Discount hosting offers quite a few features these days. This is partially due to the fierce competition, but also due to the fact that the price of software has gone down and much of it is now under GPL (General Public License), which makes it free. However, for the small business owner or the small organization that doesn’t have the time or the desire to become a full time web developer, discount hosting has some time saving software to help them out. Nobody wants a hokey-looking static web site, with the only method of interaction being to leave an email in the hopes that someone will get back to you. However, many people are also not up to creating database driven web sites with server side scripting. This is why free site builders are helpful. They don’t necessarily do a lot in the way of dynamic web pages, but they do create a professional looking template while the less computer savvy of us learn to use HTML.
Pointing and clicking your way through a free site builder will point out its limitations once you start using it, but this is a great way to get some hands-on training at your own pace and gradually get into server side scripting to create some really dynamic web pages. That’s because you have to understand the way a site is set up before you can make it into something really nice looking. You can always hire someone to design your site for you; but if you never learn how to do it yourself, you will always be dependent on a web developer. This can get expensive over time. So, unless you have really complex needs, the best way to start learning site development is with a free site builder and then move up to FrontPage, Dreamweaver, or eventually you can design your site from scratch.
One thing you will notice about a discount hosting company’s free site builder is that organizes any site into pages. The first thing you will do with a free site builder is pick a template to work with. A template is a preset collection of pages that is organized so that they work for your particular purpose. A retail template, for example will be organized into an introductory page, subsequent merchandise pages, and finally pages that will allow your clients to put in information like their mailing address and phone number. There will also be a place to put a shopping cart. In short, this is everything someone would need if they wanted to purchase something from your store. You can also customize the template by choosing a color theme, inserting your logo, and inserting text and pictures, and even internal links so a customer can navigate around the site. The result is a professional and useable ecommerce site.
Not bad, but this is where you notice limitations. If you go to a real retail web site, you will notice personalized greetings, pop-ups, drop down menus, flash animation, rollover buttons, and external links to other sites. Now you understand what you are missing, but how do you get from a free site builder to having your site function like a real ecommerce site? We can’t cover all that here, but now that you know how to build a site with a free site builder and you know its limitations, you can figure out what you need to improve your site.
So the next thing to do with your free sitebuilder is make a list of what you want it to do while someone is using it. If you let the template organize your site the way it was meant to, it should be easy to figure out what is missing. For example, you may want to have the personal information that your customers enter into the form on your website to go into a database. Your low cost web hosting site should come with at least one MySQL database. This is the place where you can store your customer information so that you can retrieve it later. By using PHP and other server side coding, you can use this information later on to create a dynamic web page that will greet the customer by name, or instantly update them on an order status. You probably won’t be able to do this with your free site builder, but as you learn what is missing from it, you will figure out the coding software that you need in the future to create a fully functioning web site. Learning the basics on a free site builder from your discount hosting company is the best way to figure out how HTML, JavaScript, ASP, MySQL, PHP, Fantastico, and even CGI will work for you once you know what you are doing.
