If you are about to start your journey into a new website or want to improve a website you already have, then you are probably researching the best way to do this. I thought I would go over the ways it can be done and what the pros and cons of each way are. I will try to be as unbiased as possible, since I work for a web hosting company that prefers you to do it yourself when there are other options available.
Furthermore, I’ll start with the easiest website builder and work my way down to the more complex.
1 – Site Publisher
The easiest way to build a site is with the site publisher. You can see a sample site here: ecommerce Web Hosting
This super easy tool in your CPanel with Web Host Pro allows you to make a professional site with all the necessities for a basic website. It also happens to look great and allows for a Business, Personal, and Coming Soon page. If you want a business card-type site with a little more functionality, this is the option for you. You can run a site like this for $1.99 a month plus the domain, which is about $11 a year. You can sign up here for this: Web Hosting Plans
The drawbacks include a lack of options
2 – Pay Someone
Next in line to simply pay someone to do it for you. This is tricky because dealing with the wrong person or company can take more time and effort than doing it yourself. A smart web design company should start around $499 for a site and help you take professional pictures and make content for the site. This way you have someone helping with everything the site needs. To find a good web design, you might want to search Google Maps, Craigslist, or search Google for Your town’s name web design.
The drawbacks include: Paying money
3 – Use WordPress or CMS
WordPress is all the rage, it’s the most popular way to build a website as of 2016 and there are millions of options with it. You can choose from thousands of free themes or spend thousands to get a custom one made. In most cases, people spend about $50 to get a professional theme template. Next, you can add plugins that will virtually do anything you can think of. There are other CMS-style systems like Drupal and Joomla, but they are not used very much. Think of a CMS (Customer Management System) as needed to make an appointment to see someone, instead of an HTML5 site as being available instantly. The blog you are reading now is made with WordPress.
The drawbacks include: Slow loading of pages, the highest risk of being hacked, requires more power which can cost more.
4 – HTML5
HTML5 is the ultimate way to make a professional website. It is fast, safe, and reliable. Something you can’t say about any CMS-driven website. If you can learn enough code and buy a good program like Dreamweaver, this is the best way to have a professional website. For a HTML5 site to be built, you will need to learn CSS as well to some level. They go hand in hand. It’s faster because the site is already made and ready to be seen, with WordPress it has to make the pages on the fly. It’s safer because a hacker needs a PHP-type file to be able to break in. Just keep your pages to HTML and CSS so you can be safe. It’s reliable because it does not need to connect to a database like MySQL to do anything.
The drawbacks include: Harder to build