subject: How To Design A Website If You're A Novice On The Internet [print this page] Most of my students are Internet novices and ask many apprehensive questions about how to design a website. They worry about their ability to design an attractive site and are anxiously seeking the quickest and best alternative.
After years on the Net, I believe you need to learn how to design your sites yourself, and here's why ...
The Internet is made up of two elements:
1. Text
2. Pictures
Yes, audio and video technologies are growing fast. But if you hope to sell on the Net, it's critical to appeal to your audience, those folks who are willing to pull out their credit cards and buy your products. A huge percentage of these are still on dialup and certainly aren't very sophisticated and fancy techniques will isolate you from many of them.
So what are your choices if you want to build a website?
1. Buy a template:
This can work sometimes. I've bought them myself and they do look great. But there are some real problems with templates:
* They can be expensive - especially if you want multiple websites. Good templates aren't cheap. The few I've bought are in the $60-$70 range.
* If you don't know what you're doing, you can waste your money on templates that won't work for you. For instance, you will often see templates with icons, pictures, company logos, "Buy Now" buttons and more. Yes, they look great. But when you download the images they are not editable because if they are in jpg or gif format, you can't make changes. The most common 'editable' images are in 'psd' format. If you own image editing software, like Photoshop (which usually sells for about $600), you can make the changes you wish. But if you don't own this kind of software then forget it - your images can't be changed.
* Editing templates isn't easy. You might unwittingly purchase a template that allows 8' of space - and your copy needs 10" of space. Now what? Cheaper templates require the purchaser to "slice" them. This is tedious and time consuming and requires editing knowledge that most people don't have. Higher quality templates allow the owner to edit them without slicing, but they are more expensive.
* Even if you can edit your new template, do you really think that you should allow a designer to dictate the placement of your sales copy? Beautiful design does not equal sales. Just because something looks good doesn't mean it's a good sales site. Many novices are impressed with the good looks of a template, but Madison Avenue beauty doesn't equal profits on the Net. Earning money comes from effective direct response marketing which means testing the elements on your sales page and changing them until you have a winner. If your design is forced on you you are limited in the changes you can make.
How To Design A Website If You're A Novice On The Internet
