MarketeerMum.com A Mum’s experience of working from home using the Internet

Virtually all new companies have a corporate web site from the onset as to go without is, these days, considered foolish. In fact there are many businesses which exist solely on the Internet. If you have considered starting an online business of your own you may already have discovered how expensive it can be to have a web site built and designed by a professional. This may have caused you to reconsider starting up your own business but read on as this article examines various aspects of web design focusing on creating your very first site for free or minimal cost using free tools and templates.

You may find it surprising but there are legitimate reasons why professional web site designers charge such high fees. Not only do you have to cover the wages of the highly trained designer but the company has other costs such as office expenses. Even if the web designer works from home he will be using software and hardware, such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, graphics tablets and the likes, that is really rather expensive. However there are many cheaper, and some free, alternatives which can be used to create even the most complex websites and some companies even give away complete web designs for free (usually advertised as free web templates).

Finding the cheap or free alternatives is as simple as a search on your favorite search engine. Simply search for “web design freeware” or “web design shareware”, the difference between the two types is that one is free whereas the other requests a small payment for use (especially if the software is being used commercially). You will find a massive selection of web building tools are available and many are so good that some professionals use them!

One of the really great things about the free web design software is that much of it offers a WYSIWYG interface which makes web site building as easy as drawing. However you will need to learn a little about the programming languages used in web design, HTML & CSS. Even basic knowledge of HTML and CSS will help greatly.

If building a web site from scratch using HTML and CSS is a little daunting then you can search the Internet for free web site templates or free css templates. You will be amazed at the quality of some of these designs which can be easily tweaked to perfectly match your web design requirements.

If even this method is a little too complicated for you there is another alternative which is one of the most popular ways in which to build a web site – blogs. A blog (weblog) can be on any subject at all and is incredibly easy to create, so easy that there are literally millions of them on the Internet.

The really great thing about blogs is that they are free, yes, get that, this amazing web building tool is offered for free! Of course some blogs carry a cost but the most common are free for a basic account, such as Blogger and Wordpress. You are given a small amount of web space to store your posts (pages) and images and the whole process of building a blog is so easy that children do it. The interface is rather like a word processor, you simply type in the text for the page and hit publish and the page is immediately created.

Of course the free blogs are rather basic with some limitations but as your knowledge increases you can upgrade some to include extra facilities and more web space. However it is really not that complicated to change the design of your blog and, if you have downloaded the blog software (Wordpress is best) to install on your own free web space (very easy to install) then you can take advantage of the many free Wordpress themes and templates available.

Remember building your first web site can be as easy as searching for freeware, shareware, free web templates etc. So why don't you head on over to your favorite search engine and get started on your very first web site just now? Take a Look at www.freewebsitetemplates4u.com

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If you want to keep some of your website hidden or protected from the general public, there are a number of different ways to password protect your website.

You can keep some (or even all) of your website private by putting a password protection system in place. The level of security will depend on the method that you choose. How strong (or weak) your passwords are will be another factor in the security of your web pages. Your passwords should be a minimum of 8 characters long and a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers and - for extra strength - other characters.

Start by looking in your web hosting control panel. If your host uses Cpanel (which is the most popular control panel) then all you have to do is select the password protection option and follow the instructions. This is an easy and fast way. All you need to do is select the folder you want to password protect, type in a user name and password and click the “save” button.

The only snag with this method is that you’ll need to either do this for every single user of your site or use a common user name and password that is issued to everyone. You can work around this by changing the password regularly but there is still the potential for people to share the log-in details.

If the thought of logging into a control panel fills you with dread or your control panel stubbornly refuses to allow you to password protect part of your site, there are other methods you can use. There is a simple software program that will do everything for you at an affordable price. Check with your website host to see whether of not you're hosted on a Unix or Linux "platform". If you are, you can restrict access to your pages using your htaccess file. There are plenty of tutorials on the web if you want to go down this route.

If your reason for password protecting your website is that you’re running a membership site, there are a number of software programs out there to help. One of the best supported of these is called Amember – you can get more details from this link.

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Easy to use website builders make building a website a fairly simple task for those without coding knowledge. You can purchase reasonably priced software to build your site with or use the free builder that comes with many hosting packages. Although the stand alone software offers much more functionality and room to grow with a lot less limitations than the free web hosting builders.

Creating a website really can be a fairly simple process when using these types of programs. Website builders have many general features. It is these features that allow you to build the website and make changes to the site. Most website builders come with a nice selection of templates to build your site with.

The better programs allow you to use your own templates and not require the use of their templates in their system. Most programs will offer general templates than can be used for all topics and specific themed templates, like golf, pets, etc.

It is usually not that complicated to add the content to your webpages once you have selected the template. This is a big time saver for beginners who don’t want to spend a lot of time learning software.

Website that are easy to use that look professional can be built in as little as a few hours. You can also easily make modifications to the pages though the use of website builders. You simply click on the website page that you are interested in modifying and make the modifications.

You can then easily save and upload the pages within a few seconds. Adding new pages is a breeze too. If you can use a word processor you should be able to handle a easy to use website builder as they don’t have a big learning curve.

For the more advanced user, or someone who just wants room to grow, there are website builders that offer more advanced features. Most people want a website builder that is easy to use but offers more complex features. If you are in that group take a look at Xsitepro ver2, it’s easy to use but offers tons of features that you can grow into.

One advanced feature usually allows access to the code that is behind the template and allows modifications to be made to the template itself though the various aspects of the code. It is important, so you do not disrupt your website, that you know the code you are looking for if you decide to edit the HTML.

The use of the more advanced features are not a requirement for most home businesses. Today building a website is a simple task with the right software. So what are you waiting for?

Posted under Website Design

Designing your first website can seem like a really daunting task when you are starting out. I was terrified when I tried to build be first site. Website design, html code etc all seemed like a foreign language to me (html still is if I am honest!).

But don’t worry it really is not that bad. There are loads of software packages available to help you build your website, and truth be told to build an Internet Marketing or niche site it does not have to be anything too fancy.

I have used two software packages to build my websites. The first package I used was XSitePro.

XSitePro is excellent, really easy to use and will have your website set up easily in no-time.

I still use XSitePro sometimes, but as I have gained a little more experience (and I mean a little more!) I now use Dreamweaver.

The trick is don’t make your site too complicated. Remember people are looking for information, very rarely are they looking for a fancy site. Make the site look attractive and professional but don’t let it distract from it’s purpose of giving people the information they are looking for.

’till next time.

Lyndsay

Posted under Website Design