Do-it-Yourself Web Design
By Melissa Shea
Recently a client asked me if she should build her web site using a popular web hosting company’s template system. On the surface it sounds like a great idea – they provide a reasonable fee for hosting, many nice, simple designs to choose from and bells and whistles such as blogs and photo albums.
It sounds like a great solution for a new business that needs to save some dough and get a presence on the web. But here is the reality of using a web hosting template verses setting up your own template system.
First of all, if you’re using a web hosting template service, you really don’t “own” your web site. Your web site is dependent upon the hosting company’s content management system – which is the only way you can access your web site and modify the content without knowing html.
Secondly, if you decide you want to change web hosting companies because they have bad customer service – you can’t take your web site with you – it is dependent upon that company’s content management system – so you’re not going to be able to download the files and move them over to a new company. You can probably download the content – but not the template – which includes your design and layout.
And finally – these template systems sound easy to use. The web hosting company is telling you that in their advertising. But – I’ve had three new clients come to me in the last several months telling me they first tried to build the site themselves using the web hosting template system and found it too confusing and gave up. I am professional web developer and I agree – they are confusing and I don’t even like using them!
So how can you get a web site that has a great design, is cheap to start up AND is YOURS TO KEEP????
The best option for getting a basic web site up and running is having a Wordpress template installed on your hosting company server. Now, you’ll still need some professional help if you’re not comfortable with a little back end work – but there are many, many resources on the internet that you can hire for an affordable cost.
Here is what you need to know to create your own template web site:
- Choose a hosting company and register a domain name: It’s best if you can do this at the same time so that you can keep your web site hosting account and your domain name account with the same company. It’s easy to lose track of these accounts and forget to renew – so try to keep them with the same company. If you registered your domain name with a different company, you can actually transfer it to your web hosting company to get it all in the same account. Don’t hesitate to call the web hosting company for help.
- Find a Wordpress template that suits your business: Just type “free wordpress templates” in your browser’s search field and you will have around 15,500,000 choices! Seriously, just click through the first page or two and you’ll find plenty of options and avenues to explore. Once you find the one you want, you can actually just click the download link and save it to your computer – make sure you pay attention to the path where you saved the template so you can find it later. Wordpress has a fantastic interface that allows you to enter content and photos very easily – and of course it comes with a blog!
- Now you have to install it!: Hmmmm, should you try it on your own or should you hire someone to do it for you? Well, if you want to learn a great new skill that you will appreciate knowing for years to come – then give it go – make sure you have time to invest to read, learn, screw up and figure it out! Start here: http://wordpress.org/. Don’t use wordpress.com – that service will host the web site on the Wordpress hosting and not you’re own – you are doing this for full control – so start with the Wordpress.org site for instructions.
- On the other hand: If you’d really like to spend your day doing something you really enjoy and not learning a new trick – hire someone to set the template up for you. Once again – Google a million people – you’ll find plenty of help! Or… you can ask Coffeeshopreneur for help! Yes, that’s right – Coffeeshopreneur offers these services and more for entrepreneurs. You can check out our cheap and easy ways to get this done at www.coffeeshopreneur.com
As a web developer I’ve seen many entrepreneurs embrace the “I can do anything” mentality and attempt to use the template systems as a foundation to build their business and regret it later. Whether it’s the fact that you can’t take the web site with you or it’s just too complicated to figure out the template, frustration is the result in many cases.
Using Wordpress as the basis of your content management system and setting it up with a hosting company that you choose and can change whenever you want is an important step to starting your business. You’d never let someone else control your business – don’t let a web hosting company control your web site.
And remember – Coffeeshopreneur is here to help you with any kind of training you need to become a successful entrepreneur – so if you need help with anything – contact us – if we don’t provide the service we can help you find someone you can trust that does!
This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at and is filed under Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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