Design Post Update

Now that we know each of our website creation options, let's explore each of them in more detail.

If you already have good HTML and CSS skills or perhaps you are a web design or multimedia student in the process of learning HTML and CSS then this is a good option for you. Programming a website from scratch is also the most cost effective of the 5 options discussed in this article however it is also the most time consuming option. 

To help with this approach there are a number of very good code editor programmes available online such as Komodo Edit, which is an excellent free code editor which you can use to make programming your own website a little easier.

If you really want to program the website yourself but need a little bit of a helping hand getting started then perhaps a website template is the way to go, just be sure to get a responsive template to ensure your website is as user friendly as possible. This is also a great option if your programming skills are better than your design skills as you can keep the templates design features and use your programming skills to edit the content to suit your website needs.

You can choose from an amazing 100 free responsive website templates here. So a website template is definitely a great idea, especially for new web designers, just be sure to customise it as, a bit like a stock photograph being used in a poster, it can appear stale and without character in it's raw, template state.

Website builders advertise themselves as the easiest and quickest method to create a website. Companies like SquareSpace, Wix and Weebly are the best options for this approach and they both offer a starter package where you can get online with a free sub-domain name and free hosting. Although on the surface it may seem like a good choice, in my opinion, this is not a good option.

Website builders always seem to result in very rigid web designs, the free domain name is not a full domain and they tend to overcharge you for a full domain name. You often need to upgrade to a paid account to get a custom domain too and the monthly or yearly pricing structure is usually quite expensive. Bandwidth restriction, custom ads and extra storage space are other things that often need to be paid to unlock. In summary, this wouldn't be a choice I'd recommend.

Utilise a Content Management System

This would be my recommended option. CMS for short, content management systems are similar to, and often confused with, website builders. The difference being a CMS website design and structure is often created by a web designer first before being handed over to a client who only has access to a front end to make any required updates.

However, if you have learned some HTML and CSS, you can take charge and create the website design and structure yourself using systems like Blogger and WordPress. Which one of these is better is constantly being debated online with my personal preference being Blogger (read why). 

Whichever you choose, there are many others available too, this is a great option which offers you templates to get started, widgets to drag and drop in while still having access to the HTML and CSS to make advanced or specific changes and tweaks.

Hire a web designer

If you don't have the time to learn how to build a website or you need to have complex functions or a very specific look for your website and you have a budget, then you will want to outsource the work.

Be careful who you hire, though. A poorly developed website can cost you money, drive away customers, and hurt your reputation. Following a few basic steps will increase your odds of hiring a creative, technically savvy, and cost-effective design firm or freelancer.

Much of your choice of designers depends on whether you want to work locally with someone, or whether you are willing to work remotely with them over the phone. Here are some things to think and ask about when hiring a website designer. If you would like to hire a web designer then we can proudly recommend Opus Web Design.

Easy Custom Domain Integration

You cannot purchase a domain name directly through Blogger but you can connect your Blogger website with any domain name in a few simple steps, Blogger are even kind enough to provide you with instructions. The old .blogspot address will also redirect to the new domain with the content from your blogger website being displayed under your chosen domain without a visitor being any the wiser. Search engines will use the custom domain name to index the site, meaning it appears as a fully fledged professional website and not a run of the mill blog.

Although domain names are generally quite cheap, as low as $5 for an annual .com license, hosting on the other hand is not as cheap. I have seen hosting costs range anywhere from $50 to $500 a year depending on the amount of space, level of security and other features that a client can require. Blogger, as already mentioned, has no hosting costs. Where's the catch you ask? 

Free Unlimited Hosting

Well, one that used to stop me from using Blogger was that it does not support PHP. But nowadays for contact forms and other standard PHP things there are ways around it such as using JotForm to create and host your form, then embedding it into your Blogger site. Another big one that used to be a problem was that there used to be a limit of 20 static pages per site, but that has since been removed, so there is now unlimited space available which most paid hosting services can't offer. How is this possible you ask, well that brings us nicely to the next point.

It is Run By Google

Blogger is part of the Google family so you are guaranteed a quality and reliable service. But returning to the previous point about storage what a Blogger account also gives you is a Google account and with that comes lots of other free stuff. You see when you set up your blog you will need to create an account, which is actually a Google account (unless you already had one of course) and therefore you simultaneously set up a YouTube account, a Google Drive account, a Google + account, a Gmail account, a Google Calendar account, a Google Places account and much more besides. All of these tools can be used to expand the possibilities for your Blogger website like storing documents (Google Drive), hosting videos (YouTube), arranging or displaying events (Google Calendar) or literally putting your business on the map (Google Maps).

Easy SEO

(SEO is Search Engine Optimisation ) Within Blogger you can also label your blog posts with keywords and submit a specific description to be used by search engines while indexing your website. As a Google product it is also very well coded and hosted on a Google owned server so speed performance is usually very good. As mentioned above a Blogger account comes hand in hand with a Google account and 2 more SEO related tools called Google Webmaster and Google Analytics. Google webmaster allows you to index your Blogger website in the Google search listings and then control various aspects of that listing such as geographic targeting, robots.txt and sitemap.xml settings all the while receiving basic data about your websites performance. Google analytics takes performance data to the next level and allows you to monitor every conceivable detail about your websites performance.

Easy To Learn & Use

Loads Of Gadgets

There are a wide selection of gadgets within Blogger that can be added to the default header, body, footer sections. Things like site search, follow by e-mail and Ad-sense can simply be selected, edited to suit your needs and then dragged and dropped into the site layout as you see fit. As well as these relatively standard gadgets there is one gadget simply called the HTML/JavaScript Gadget. If you are a web designer or coder and feel restricted by all the templates and standard gadgets this simply allows you to code anything at all to appear in your website. I use it mainly for slideshows and custom menus. Currently there are around 1,000 widgets/gadgets to choose from so there is plenty of choice.

More Than Just Templates

The 'customise' section within Blogger allows you to customise all the default elements of your website, on desktop or mobile, using a WYSIWYG system so even without any coding knowledge you can still personalise your website to the way you want it. As I touched on in the previous point if you don't like templates and standard web gadgets you can still edit the site H.T.M.L. and C.S.S. code of your Blogger website directly to create a unique and original design or just to tweak an existing template or gadget. Within the HTML code there are even 'conditional' sections such as (without the HTML to avoid confusion), if displaying on a mobile device then do x, y and z. This makes it really easy to customise the look of the mobile site option, which I just realised I forgot to mention as another great built in feature of Blogger websites!

Can Be Used As A CMS

This point is really only relevant for web designers/developers. For me and any web designer who already knows how to code a website from scratch anyway one would think that Blogger did not hold much appeal, however the fact is that a Blogger website is easy for a client to update the pages after you have designed them and therefore lends itself very well to being used as a Content Management System. A client simply needs to log into a Google account connected, through the blog's settings, to the website and on each page of the website they will then see little wrench icons at the bottom of each section. They can then click on the icon and use the pop up editor to make the changes they need. The editor is very similar to editing a word document as well as allowing the insertion of videos, images and links with relative ease. So if the client has basic computer skills then they should be fine. It can;t get much simpler than that! And if a client is a little more tech savvy then they can just used the Blogger system directly to edit the website in the same way that you set it up. 

*If you skimmed through and noticed only 9 headings you'll have to read through to discover the hidden 10th reason included in one of the sections - I say hidden but I only remember it as I was writing the article ;)