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Which Web Site Software Is Right For You?
You have to have web site software and
tools to build your own
successful web site, but what do you need, why do you need it, and
where can you get it with good quality at a good price?
It's possible to build a quality small business website with
quality tools for just a few hundred dollars. A hobby site can cost
even less.
I'll show what software and tools are needed and give different options
to suit different needs.
Choose Software That Suits Your Goals
Choosing
web site software is like choosing any other tool, it has to suit what
you need
it for. A $20 battery drill is no good for a professional builder, and
a $600 battery drill is a waste for a home handyman who just wants to
hang a few pictures.
Think about what you want to achieve.
If you want a small business website, factor your hourly rate into the
costs.
Spending $300 on a suite of software and tools could save you weeks of
time. If you're building a hobby site for personal interest you may
want to spend the 300 bucks, or you may prefer to take the longer route
with free or nearly free software and tools.
Different Ways To Build Web
Pages
There are a variety of ways to build web pages. My number 1
recommendation for a newbie is the page builder
from the Site Build It! suite of tools,
followed by wysiwyg web site software.
Site Build It! has a different approach
to most with a block by block web page builder. It's easy to
use with a small learning curve, has a built in analyzer that gives
pages that are optimized for free search engine
traffic, and has customizable templates. Read my Site Build It
web page builder review.
Wysiwyg
(what you see is what you get)
website design programs let you build pages in a similar way to using a
word processor. You can see what your page will look like while you're
building it. Prices range from free for KompoZer (quite okay for
most web sites) to around $400 for Dreamweaver.
You
can code your web page in HTML using a text editor like WordPad, and
many sites and books recommend this. That's fine if your website is a
hobby, but personally I think most people will find wysiwyg software
easier and quicker.
Wysiwyg
web software does have minor problems (like bloated code) so there are
HTML editors that combine the best of wysiwyg and hand coding. They're
still harder to use than a wysiwyg editor for a newbie though.
Then
there are the online point and click web site builders where you can
"build your own site in 5 minutes". Prices range from really cheap for
unhosted site builders to $20/month, $50/month or more. You
still
need to do a lot of preparation
work if you want a successful site.
You can also use blogging software such as Wordpress to build a
complete website, though it's not a great choice for a variety of
reasons.
Use Keyword Research To Get More Traffic
Imagine
if you knew what keywords people were searching on to
find businesses just like yours. You could build a page around each
keyword and get lots more targeted traffic to your site.
Keyword
tools let you do just that. They are essential for building a
successful site that gets free traffic from the search engines.
There are some free tools that have excellent features such
as Nichebot
Classic, and the free Google keyword tool, but the free
tools all
leave out essential information as well. They're fine for getting your
feet wet, or for a hobby site.
I suggest
subscribing to a paid keyword service until you have pretty well built
your site. They have a lot more features and you can do more with them.
There are dozens of different tools out there. I don't know
which
is the cheapest around, but for $14/month you can subscribe to Nichebot
X which is an excellent keyword tool.
Get A Professional Look Quickly
You
can build your own
web site template,
and I have a complete template
tutorial on this site. Professionally designed templates
aren't
that expensive though, they're an easy way to give your site a
professional
look,
and they can save hours or days of time as
well.
You can buy templates from sites such as Template
Monster,
or subscribe to a template service such as Dream Template.
Some web
design
programs come with a selection of templates.
Some hosting sites have free templates. Hostgator,
which is one of the
best hosting sites around has 4,500 free templates in a variety of
categories for your use.
Keep Your Message In Front Of Your Targeted
Visitors
Marketers will
tell you that people have to see your message seven times before they
respond.
Autoresponders
let you keep your message in front of people. Visitors can sign up for
your newsletter, or for an informative e-course you've put together.
The e-course may be in five, seven, ten parts, whatever you choose.
After
you've set everything up the autoresponder works on autopilot, sending
out the e-course at the right times in the right sequence without any
more input from you. Or you can use the autoresponder to easily mail
out your newsletter every month.
Autoresponders are essential
for a successful money making or lead generating site. Free or cheap is
not necessarily best here as you want to be absolutely sure your
message is being delivered to as many of your signups as possible.
AWeber is highly regarded by serious marketers and starts from
$20/month.
Get Online With Quality Web Hosting
You'll need quality web
hosting for a small business or home business website. There
are dozens if not hundreds of web hosting companies and prices range
from a
few dollars a month up. I like hosting that uses Cpanel with Fantastico
which makes it very easy to install scripts for things like customer
relations, shopping carts, FAQs, image galleries and so on.
Hosting is often included with online site builders and suites of tools.
One
important thing with a web host is is how well they respond to your
questions and problems. Some hosts offer 24/7 technical support as well
as forums, a knowledge base of common questions, and even tutorials.
A
quality web host includes a statistics tool so that you can see how
many visitors you get a month, what pages they look at etc so that you
can see how your site is performing.
More Tools That Save Time Or Make You More
Successful
There
is a lot more web site software and tools that you'll find useful,
either
saving you time or making your website more successful. Here are some
of them:
- How about an automatic page submitter that
regularly submits your web pages to the major search engines in
accordance with their rules?
- A page analyzer so you can see if
if the page is optimized correctly for the search engines (so your site
gets a
higher ranking and more traffic.)
- An ad tracker so you can see what ads are
making you money and what ones are costing you.
- Blogging software and RSS feeds to keep
visitors in touch on a regular basis.
- An XML site map creater for better search
engine submissions.
Save Money With A Suite Of Web Site Software
You'll find you need a range of web site software and tools
and each extra one adds to the cost, with either a one time charge or
$10, $20, or more a month. Before you know it you're up to $1000 or
more for
the year, with many costs on-going.
Using a suite that has all or most of the tools you need can save you a
heap of
money. I've come across two suites so far.
The
best web site software suite for a small business owner trying to get
their business online
is
Site Build It! I've used Site Build It! extensively and it has every
tool needed
to build a website from an easy to use page
builder to a
state of the art keyword tool, templates, autoresponder, hosting, page
analyzer, page submitter, a friendly and helpful forum,
and heaps
more. It costs $299/year or $29.99/month, but you won't need to
spend a cent more. (Read my Site
Build It review).
The
other suite is the Ultimate Marketing Center. It's more for someone
right into web marketing
who intends building a number of websites than a for small business owner going online or someone starting an
internet business.
The Ultimate Marketing Center doesn't
have every piece of web site software you'll need, but it does have a
good few of
them. It has a website builder, templates, autoresponders, ad
tracking, an affiliate program, and you can host up to 20 websites with
it. It costs $20/month. You'll still need to subscribe to a keyword
tool at least.
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