Small Businesses and DIY websites.

Small businesses can save money on Web design by doing it themselves with a variety of Open Source or FREE software applications that allow website owners to manage content on their websites themselves. The results can be astonishingly close to what you would get from a web design firm and the only real investment is a little time and effort.

Which free applications should you use? It really depends on the functions your website is going to need to perform for your users. There two standouts though, that are by far the best choices - Joomla and WordPress. Here's why we are huge fans of these "off the shelf" software packages.

Top Seven Reasons Joomla or Wordpress are the best way to a DIY high end website

•     They are free! You just need to download the package and install it on your server. Or, better yet, use the "one click install" feature provided by many hosing companies and let them do the installation for you.

•     They are user friendly. With a basic understanding anyone - absolutely anyone - can use the simple administration interface. If you can surf the web, you can manage a website.

•     They are totally customizable. You don't need to settle for a template that kind of works. You can easily change and configure anything on your website.

•     They are extensible. You can add pre-built functionality to the core installation to make the site do whatever you want. Things like shopping carts, blogs, communities, forums are all easy - and cheap or free - to add

•     They have a huge support community. The benefits here are two fold. First, the software developers are constantly improving it and, second, you can always find answers and help when you need it.

•     Millions of websites. There are literally millions of Joomla and Wordpress installation running websites for Mom and Pop shops to Government Agencies. It's a pretty good bet that either one will work for your website.

•     Thousands of templates. There are thousands of Joomla Templates and Wordpress themes available for free or a nominal cost that you can install on your website. You really don't have to know anything about code to get dramatic results.

Meanwhile, cheap domain-name and hosting services are plentiful in the marketplace, and most of them offer "one click installs" for these popular applications. Likewise, many Web design firms offer cheaper do-it-yourself options. The result is that it is easier than ever for small businesses to do everything from finding a domain name to launching a website faster and cheaper than ever before.

Joomla or Wordperss?

Which one to use

Both of these platforms offer such great benefits and you probably can't go wrong with either on but there are some types of sites that would work better or easier with one over the other. The other criteria is your own experience and level of desire to learn the system. The fact is that Wordpress is far easier for the novice to learn and manage. Joomla, on the other hand, offers greater control over complex functionality and customization of add on components. With that said, here are some typical uses for each one keeping in mind that either platform can be modified to perform virtually any functionality desired.

Joomla

• Portfolio or information sites

• Web Stores and Shoppin carts

• Membership sites

• CRM (customer relationship management )

• Auction Sites

• Forum Sites

Wordpress

• Blogs (by far the best) with great SEO capabilities

• Multi user blogs or posting pages

• Affiliate Sites

• E Commerce Sites

• Community Sites

Whichever platform you choose, there will be a learning curve and  some commitment to get the site finished. But the upside is that you won't have to shell out five or six thousand dollars to get it done.

Sometimes it pays to hire a pro

You want your site to look professional, or you could lose business. Errors in the pages, bad graphics or advertising that diverts attention from your page, isn’t considered very professional.

Also, adding functionality such as e-commerce or database functionality can get complicated if your going it alone. If you’re putting in an e-commerce platform for example, you need to know it will work and integrate with payment processors and shippers.

One great way to use professional web design and development services is to pay for the parts of the development that you absolutely can't or don't have time to do yourself. Another great option is to invest a small amount in high quality video tutorials (like this one) that will take most of the steepness out of the learning curve.

You need to really think through what you want in your site before trying to build something yourself or paying someone to do the development. No matter what option you choose, you need to have a clear idea what you want your site to do for you so you can keep costs down. Not having a clear concept or business model will definitely inflate the costs. Try different options out first. Start with Joomla or Wordpress. You can always hire someone if you get stuck so use that as your fall back plan. Chances are though, you'll find that it is very easy to get a basic website up yourself and only invest your time and effort in the process.

You can investigate further at joomla.org and wordpress.org.

If you still can't figure it out, try these tutorials. Click Here!