Building a website from scratch vs. Building a website from a pre-made template |
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Over the years a lot of personal friends and acquaintances have asked me how to start a website. This is obviously a very general question to be asked and it’s hard to give them the answer they are looking for. Unfortunately there is no one stop way to start a website. Starting a website involves way more than just making a web page design and slapping some HTML and text on it. However, everyone has to start somewhere so why not start with your web page design.
When building your website you have 3 options: Build it from yourself from scratch, build it from a pre-made template, or pay someone to build it.
Building it from scratch is a really long process as far as learning and experience is concerned. I wish it were as easy as picking up a book on HTML and BAM you have your awesome website made in just a couple days. If only life was that easy! In my day I’ve probably made around 15 websites from scratch and to be truthfully honest, I’m still no where near as good as most of the nicely designed web sites out there. See the thing is, designing a web site requires more than just time and effort - you need to have talent. Building a website is definitely an art form. While experience does help a lot, being artistic can go a long way.
So if you want to make a decent looking website be prepared to spend a lot of time. I can guarantee you that your first web design will be junk. I can guarantee you your 2nd web design will be junk. It took me about 5-10 complete web designs before I considered them worthy of being on a business website.
If you insist on building it from scratch, here is a good list of what you will need to start:
- Average skill level in HTML - a 200 page book on HTML will get you there.
- HTML editor - I suggest Adobe Dreamweaver. This will make it a lot easier for you to write the HTML for your site. In fact, Dreamweaver will typically do 90% of the code for you, you just have to figure out how to manage it.
- Image editing software - You will need this to make the actual design elements of your site such as your theme, your design layout, custom images, etc. Adobe Photoshop is great for this.
- A web hosting provider to upload your website creation to
All I can say is you better be prepared because you have no idea what you are getting into. I’m talking 50 solid hours at the bare minimum if you are new to building website.
With that being said, I highly recommend going with a pre-made template if you are new to building websites. 5 years ago I wouldn’t be saying this because a) Most websites were running pre-built templates and b) there wasn’t as much variety as there is today. I would have definitely told you to start from scratch if you asked me back then. However, nowadays there are thousands and thousands…and thousands….and thousands of pre-made web designs out there.
You might be thinking that a pre-made website won’t be exactly what you want and I totally agree with this. However, would you rather have a website that is 80% the way you like it or a website that is 100% the way you want it that will require 50+ hours of your time to get to.
For the most part, any template you find will automatically be 10X better than you could ever do on your first few creations. Some templates will be better than anything you could ever do period.
To get the best of both worlds, what you could do is download or buy your template of choice (one that is 80% what you want out of the website) and use your HTML and Image editing skills to customize your template to get that last 20%. The end result is a great looking website that does everything that you want it do while only requiring a small amount of your time.
Don’t get me wrong, making a website from a template still requires some skill to customize. But by all means no where near as much as building it from scratch. Using a customize template requires only basic knowledge in HTML and image editing skills.
Hopefully this will help you make your decision:
Building a website from scratch Advantages:
- More customizable to the way you want it.
- Personal gratification when you look at your finished website and say to yourself that you built it on your own.
- Increased overall website building ability with each web design you make.
Building a website from a pre-made web design template Advantages:
- A quick, professional looking, website that requires hardly any skill to work with.
Posts
Jul 20th, 2008 at 4:18 am
This is one way of building a website, but I use a package that has taught me to step by step how to build a successful website, which now I know pretty well (no html-or technical expertise)
This knowledge has been solely responsible for me earning an income from my website, and launching a website building business to build websites for other people.I have also learned a vast amount of knowledge from one little software package.
Truly Amazing!
Jul 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I think the other issue to think about is that while using a template may save you a lot of time in the short term, if you learn to build a custom site you’ll have that knowledge for the long term - which is handy both for maintaining that site as well as for building other/maintaining sites.
Aug 6th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
hey this really helped me alot ..i was thinking of building one from scratch , but now ..i would rather put those 50 hrs into marketing my product. Thanks for the heads up brother.
GOOD LUCK
Sep 28th, 2008 at 6:58 am
To get the best of both worlds, what you could do is download or buy your template of choice (one that is 80% what you want out of the website) and use your HTML and Image editing skills to customize your template to get that last 20%.
The aforementioned is the road I have chosen, and I am very happy with it. I am new to web development. It is a second career and I do not kid myself that I will ever become a true code jockey, or be able to compete with kids who were born with a mouse in their hand.
I purchased a few site building books and some software and promptly became so hopelessly mired down in information and websites that I had to just step back from it for awhile. One night I Stumbled stumbleupon.com onto Squarespace squarespace.com and I have never looked back. Square is elegant, easy to learn and highly customizable. I can take a template, break it all the way down and make it into whatever I want. The other main thing that sold me was it is easy to teach, so I can hand the site over to the client and quickly have them up to speed so they can maintain it themselves, thus eliminating longterm maintenance relationships.
I prefer a clean, minimalistic approach, and squarespace.com is the perfect platform to me.
Sep 28th, 2008 at 6:58 am
on modifying templates:
The aforementioned is the road I have chosen, and I am very happy with it. I am new to web development. It is a second career and I do not kid myself that I will ever become a true code jockey, or be able to compete with kids who were born with a mouse in their hand.
I purchased a few site building books and some software and promptly became so hopelessly mired down in information and websites that I had to just step back from it for awhile. One night I Stumbled [www.stumbleupon.com] onto Squarespace [www.squarespace.com] and I have never looked back. Square is elegant, easy to learn and highly customizable. I can take a template, break it all the way down and make it into whatever I want. The other main thing that sold me was it is easy to teach, so I can hand the site over to the client and quickly have them up to speed so they can maintain it themselves, thus eliminating longterm maintenance relationships.
I prefer a clean, minimalistic approach, and squarespace.com is the perfect platform to me.
Dec 13th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Although the design overall would be professional if you use a premade template, it wouldn’t be quite professional if you were a actual corporate company.