“How Hard Can It Be?”
I mean really! Kids make websites.
Here are a few ideas and resources for “free or really inexpensive” web site development. Save a bundle while you learn new skills in your spare time.
Free Space and Software
These tools and services can help you get your web presence up and you will have a unique link to your content.
- Google gives you a free email account and web space with Page Creator abilities. Google also owns Blogger: a very easy to use blog tool.
- Wix offers a good selection of flash based templates that you can “drag and drop” design. They will host you for free, but if you want to use your own domain it will cost something. Tons of templates with very cool “flash” effects.
- Weebly is a website development tool recommended by Tim Ferriss (author of The 4 Hour Workweek). Free!
Spend Just a Little
Purchase Domain and Hosting Then Use Free Software
- Purchase hosting
and your own domain name at a low cost but reliable host. We’re using They offer a Website Tonite tool that might work for you.- WordPress is a popular and free open source content management tool for all kinds of websites and blogs. This is a great community and you will probably have years of support with this tool because it is so popular.
- Joomla is a free powerful open source site development tool that some professional site developers use when they know their clients will want to manage the site themselves. You can use Joomla on GoDaddy. This software has a very user friendly interface, but you may end up coming to the end of it’s usefulness if your site will be more complex than a few pages along with some buttons. If you need any complex coding, don’t select this.
- Drupal is another open source site development tool that offers a robust development and maintenance environment. A little more difficult for the non-tech to learn, but if you are going to integrate with other applications you should probably go this way, just be prepared to learn.
- You’ll need something for photos and something for vector images. Try Gimp and Inkscape.
- You also could use a color picker. Let’s say you have a logo, and you want the background to match your main logo color. Click over the color on the logo and this tool shows you what that color’s “code” is. Investigate color themes at kuler.
Do You Think You Need A Little Help?
Some people do. If you come to the end of your patience or time, just give us a call and we’ll take your site to a whole new level quickly and professionally.
