My last search, three months ago, was for a great site builder, easy on the brain, no coding required, low price, and great support. It took me two months and I tried many free trials. By the way, be careful with those free trials. Some places will start charging you at the end of the free trial, even if there has been no activity. Look carefully. I haven’t checked my credit card for a while and got hit twice in two free trials. stupid me
If you stop and read the forums that pop up from time to time during your search, you will become more confused. You will read that Dream-weaver is the best, however, the most expensive and a big learning curve. You will hear about site builders called WizzyWig or WYSIWYG. What most of you know is what you see is what you get, which is true. You see what you’re going to post, but what you get can be a hard builder to learn. Not all WYSIWYG is the same. However, the day will come when site builders can match or exceed the performance of hand-coded sites. Even a hand-coded tune-up will become a luxury.
What is happening is that the real task of search engine optimization (SEO) companies is changing regularly. Keywords are not as vital as they used to be. They are still a big item though. The loading speed is not as important as any. The irregular code is being read by smarter spiders, so the true code worked by hand isn’t as necessary. Right now, incoming links are the most important thing and as soon as everyone finds a way to find those with a cheat, something else will appear. To grow you need a lot of money or sometimes a great niche or a good new idea. There is still no excitement like making your own website and publishing it for the first time. Then comes the sometimes boring work of tweaking, updating, and finding inbound links. This is why a site builder you enjoy is really key.
In this article, I assume that you are not buying software and looking for a host. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that most software support is a forum of other buyers of the same software belonging to the same forum. The old not-so-blind buyers leading the new blind buyer. Forget it. I reject anyone who offers a forum and brags about it. A forum is a cheap way to avoid hiring staff but trying to sound cool. I have never found a reason for a forum if it has good support. If you have weak support or limited support and are a cheap host, offer a forum. There are rare exceptions, but it’s not worth your time to find out. Don’t rely on the forums as an add-on or substitute for support.
Choose hosting companies that offer a package with a site builder in the price. When you see one that interests you, email them an inquiry. That’s the best way to test support. Slow response, poor support. Keep looking. If you do reply, make sure it is a real person speaking. Then shoot another question until you get the feel. I suggest you go ahead and narrow it down unless one grabs you and you love it. Prepare to be disappointed. I don’t know how many mistakes I’ve made over the years.
Don’t buy a domain name from the host unless you’re sure you have the right place. Otherwise, that good name won’t be available for your next move for sixty days and a lot of trouble. You can buy a domain from Go Daddy or any other cheap place and move on. That way, you’re sure you won’t lose a domain name if the new host and constructor don’t work.
I always look for free trials. I don’t care if it’s seven or thirty days. I can tell in a day if it’s a fit. So if it’s not, e-mail goodbye to accounting if you can. Get recognized. If the host doesn’t offer free trials, pass on. If they promise a refund if you don’t like them in 30 days, that may be fine, although I don’t like them unless there’s a great demo. The no-obligation free trials leave me feeling that the host is confident in their choice of the builder they are about to test.
Some hosts will not give you the vendor name of the builder (software designer). If you can, get the seller’s name and go directly using their name to the actual seller’s website. Many hosts buy a company builder and rename it to match the name of their hosting company. But that same site builder can be on hundreds of websites hosted at different prices under various names. So if you can get the “factory name” so to speak, you can look it up on various websites and check the service and prices. Let’s say the Host is calling your Best Builder, but discovers that you bought it from the vendor that has a factory name of Hi Speed Builder. So you do a search on Hi Speed Builder and find many hosting companies that use it. Or the factory (software designer) can have all their clients listed on their website.
My personal preference is WYSIWYG with CSS which reduces code bloat. Now don’t worry too much about what you read, that coding by program is worse than coding by hand. Loading speed is not the problem it appears to be. There are plenty of high speed users out there that imperfect code wouldn’t slow down one iota. I have Net Zero Hi Speed and if my PC is properly optimized, the speed is really fast. I check it regularly. If I have confused some of you by the repeated use of “code”, let me explain. Code is another word to talk about a program called HTML. People who know how to do HTML usually look down on the rest of us. They say it’s easy to learn. If you like learning new things and you’re a borderline tekki, go for it. I do just fine without learning code and never intend to.
Stand up, stand up. That’s very important until you learn all the little wrinkles in your new site builder. Someone who contacts you and can put up with your ignorance. Hard to find, but it’s out there. I’m looking for the full justification. I don’t like the jagged edges on the right hand. It makes the presentation less professional. You should have even margins on the right, like a book, it gives you a professional look.
When searching, in the search bar put -flash (minus flash) at the end of the search words. This means don’t show me anything with flash. It doesn’t need flash and can really slow you down. Try to get a constructor that allows the text to wrap the image at least at the edge. So my advice is to go for WYSIWYG with full justification and border wrap. Look for color options. You need a full spectrum but like me if you can’t get it all support is most important. Beware of the same old templates that have very little change between them and some take up a third of the page as a header. You don’t like picture entertainment. The regular customer will get tired of your header anyway and stop looking at it. A good simple design and lots of text will serve you well and optimize better.
If you can, find an SEO, search engine optimizer, who will work with you while you build your website at a reasonable price. Hard to find, but I’ll give you a plugin to the one I use. She will work with you while building, optimizing, and monitoring your site after it’s built at a really great price. If you go for Google Page Creator, you can get hosting and website tools and templates and a quick editor for free. Then surely you can afford it. All my tracks are on a little website I made for you. The URL is at the end of this article.
Site building companies and hosting companies sometimes write their own reviews and articles about themselves. So keep an eye out or you’ll be tricked. At the bottom of this article there will be a website name that will take you to a website that has the lady I mentioned. I also have a link there to take you to the free Google site I built for this occasion. It is a Beta site, which means that it is in phase B of testing. When it’s finished in a year or so, it won’t be free anymore. I also want you to click through some of my websites to see what my choice of a perfectly supported site builder can do.
Don’t feel stupid if it doesn’t work out. There is a strict rule that I follow. Geeks can’t write good instructions. Techies feel that you should understand most of what they know. Often, well-meaning support people will tell you how to fix your problem, but you can’t understand their response. Don’t let that intimidate you. Type “WHAT?” They need to learn to talk like the rest of us. You are the customer and they are looking for you, so don’t be intimidated or scared off. Everything can be fixed. Don’t be afraid to complain. It helps as some have an improved builder and want your complaints.
