In today's business world a web site is an absolute necessity.   From a corner gift shop to the largest corporate business, you can pretty much guarantee that without a website you are not going to survive.    For larger companies with funds, this is not an issue to think about.  They simply fork out the many thousands of dollars to have one built.   What is the small "ma and pa" business to do?   When profit margins are only a couple grand, how are you going to kick up five grand just to get a basic site built?   The answer is Online Site Builders!

So what is a Site Builder? They are systems which allow web design laypeople to build their own websites without web design knowledge, web design programs and without any significant investment at all (usually $25-$50/month).   In most cases the system will provide you with hundreds, even thousands of design templates to choose from.   After you choose a template you can use a simple interface to add pages, content and imagery to your website.   Everything is "plug and play".   The customer is never required to deal with the page code or anything technical in nature.   If you happen to have some HTML skills you can enter the code area and make changes directly to the HTML if desired.

Lots of Included Features! Many of the online site builders have the ability for you to add cool features to your site by simply checking a few boxes.   Things like ecommerce shopping carts, blogs, newsletters, maps, contact forms, traffic stats and much more.   These are all items which would cost you hundreds of extra dollars to implement by a freelance web developer.   The great thing about it is you can add them or remove them from your site at no cost (be sure to check on this), so trying out new features is easy.

Manage Your Website From Anywhere! Site builders allow you to to manage your website through a CMS (content management system) which you access via any web browser.   This is extremely valuable as it allows you to change your site's content from anywhere you have an Internet connection.   Just login and start adding content, add pages, even change your design template.   Any computer anywhere becomes your personal office.

How to Choose a Site Builder! Not all site builders are equal.  In fact most are going to disappoint; however those that are good, can be a Godsend to their customers.   So be sure to read the fine print.   Many of the online website builders will nickle and dime you to death for extras and features that you can get free with the quality providers.   Follow the tips below and you will be fine.

• Make sure they provide a FREE TRIAL! so you can make sure everything is legit.
• They should provide ALL extras free.  You should not have to pay for newsletters, or shopping carts, etc.
• Be sure you can use your own domain name with their system.
• Make sure that the website provides e-commerce options
• If you are selling digital products be sure that you can sell them within their system.  Many site builders have shopping carts which cannot accommodate digital download products.
• You get what you pay for! While site builders are a cheap way to get a website, there is such a thing as too cheap.   Anybody providing services for $9.95/month you can be sure is going to have a very poor system and you will regret it down the road.   Quality site builder providers run about $25-$45per month.  Anything over $45 and you are getting fleeced.
  
• We recommend Blue Gel Media Site Builder and Blue Gel Websites (they run mulitiple sites with this service).
  

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This article was written by Danny Jameson from the Boston Tech Monthly.
Published 3/14/08