Best Site Building Software

These days, if you don’t have a site for your business you are simply missing opportunities to gain new customers and generate revenue. The first place many people go when they begin the process of looking for a business to provide them a product or service is the Internet.

Think for a moment how many times you or someone you know needed a product or service, then walked over to their computer and started a Google search to find a company providing that product or service. Better yet, how many times in the same scenario have you winessed someone going directly to the site of a company to purchase a product or service? If you are in business, you need a site!

There are many solutions to select from and all have their definite strengths and weakness. I have attempted to demystify much of the process by highlighting the three best options depending on your specific needs.

Best Site Builder
http://www.bestsitebuilder.com/
Pros: This solution is entirely web-based and does not require you to purchase expensive software or additional services. You will not have to pay anyone to constantly update your site as you can do all updates yourself as long as you have access to the Internet. This service is all-inclusive and provides everything you need including web hosting and email. Includes a shopping cart to sell your products and integrates smoothly with your Paypal account or merchant account. For only $399, they will provide a professional, custom design including your first 5 pages and first 5 products.
Cons: The templates provided are not very attractive and you will need to hire someone to create a header image that includes your logo if you want a professional appearance. If you will have a large site with lots of links to content, you will need a more robust option, this solution is intended for small sites with less than 25 pages and/or 25 products to sell.

Total first year cost including custom design, domain name, web hosting & email:
$613.00

Joomla
http://www.joomla.org/
Pros: Joomla is free software and is supported by a strong community of developers. This solution is entirely web-based and does not require you to purchase expensive software. You will not have to pay anyone to constantly update your site as you can do all updates yourself as long as you have access to the Internet.
Cons: There is an included template, but it is not intended to provide you with a design for your site. You will need to hire a designer to create a custom design that can be used with your Joomla site. This is a complete design so you can expect to pay $2500 and up for a professional looking site. e-Commerce is not included, but there are un-supported components that have been created for Joomla that provide this function. You will need to obtain web hosting and email services from a company that supports Joomla such as Netegrated.com. A Google search for Joomla Web Hosting can provide more choices.

Total first year cost including custom design, domain name, web hosting & email:
$2556.00

In comparison, if you go to a designer who creates a professional looking site for you without the ability to manage your own content, you can expect to pay a minimum $2500 for design, additional $200 per each page, additional $100 per hour for future changes, additional $100 per hour for programming charges to add site functionality like contact forms, shopping cart, catalog, etc… soon the total cost can escalate to over $10,000.

Another option is to have a friend or relative that offers to ”build you a site” for a few hundred bucks, but our observation tells us one thing… if it doesn’t look professional you may as well not have a site.

Our recommendation, if your site is 25 pages and 25 products or less select Best Site Builder. If your site is more than 25 pages and 25 products select Joomla with a shopping cart component on a supported web hosting provider like Netegrated.com.