Why Christmas is the perfect time to start building your own websitePosted on 23 November 2011 |
What will you be doing over Christmas?
If you've had a busy year and are anything like me, you'll be lying in a darkened room with a cold flannel over your forehead, a box of chocolates in one hand and a large bottle of wine in the other!
However, if you have recently started your own business, you might be thinking about getting a website built. You might even be thinking about building it yourself, to save money maybe, or because you'd like to have full control over your site, or maybe just because you're just plain interested in that kind of thing.
What better time to do it! Many businesses close down for the entire Christmas period, which could be up to 2 weeks in some cases, so you're confined to the house with assorted relatives and enough food to feed several armies. What else have you got to do apart from endlessly channel-hopping through "The Great Escape", "Toy Story", and "Bridge over the River Kwai", or listen to Aunt Mabel ask you for the 49th time what time dinner will be ready?
This is the ideal time to escape it all and get your website built! However, there's the small problem of how you're going to do it. Are you an HTML programmer? If so, forgive me for even writing this, you know what you're doing and don't need any help or advice. Are you a Dreamweaver whizz kid? Ditto.
However, if like the majority of us, you're a normal person who knows a normal (ok, very little) amount about the web and how it works, you might want to look at a website builder package. A website builder is a tool that allows the construction of websites without the need for manual code editing.
You might have seen some of these advertised on TV. Mostly these are online packages, which means that all you need is access to the internet from your pc, laptop, ipad, tablet or smartphone, and you can log-on and create and manage your own website from scratch. An example of a website builder is WebMaker CMS. The main advantage of an online website builder is that it is quick and easy to use, and does not require any experience. Often a website can be built and be up and running live on the internet quickly. Technical support is usually provided, as are how to video and help files. This makes online website builders ideal for the beginner.
Some of these packages are completely free (watch out for hidden costs), but most require a small monthly or annual fee. You can usually choose from a whole range of designs and colours, and can upload your own images and logos, and add your own text. Some packages have lots of extra features that let you send newsletters to your customers, ecommerce modules so you can sell online, polls or videos or other features. The best ones also handle SEO so that your site can get found by the search engines once you've built it and link in with Google Analytics so you can see how your site is performing.
So now you can add your website builder package to your list for Santa, and get going on building your fantastic new site! If you're planning on building your own website over Christmas, do let me know.
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