Building Your Website

Fortunately, building a website has never been easier – even for the beginner who has no experience building one. There was a time when building a website was really hard to do, involving expensive web designers and serious computer programming skills – but not anymore. This document will provide specific information about building your website, steps it will take to create it, as well as specific recommendations that you can use to get started.

There are 2 different routes that you can take when building a website:

1. Build from Scratch
2. Use Website Building Software

This is a critical dilemma that many new web site owners face early in the development of their online businesses:

Learning how to build a website from scratch is no easy task, but it can be done. Keep in mind though, that if you decide to pursue the ‘Build from Scratch’ method, it’s going to take time. To gain proficiency in all of the key areas of web programming required will take time, energy, and patience.

If you are one of those “do-it-yourself” fanatics that insist on going it alone, we recommend that you start with one of the best website building books available: Creating a Web Site — The Missing Manual. This book by Matthew McDonald has great reviews and comes highly recommended on Amazon.com. It’s a fantastic resource to have on the subject, providing valuable information and comprehensive tutorials for building a site. This book is a great place to start for the do-it-yourselfer. You can find more information here on how to build and code a website from scratch as well.

At some point, every website owner will require some web mastering skills and should gain a modest level of familiarity with HTML and web programming, but early on in the site building process, utilizing a site building tool will alleviate much of the heavy web programming that will be required.

We have provided a list of our most recommended website building tools below:

Site Build It

The gold standard of website building tools is unquestionably Site Build It! (SBI!) from Ken Evoy. The beauty of the Site Build It! program is that it’s geared towards the beginning website owner but the quality and sophistication of the entire package make SBI! a compelling toolset for even the most sophisticated and experienced internet marketer.

I have personally been involved with building, managing and marketing websites since 1995. I only wish that I had access to SBI! when I was coding my first site. SBI! provides novice website owners with an incredibly sophisticated platform for site creation and online marketing that’s available right at the click of a button.

Now, it’s important to note that Site Build It! is not free, but it is very affordable, and most importantly, one of the best programs for website novices who want to build a business online. In my opinion, it will be, by far, the best investment that you make in your new online business for a variety of reasons. Particularly for the beginner, we strongly encourage you to check out the SBI! video tour.

Here are some of the most notable features of the program:

• No HTML or Programming Skills Required
• Creates Site, Quickly, Easily – Just Point Your Mouse and Click
• Large Selection of Site Templates to Choose From
• Add a Blog, Forums, RSS Feeds, Web 2.0 Functionality, Quickly and Easily
• Unconditional Money Back Guarantee

While I don’t have too many complaints about Site Build It! there are just a couple downsides that I should point out.

First, the template selection is somewhat limited and the template designs themselves are pretty basic. Dr. Ken Evoy, founder of Site Sell, addresses that complaint however by countering, “a commercial website is not a painting, it’s a sales tool.” SBI! is geared more towards the overall sales performance of a web site, how to make the site sell and how to promote the business’ products and/or services. SBI! focuses primarily on what works best in the sales process rather than what is most appealing to look at. So, if your priority is to build a site that can actually sell stuff, SBI! is the best choice.

The only other limiting factor of SBI! is the fee – it doesn’t allow you to build multiple web sites with your single licensing fee.  This is primarily because the SBI! price includes both the cost of hosting as well as a domain purchase, among many other things. Most small business owners will not need to build more than one website at a time, however, so SBI!’s offering is still the ideal solution for the typical small business owner building his first website.

IMPORTANT NOTICE for Stay-at-Home or Work-At-Home Moms:

XSite-Pro

XSite-Pro is another outstanding website building platform that provides a comprehensive toolset for individuals who have at least some experience with building web sites. The thing that I like the most about X-Site Pro is their pricing model: they only charge a one-time “licensing” fee that allows you to build an unlimited number of sites with the software.

Another one of the strengths of the XSite-Pro platform is their template system. With a huge number of templates to choose from within the template library, building a professional looking website and adding content couldn’t be any easier.

There are a couple of downsides with XSite-Pro, particularly for the novice website builder. For starters, XSite-Pro does not provide hosting with their service. More advanced users who have a preference for a particular web host might see this as an advantage though because you can use just about any hosting service in tandem with XSite-Pro. You also have to buy your own domain name separately. (Site Build It! includes the cost of the domain as well as the cost of hosting in its service.)

You won’t find any type of traffic building tools either or help with getting your site ranked in the search engines as they are not provided for with XSite-Pro. Figuring out how to drive traffic and get your site ranked in the search engines is totally up to you.

XSite-Pro is best suited for webmasters with at least some experience building websites, who are looking for an automated tool to build multiple template-based websites. While we highly recommend XSite-Pro as a website building tool for the intermediate to advanced web site builder, it is probably not suitable for the novice user who has no experience with online marketing. It’s better suited for webmasters who have their own hosting preferences and who have at least some experience with online marketing and search engine optimization techniques.

XSite-Pro toolset is most suitable for an intermediate or advanced webmaster who wants to crank out a large number of small, professional looking, niche-oriented websites in a short amount of time.

Homestead

Homestead is another website building platform (owned by Intuit) that was designed for small business owners who want a professional online presence without having to learn HTML or any other web programming language. Packages include web hosting, domain name and email and the service is very affordable – starting at $9.99 per month. You can try out the Homestead service with a 30-day risk free trial. Homestead has over 2,000 professionally designed templates to choose from. You can quickly and easily add text and images, customizing and updating your site quickly and easily. You’ll choose your own domain name and have the option of having email addresses that include your company’s domain name. You can even setup a PayPal account to accept payments on your web site 24/7 directly through the Homestead interface.

The strength of Homestead’s platform is its ease of use, wide variety of attractive templates to choose from as well as its very affordable price point. All in all, Homestead’s platform is solid, but similar to XSite-Pro, lacks any of the online marketing tools that are really necessary to help the business owner market, build traffic and sell product. The Homestead platform is geared toward business owners who would like a “brochure ware” web site – a quick, professional looking web site that is essentially will serve as an online brochure of their business. A brochure ware site typically won’t generate a significant amount of sales or promotion for the business but will provide a minimal web presence in a short amount of time.

Artisteer

Artisteer is web design automation software that creates unique website templates and blog themes. The software is very affordable, but is most useful for generating simple blog-style themes for Wordpress blogs quickly and easily. Artisteer allows you to export the themes that you generate for use with other websites. The software is pretty easy to use and you technically won’t need to know HTML, CSS or Photoshop to use it, however, if you want to customize or “tweak” any of the templates you will have to have some coding experience to navigate those changes.

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