How to design your own website

Designing your own website has never been easier. Whether you want to organise your family photos or present your business portfolio, there are various web-design sites to help you. This article covers some of them, providing you with a few guidelines of what to pay attention to so that you can choose the one that suits you best.

Free versus your own domain sites

Before creating your own web page, you should first establish what your needs are. If you want to design a personal website or a blog, you may want to opt for a free one. If you run a business, you need to use a professional-looking one that offers credibility to your clients. Although building a free website costs you nothing, it has a number of downsides: - Limited space for your web page - Limited traffic due to not being search engine optimised (SEO) - Limited support (if any) - May have pop-ads and banners - Hard to remember URLs Having your own domain name has its benefits: - Short and easy to remember URLs - A professional look - Plenty of space for site expansion - Search engine optimised (SEO) - More design and functionality options

Web design tools

Here are two websites you can choose from in order to build your own site, each of them providing guidelines regarding how to use them. Siteskins.net
This is a simple-to-use web design tool which helps you to create and to maintain your own website. You don't have to be an HTML expert. On the homepage, it provides you with the key steps to build your site. It offers two service types: SiteSkins Personal and Unlimited. The first one is limited to five pages and e-mail support only, while the latter offers a complete service with all the support you need. You can try it for free for 14 days, then you can upgrade at any time. Look for quick FAQs and prices at Siteskins.net. Wix.com
This is by far the best free Flash website builder. It's incredibly user-friendly, it contains a fantastic template gallery and it's easily customisable. You can also have the option to build your website from scratch. Even if you have Wix ads and a long URL, your site will still have a stunning professional look. In addition, Wix offers free lessons in order to have your site search engine optimised. Nevertheless, you can always upgrade to any of the Premium Plans to get, among others, your own domain, no ads, extra storage and Google Analytics stats.