Is this your first time creating a website? If this is your first time creating a website, you are loaded with questions, and very important decisions. By now you should have had your domain name and hosting company aligned, so the only thing that you need to worry is how is your site going to look.
For most first timers, The question to do-it-yourself website or hiring a web design or developing company is very large. Although most of the time it comes down to how much money you want to spend. If you have the large budget most probably you will end up with a website design and developing company to take all the frustration or happiness of the accomplishment away from you. If you do not want to spend that much, you will attempt to do your website yourself, and most probably you are the latest since you have come to this site for help in creating your own site.
Website Creation
There are many ways to start up your site. The first question that you need to ask yourself is what do I want to accomplish with my website? Is it going to be a couple of pages for web presentation only?, or does it need some type of functionality? Do I want people to find me in the internet through search engines? or I just do not care - I want to have my presence anyways. These are the type of question that you need to start asking yourself now, so you do not throw your work later on.
Most people that are creating a website for the first time want to go with motion and sound. They want to go with Flash. Flash movies can be the most amazing websites in terms of creativity, and they just leave the website users in awe. However, search engines as Google, Yahoo, and MSN cannot read anything that is made with flash. If they cannot read them, they will not place them high enough or basically anywhere where searchers can find them. Not only that, it can be a little tricky if you do not have any experience developing Flash sites. We are going to be steering ourselves out of Flash Design for now, and focusing more into guide the first time website user into creating a site with ease.
Using Templates and Themes with CMS
The First time web designer tents to complicate themself due to the fact that they do not know the tools readibly available on the net. These tools come in the name of Website Templates, Themes, and content management systems or CMS such as wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and others. They will make your site look very professional, and will shorten your design fase by many folds. Best of all, there are a lot good looking CMS and templates that are Free or very low budget.
Most of the free content management systems have been extensively developed and tested by the website community over and over. Not only that, some of the big websites in the net today most likely use them. Also, sine they have been extensively used, programmers have develop add-ons or plugins that most likely will exceed your need for your website functionality whether it will be an ecommerce site with credit card processing or a site for showing off your private collection.
Furthermore, most CMS come with the ability to change looks (Templates or Themes) on the fly. So, if three days from now you do not like how your site looks, you change the template or theme by a few clicks of your mouse. So, for all these reasons the best way to go for first time website creators is to go with templates and themes, and a good CMS that will fit your need.
