Homestead, actually). After finishing, the horrifying conclusion came that I was stuck with it. Even simple changes to the framework of the site had to be done 20x, on each page. Complete. Total. Nightmare.
Which brings me to Option 4:
Just hire a professional. Look, I know designing a website can be a daunting task – especially if it’s your first time. Even more so if it’s your 2nd or 3rd – and you’re already out thousands of dollars and precious time you’ll never get back. I deal with these people all the time, because let me tell you what’s true: There are some real hack-jobs out there. Whether it’s a slew of poorly drawn code stitched together by an amateur web designer or 1000s of lines injected by a WYSIWYG site builder when only 100 would do: I’ve seen it. I’ve fixed it. That doesn’t mean I like it.
Like most things, it’s much easier to do it right the first time. It’s cheaper in the long run. It’s better for you. Plus, it’s a heck of a lot less frustrating to deal with a friendly professional than trying to get some tech support with a free service or signing away a portion of your life to learn something you’ll probably only need once or twice in a lifetime ‑ unless of course, your end up like myself and countless others suckered in by these It’s cheap! It’s easy! claims just to learn a valuable (costly) life lesson.