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Creating Your Website - Lesson 2


We have emphasised this before, but just to make absolutely sure: DESIGN then build.

"Measure twice, cut once"

Please make sure you have completed the design phase before starting to build. It will make things immeasurably easier for yourself and save you lots of time and money!

Ok, so you've diligently completed the design stage and you know exactly what you would like your site to look like; now what? Time to decide how you are going to build your website. You have three main choices:

  1. Hire somebody with the skills to build it for you.
  2. Use some sort of software to assist you in building it.
  3. Learn and use HTML or HTML templates.

Let's discuss some of the pro's and con's quickly before going into more detail.

Time versus Money

The first thing your need to consider is your bank account. Be aware that good web developers are not cheap. Having said that due to the downturn in the IT industry over the last couple of years they are a lot more affordable than they used to be. The benefit of a hiring somebody to build a site for you is that it will save you a lot of time and the end result should be very professional.

Learning HTML and building your web site yourself is the most time consuming of the three options but is also the cheapest (money-wise)! If you have more time then money or are one of those people who like to know everything that is going on, then learning HTML is a great option. It has the added benefit of allowing you to easily modify and update your web site, after all, you built it in the first place, so you should know where everything goes!

Using software can be a great way of getting your web site up and running both quickly and without a big hole in your budget. There are two main types of software:

  1. Site-building tools like Site Build It!
  2. Web Publishing Programs like Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver

Site builders are software that allows you to rapidly create a web site by simply pointing and clicking. Some web hosting programs will include a basic site builder in their hosting package.

We would recommend you stay away from web publishing programs for the moment simply because it takes time to become truly proficient in them and most likely you do not require all the functionality they can provide. With the amount of effort you will need to put into learning these packages you would be better off just learning HTML.

For somebody just starting out we would recommend that you use a site-building tool. Additionally, it would be worth your while learning some HTML basics.