With the growing popularity and automation of wyswig (what
you see is what
you get) web site design software titles, a growing number
of small business
and individuals are creating their own web sites. Should
you make your own web
site? One school of thought is that you can save yourself
some cash by making
your own web site, and saving some cash is always a good
thing. The other school
of thought is that in order to make a top quality product
equal to what you
provide your customers with on a daily basis you are going
to have to invest
some money in some quality software.
You would need to purchase a web site design program
like Macromedia's Dreamweaver
and if you plan on embellishing your web site with some
of your digital photography
you will need some photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop
or Macromedia's
Fireworks. Even if you take fantastic pictures you will
still need to optimize
them for fast loading in your customers web browser. An
unedited five megapixel
photo takes up about a 19x19 inch screen and if you put
two of those puppies
on a web page and your customer does not have broadband
internet access they
will be nodding off before your page is viewable. And
that equals bye bye visitor.
That bring us to learning about search engines which
is a sceince unto itself.
Am I using the right keywords? What are my best keywords?
Is my keyword density
right? The questions are almost limitless, definitely
one of the toughest parts
of the job.
There are endless tutorials on web site design available
online as well as
the tutorials that come with most software packages, so
the tools to learn to
make good web sites and edit photos are there for you
as well. But wouldn't
you rather be spending your time learning about the industry
you have devoted
your life to and making certain every customer that leaves
your establishment
leaves with a smile? My answer is you bet I would.
I could easily run down to my kitchen every morning and
get out my flour and
eggs and bake myself a loaf of bread so I can have some
toast, but since the
bakery does a great job and gives me quality bread at
affordable prices, the
baker wins my breakfast order. I've got customers to please!
About the Author
Fred Ost is a writer, web designer and owner of Pocono
Media web design. He is also a founder of, and staff writer
at the free
independent artits community at http://www.scptv.net.
