If you’re thinking about building your own website to showcase and sell your art, you might have found that there are a number of options available to you. And as often with the case of having a lot of options, the more you have, the more confused you get, and most newbies don’t really know what the best choice is. Here are of the things that you need to consider when you are thinking about building your own website and some of the most common ways to go about it.
Before you begin building your website, consider these issues:
- Cost- how much will it cost you to develop and maintain your website?
- Maintenance- how and who will keep your website running?
- Control- ultimately who controls how your website functions, looks, and who’s the ultimate owner?
Here are the most common ways of building a website:
DIY- build from scratch- you’re building your website by creating individual web pages using some type of web page building tool like Expression Web, iWeb, or Dreamweaver and HTML.
- Pros- it’s low cost, you have complete control over how your website runs and looks.
- Cons- you have to know what you’re doing, a certain level of expertise in design, HTML, and web development is needed. If you’re a beginner, developing your site will take a large chunk of your time.
Professional Web Designer or Developer- you work with a skilled web designer or developer create your website for you.
- Pros- You can get a well designed, professional looking website while you can concentrate on making art and running your business. Plus a good web designer can help you maintain your website and give you advice on other web related issues
- Cons- A good web designer will cost you. You’ll need to closely monitor your web design costs. Plus finding a good web designer can take a certain amount of research
Turnkey web builder service- you use some kind of service like Big Cartel or the website builder software provided by many web host to develop your website.
- Pros- You can have a great looking well designed website for the fraction of the cost of a designer and you don’t need to have a lot of technical skill.
- Cons- How your website looks and functions is limited by what service you use. And because your service is standardized to accommodate a large number of people, your website may look similar to others that use the same service. It may also be harder to move your website if you become dissatified with the service.
Open source software- you’re building your website using free or low-cost web building systems like WordPress, Joomla, or Zen Cart.
- Pros- Website software like WordPress, Joomla, and Zen Cart is free to install and these programs will help you build a website without having to build individual pages or knowing a lot of HTML. Plus often this software is free to install and use.
- Cons- There is a bit of a learning curve in installing and setting up the software. And there is a bit of a learning curve in learning to use it. Plus, you’ll be responsible for making sure that your software stays up to date and running.
If you are interested in learning how to build your own website, I’m holding a free webinar on Tuesday, June 22nd at 8 p.m. (EST) called Easy Website Building with WordPress. There’s absolutely no cost register, it should last for about 60 to 70 minutes…plus it will be recorded. So if you have the leave the event early or if you can’t make the event at all, you can watch the replay later. The seats are limited, and since this is a free webinar the seats tend to fill up fast, so you should reserve your spot soon. You can click here to register or learn more.
