The Homemade Website

Homemade Websites - are they any good?

Of course it is! The Internet industry has become a wee bit spoilt over time, some regarding the home made website, self-made website; whatever we call it, a matter for our children to deal with. Ignore the design 'snobs' and save the budget for actually getting your own website found by your target audience, THEN, from the revenue your self-made website generates, you can invest in an all-singing website later!

The truth of the matter is that making your own website, whether through Microsoft's Front Page website builder, Dreamweaver and other proprietary website building software, is now pretty common. In fact, to give us a free plug, ourselves and other companies create website building software just so that their clients can build their own website without having to pay the (sometimes) high cost of a bespoke website. This provides the freedom to make changes to their site and keep apace with ever changing demands on their business presence on the Internet.

Yes, you can present a pretty poor image of your business if you throw up a page with one picture and a paragraph of centre justified text with a bright pink background! But your self-built website could easily be something to be proud of.

We're not going to deal with the actual design of a website here, just (hopefully!) remind of some of the pitfalls of blindly producing your own website without thought.

Where to start your own website design.

'You don't get a second chance at a first impression'. Corny and old; but so true! Try to 'see' in your mind's eye what your self-made website is going to look like; background colours, font style, page layout, space for images, your logo, where your navigation and page links are going to be. If necessary, take some paper and draw it! Steal the children's colouring set for the afternoon! Just play with ideas for a while, your home made website can soon take on the feel of a professional website designer's work with just a little thought and planning.

Kiss = K eep it s tupidly s imple. Less is more. White space sells. In other words, the website you are going to make can be as big as you like so don't try to cram in too much information on one page, let the readers eyes fall over the text; not having to hunt for the juicy bits.

What aspects of your business are you going to place on which page? Your self made website can be thought of (at this stage) as many pigeon holes, shoe boxes laid out on the floor if you like. Each individual aspect of your business is dealt with in separate pigeon hole, or boxes. Whilst building your own website try to compartmentalise every aspect.

To summarise:

Decide on your initial webpage design layout.

Choose a 'template'; a design for each page that flows with the same 'corporate' identity.

Keep it simple and clean.

Avoid confusion - don't spread the same subject matter all over the place!

Why now email or phone us now on 01524 65533 or 0845 057 3371 to see what we can do for you and your business.