Any ideas on making a website myself?

[NC Gardens & Design]

Hello,

I'm looking to create my own website for my landscape design business. I don't want to have to pay someone to do this if I can help it as I am reasonably proficient with a pc. Does anyone know of any good website creation programs that I could download for free? Thanks for your help!

[tkessex]

I'd suggest popping over to eBay and sourcing a second-hand copy of either Dreamweaver or Frontpage (the latter has been widely criticised, but does the job perfectly well), but many hosting companies provide website builders as standard so it could pay to experiment with those before exploring other options.

[Alternatives]

Hello,
I have a friend round the corner to me, he has never ever built a web page before, but he had a look at Mr Website and got a package to build websites, plus a domain name of his own choice, web-space to host his site on, the lot for about £20, once he got his package he built and loaded his site to the net within 2 days of working on it.
I hope this may be of help to you.
from
David

[fisicx]

Lots of online website builders and packages you can but cheaply. In fact you could even build the website using your office package.

But that's not the problem. Do you know how to make the site usable and accessible, understand how to make it search engine friendly, how to use images to create mood, write a call to action, organise the contents to make them effective, write convincing copy, create a logical structure, use keywords, how to identify choke points, the importance of width and depth in tyour site structure.

Building a website is easy. As already suggested you can do it with a £20 application, Building an effective website however is a completely different thing.

Simple example. Do you know the optimum ratio of font size to page width? How to calculate the fog index? How to use leading to concentrate the readers eye and when best to use serif, sans'serif or cursive fonts?

[Mr.Cerebral]

Hi there,

Well i wish you well with your new venture.
Try googling "Content Management System" or "Website Builder".
Lots of websites, and even Web Hosting firms now offer their own Website Building service so you dont have to get technically involved.

All the best

Regards

[PaulTrueski]

I have used Nvu for building my web pages successfully. Go to nvu.com It"s FREE.. Hope this helps.

[recycler]

Hi

Maybe head over to OSWD for a free CSS template. The problem is, they are not unique and as you get about on the net, do not be surprised if you see sites that look like yours. Anyway, if you are not bothered about that, then I agree with the above post. Get a copy of dreamweaver and learn how to use it.

If you want to gain new business from people finding your site in search engine results then please look up current SEO thinking.

[niche]

Originally Posted by NC Gardens & Design

Hello,

I'm looking to create my own website for my landscape design business. I don't want to have to pay someone to do this if I can help it as I am reasonably proficient with a pc. Does anyone know of any good website creation programs that I could download for free? Thanks for your help!

You can build your website yourself but it will cost you some money. I'll explain in a moment.

To build the site itself you can use a free html editor. A selection at Free HTML editors

You can learn the basics of building a website Website Building tutorials

That's the free part.

To get a domain name you need to pay a domain registrar. Godaddy are big but there are others. A dot com domain name costs about $10 a year

Also you will need to host your website once it's ready and that costs you about 5 to 10 dollars a month for a decent hosting account. the hosting account is where your website lives and where it is accessed by your visitors. There are lots of people that supply hosting accounts but a few options are godaddy, kiosk, hostgator and globat. But shop around you could find a good deal.


good luck

[katman]

try going to downloads.com theyhave several freeware program you can download and each of them are rated.

Whenver you get a somain server, it usually comes with a website making program that is easy to use as well.

[customtollfree]

Since adobe already bought Dreamweaver and named it "Adobe Dreamweaver" you can try googling for Macromedia Dreamweaver or better yet try going to Filehippo and search for an old version of Dreamweaver, it still does the job.

Once you have your website setup, you can check the "grade" of your site and see if its SEO friendly by checking out websitegrader.com