Is your business or organization in need of a web site? Want to put your thoughts online in your own blog?
Well where do you start?
I saw a commercial on TV the other day that used the perils of several web design routes to steer prospective customers to its product. The truth is every route you could take to putting yourself on the web has its ups and down. Today I’ll try and break some of those down for you.
Option 1: Have a tech savvy friend or relative make your site.
This is a great choice if you know someone that you can trust. They must have a strong work ethic and be willing to hold back some of their friendly criticism so that your idea’s can shine through. Friends tend to feel like they know what you want and the familiarity to not be afraid to say it. Who knows this could be a big hit or a big miss. The strongest argument for this option is generally the money that you could save. Not to be too Dr. Phil’ish but the strongest argument against is putting your relationship at risk.
Option 2: Hire someone professional to do it.
This is generally the best option for a high quality site. It can be costly though particularly if you don’t have a clear idea of what you want. You might spend hours just having them try ideas before they can put your vision on the web.
Option 3: Do it yourself
There are so many options for do it yourself web design these days. The biggest hurdle is just wading through all of the providers and technology to decide what the best thing for you is. You could do it old school and learn HTML and hand make the site yourself, but, if its your first time, you won’t get close to professional results and you’ll probably burn up hours of your valuable time. The method that the commercial I mentioned is advertising is a template based system. This is one of the easiest. You basically just need to sign up for the service and pick a template for your site. Add in some content and your on your way. The disadvantage to this approach is that the templates lock you in to something that is never quite right and you can’t change it easily. Template sites also tend to look a little less professional than hand made sites.
Of course, with each of these choices, it is important that you first decide what the site is for and how much you are willing to put into it (both in terms of time and money). For a simple personal blog, a free template based service like Blogger is probably more than enough. For a high traffic business site, it just wouldn’t do though.
What could be a better way to round out this post than with a little self promotion? I guess I am biased, but whatever your web design needs are I can tailor my services to fit them. My approach to web design takes the time saving aspects of starting with templates then adding custom hand design to perfect the site. If you are looking for an honest, simple and affordable approach to designing your site, send me an email.
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