Each day thousands of people decide to create a personal web site either for financial or purely intrinsic reasons. Using a variety of web based or software based tools even a complete novice can have a basic web site up and running in just a few minutes. Before a person can build a web site however, he or she must decide what kind of web site they want. What kind of information will they share on the web site? Will it include videos, photos, or other multimedia? Will it basically be a blog site? Will it offer a mailing list to people that sign up for it? Once a person knows what the site's content will be it is easy to choose between the various design options.
For the Blogger: Simple, text based web site builders
If all that is needed is a simple, blog style web site on which to post journal entries or other personal musings a free online site building service such as Wordpress or Blogger works quite well. After signing up for a free account a user can use the site building tools to create a customized blog site in just a few minutes. With Wordpress additional plugins and features can easily be added to the site allowing a writer to add multimedia features such as embedded YouTube videos if desired. Blogger is less full featured, but is still a very solid, stable platform that is ideal for those that are less technical and just want a web site that will work without much of a hassle.
For the Tinkerer: Do it yourself customization
Consumers that want their web site to be a little more personal and to have full creative control over every aspect of the site will want to consider creating a web site with the help of a fully featured software program such as Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or GoLive. Freeware web design programs are also available such as Nvu. Each of these web site building programs provides the user with an easy to read, What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) interface that is very similar to common, everyday word processing programs. Each page of the web site can be designed in the editor and saved to the user's local machine. When the site is completed, it can be uploaded directly to a web hosting account using built in FTP software.
Next: Taking Your Web Site To The Next Level
For the Blogger: Simple, text based web site builders
If all that is needed is a simple, blog style web site on which to post journal entries or other personal musings a free online site building service such as Wordpress or Blogger works quite well. After signing up for a free account a user can use the site building tools to create a customized blog site in just a few minutes. With Wordpress additional plugins and features can easily be added to the site allowing a writer to add multimedia features such as embedded YouTube videos if desired. Blogger is less full featured, but is still a very solid, stable platform that is ideal for those that are less technical and just want a web site that will work without much of a hassle.
For the Tinkerer: Do it yourself customization
Consumers that want their web site to be a little more personal and to have full creative control over every aspect of the site will want to consider creating a web site with the help of a fully featured software program such as Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or GoLive. Freeware web design programs are also available such as Nvu. Each of these web site building programs provides the user with an easy to read, What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) interface that is very similar to common, everyday word processing programs. Each page of the web site can be designed in the editor and saved to the user's local machine. When the site is completed, it can be uploaded directly to a web hosting account using built in FTP software.
Next: Taking Your Web Site To The Next Level
