Continued from Step 5

DIY Site Builders

So if you're getting your project going on a shoestring budget and you fancy your chances of putting together a website by yourself, then you may want to consider a company who offers a “Site-Builder” (template) feature.

Let's start by taking a look at possibly the largest and best known – Yahoo Site Builder.

Here's a link http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/index.php (in case that link has changed, just go to Yahoo.com and search for “Yahoo Site Builder”.

Yahoo Site Builder offers you a wide choice of design templates and fairly straightforward tools to get your website built, in a DIY manner, and published quickly. They also provide templates that are eCommerce compatible, so you can turn your website into a web store fairly easily.

At the time of writing, there are around 400 web templates on Yahoo from which to chose, and that's really the place to start. Scroll through the templates and be sure that they have something that suits the style of presentation you're looking for. Quite often that's the difficult challenge with this type of service. Naturally they're appealing to the masses with their template designs, so they do tend to look a little generic and lack that unique feel that comes with a custom design.

Try to look beyond the template presented to you, since you'll generally be able to customize the theme somewhat. At a basic level you'll be able to upload your own logo, to stamp your image on the template. You should also be able to tweak the color schemes by editing the configuration files for the template. It's generally quite easy to do this, though some Site Builder services require that you edit the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) which requires a little more practice.

The basic flow should run something like this -

1. Find the Site Builder service, such as Yahoo Site Builder (there are many others, Google the term “site builder”).

2. Check that the service pricing is in your ballpark. Expect to pay monthly fees somewhere in the $20 - $30 region without eCommerce.

3. Search through their templates to see that there is an appealing design layout for you.

4. Sign up for the service.

5. You'll often be able to register your domain with them, but if you already have one you'll need to follow their instructions for “pointing” your domain to their servers. This will usually require that you login to the place where you registered your domain name initially and change the DNS parameters.

6. Once you have registered and setup domain forwarding, you can select your choice of design template and begin customizing the layout. You will be able to -

7. Add your logo

8. Change colors / layouts

9. Add text

10. Create links to pages within your site.

Once you've done the preliminary design you'll always be able to come back and change it or add to it.

Most Site Builders will have a simple “wizard” that walks you through the process, and you should be able to publish a website in 30 minutes or so. Once you have your design published you can look into the eCommerce tools, if they come with your account. (They do with Yahoo but not with all). You can add products, setup payment methods, configure shipping options and more.

That's the basic walk through of creating a website yourself, using a Site Builder like Yahoo, and without the need for any real design skills.

So what are the pitfalls of using Site Builders, why doesn't everyone do it this way?

There are a few downsides and you should consider them carefully before you commit.

• Firstly, in terms of the visual aspect you'll be stuck with whatever templates they have to offer. The customization will be limited, so you'll need to decide whether it's something you can live with or not.

• You'll be paying monthly fees that will add up to a considerable amount. Obviously the appeal to paying monthly is that you get off to a soft-start financially, you're not paying design fees which could run in the $thousands. But over the lifetime of a website you'll be paying far more than had you paid someone upfront, and picked your own hosting in the $7 - $10 per month price range.

• You'll be constrained in how you can grow your website. In most cases this won't be an issues. You'll have your website, with it's information pages and maybe a shopping cart, but what if you wanted to add some modular features like link exchange software, affiliate software, mailing programs, etc etc?

• Your website will always look somewhat generic, and there are going to be a LOT of other websites around that look the same as yours with the exception of the logo.

On the one hand, if funds are limited, this method will certainly get you off the ground. On the other hand, it can be really difficult and costly to change lanes a year or two down the line.

My advice would be to try and come up with $500 and pay a design company to build you a basic initial website using something like Joomla CMS. It might hurt initially, but if you have confidence in your idea and your product, you'll be happy that you made the right choice down the line.