Within the past few lessons, I showed you how to build a basic website with HTML and how to use an HTML editor.
Today I’m going to show you a way that is even easier (but not always better)…
(Watch this video…)
Main points:
Here are my personal definitions…
Web authoring software – You tell it what to do… you only get out what you put in. (ex. FrontPage, Dreamweaver, KompoZer, etc.)
Site builder – It does most of the work for you (usually template driven). You put in some required variables, and it produces an entire website.
Some “hybrid” programs blur the line. A software that gives the best of both worlds is: XSitePro
What I like about site builders…
-they’re easy
-they’re fast
-some of them build attractive sites
What I don’t like…
-the HTML coding is often sub-par
-Could create footprints that the search engines may not like
-Often tied to hosting/subscription
(watch video above for demo of Hostgator site builder)
UPDATE: Here is another site builder that I reviewed: Site Profit Bot Demo and Review
Action steps:
1) Decide if you would like to use a template or a site builder to build your site.
2) If yes, choose one and start using it.
In the next lesson I’ll be covering membership sites!
As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below 🙂
Have a great day!
I have used xsite pro for several sites as well as basic html. I definitely think xsite is a great tool for anyone who doesnt have the mindset for technical stuff
Rich
Well said Eric,
It is an amazing piece of software that will save time and money
Hi Eric,
Congratulations on the new addition to your family!
What a miracle life is, huh?
I’ve used several webhosting services over the years and Hostgator has out performed 98% of the other hosting providers in: Customer Service, Web Platform Maintenance and Reliability.
And for the price of the service they provide…
I found Hostgator to be “The Best Value for Your Money!”
Eric, do you provide a discount code?
Best Regards
Steve Fisher
Thanks for the latest lesson. Its great to get all the options.
Looking forward to the wordpress lesson. I picked that option and am struggling through CSS to customise my site at the moment. A lot of fun though (and procrastination)!
Thanks for the great info. As always well presented and in depth. What do you think of PROFITmatic as a site builder? I believe it is a great income generator as well. Would like to know more before I invest in it.
Thanks,
Matt
Cool Video. I would like to know if possible use the xsitepro templates to html editor to create website. Thanks
Hi Erick
Thanks for this good info and all the info you share. I have followed you update for a while and have been impressed by what you are doing for furthering God’s Kingdom here on earth. I just checked out LOL Ministry http://lolministry.com and I am excited by what you are doing. I went on a mission trip myself to Ecuador last year and was blessed by God. Thanks again for living your Christian life as a light on a hill not under a bushel.
Dave
Thanks Eric.
Open Source templates offers some great work by talented site designers and it follows html standards. If you looking for templates, I recommend you take a look at http://www.oswd.org/
Hi Eric
I’ve just watched your video lesson which I thought was great at explaining the differences in building a website.
I think that probably, although the web builder is obviously much easier to use (just fill in the gaps) there is no real way that you can personalise the site you are building, and your using the same ‘stuff’ as everyone else e.g. headers/ stock photos etc.
I’m still trying to build my own site which I have found very difficult to do. I’ve tried NVu also a Serif UK website programme that is supposed to be easy for ‘newbies’ but I managed to crash the programme in about 10 minutes! I then changed over to using Kompozer having found some video instructions, and I have now got 11 pages done for the new site, and included some of my own pictures.
It’s been a long, hard slog – but I’m getting there! I have found the technical side of things somewhat difficult, but its coming along now. The templates that I had did not seem to allow me to change the header, include photos where I wanted them, and was generally too restrictive. My site is personal, original content and photos and is what I want, it remains to be seen whether it becomes a success!
I want to add a blog to it so the site will hopefully make me some money, and the blog will have personal unique content that will drive traffic to the site.
So I look forward to your intended lesson on blogs.
Keep up the good work
Thanks for the really good lessons
Graham in U.K.
I build my own custom website builders using a combination of frontpage templates I create, Liberty Basic that builds the content pages and a few text files to provide the data.
I dont know of anyone else that does this, and its a very effective technique, and totally flexible.
Eric, what about making the WordPress optimized, plugins etc. If you are using a WordPress Blog what do you use to optimize it, and if you are creating HTML what do you use to optimize it.
Good lesson Eric, I wish I had seen this before I spent the time building my site. I used a template and dreamweaver to put my site together but had to figure dreamweaver out on my own.
I still haven’t figured out how to put the price with the slash through it like you see so often
Eric;
Another home run my man…!Grrrreat lesson
I’ve been on board with you since lesson one,and well before.And they just keep getting
BETTER!By following your advice i now have a site up and running with an affiliate product
landing page.And i did not forget my Autoresponder…now with this TIMELY lesson
i’m ready to replace that landing page with a
real site.ERIC..YOU-THA-MAN…!
THANKS….THEADMAN…..
Hi,
I stick with my NVU which is very easy to handle, sitebuilders mostly don`t give me the exact results I want. Would you recommand “Frontpage”, because it is said to produce non standard-code.
Thanks for your advice!
Hi Eric,
Thanks for another great lesson as usual…I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. XsitePro,XsitePro,XsitePro! lol
Ps…By the way,what software do you use or like for making videos? Camtashia? I think you mentioned it before but couldn’t locate it. I’m in the market for one.
🙂
Get 150 *Top Quality* NICHE Websites With Your Paypal ID On Each!
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I enjoyed your presentation. However, I do have a question regarding the Hostgator site builder. Do you know if the site builder leaves footprints and can you customize the code?
thanks
Mike
Eric, Thank you, again, for your generosity and skill. Richard ps: How’s the new baby?
Thanks for the input 🙂
Thanks for the comment Steve. Yes I do have a coupon code:
ERICSTIPS.COM
Cool. I remember struggling through CSS… it’s worth it 🙂
I am not familiar with PROFITmatic. As with all site builders, I’d advise to be leery of the things I mentioned, and if it doesn’t have those problems then it’s probably a good tool.
Xsite templates are “xse” files which can’t be opened by an HTML editor. HOWEVER, if you have XSitepro, all you need to do is open the template and then EXPORT it as an HTML site. You can then open and edit it in any HTML editor 🙂
Cool… bless you in your work, and thanks for checking it out 🙂
Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for the update, and yes… you’ll like WordPress 😉
Sounds like you’ve created a system that works… that’s a good thing!
I’ll cover that in the WordPress lessons… coming soon!
You use the html “strike” tag:
$100.00Thanks THEADMAN!
It’s a great program. But for the average person, I do not recommend Frontpage. As I mention in lesson #30, it is more expensive and more complicated than what most people need.
Thanks Gary. Yes I use Camtasia from Techsmith. I recently upgraded to their Camtasia 6.0 and it’s great.
You’re asking the right questions 😉
I really do not know if it creates any bad footprints. From what I’ve seen, the templates are all different, so I don’t see any major problems there. But I don’t know how many people are using those templates, or whether there are many other web hosts offering the same templates, etc.
You can customize the code to a small extent just by personalizing the site as much as possible within the site builder (adding new title tags, your own content, etc). But to actually edit the code you would need to publish the site and then download a copy of it to your PC and edit it in an HTML editor. (you can download with Filezilla.. see lesson #29).
Thanks, the new baby is great.
Templates, Love’em Hate’em. Glad to hear your views on them Eric. I find that I’m using templates more and more. They help with the initial creativity, but then need a LOT of tweaking. My homepage just got outranked on Google by a filler page in a template that I forgot to take down!
Also I agree about the HTML. Love Xsitepro but have had to learn to go in and edit the html. Oh well, better than sitting around with crossword puzzles to stimulate the brain eh?
Hi Eric,
Templates are great but as you said personalizing and customizing it takes a new skill. I’m learning but it’s slow. I do like WordPress but that to can be customized. Is PHP very different than HTML? I know that HTML can be viewed in your browser before uploading it to the server. My experience with PHP templates is that you have to upload them first to see your final product. Is that right or am I missing something/
Thanks,
Luca
Hello Eric,
I have built my own website using Kompozer. Now my problem that has been stomping me for more than a cou[ple of days now is how to connect my autoresponder to my graphical opt-in. The responding is now working okay, but the opt-in boxes it provides is so basic.
I got a graphical opt-in to spice up the page. Problem is how I can connect the two? Guess I don’t know where to insert the line of the autoresponder to replace the line on the graphical opt-in. Every time I do, the graphics simply fall apart!
Can you or anybody there help me please? Please?
I just looked at your site and it seems you got it fixed!
PHP is a little more “scripty” than HTML. And yes, in general you do need to upload them to a web server in order to view them (unless you’re running PHP on your own computer, which is unlikely unless you’re a real programmer).
But it’s really not too hard once you get the hang of it. I use two monitors… so I have my FTP client (filezilla) open on one of them, so I can edit the PHP on one screen and quickly upload it to test on the other.
BTW, when it comes to customizing WordPress templates (themes), you don’t need to know PHP. The parts of the PHP files that you are customizing are mainly HTML elements, and also the CSS style sheet.
Haha, ouch!!
Eric, loved your lesson, I built one page on KompoZer, I’m wondering if there is a way to do several pages for the same website using that software.
Thanks
Hello again Eric,
Great to see Lesson #31, I really missed your stream of great information. One question I have related to website building is your opinion of options like SBI (Site Build It). You pay a yearly fee to use all their tools and expertise to help find a niche, create a website, get traffic, and basically run your own online business. Any thoughts?
On the surface it looks okay, but it’s not working.
I will understand if you’re too busy to look into this, but I”ll still try. Besides the Hostgator staff, you’re the only most responsive blogger/marketer I’ve experienced on the internet since the beginning of your lessons.
So this is the short HTML of my autoresponder:
Your Name:
Your E-Mail:
And here is the html of the graphical opt-in (seems only a minor replacement of a couple of lines is needed, but I couldn’t do it no matter how I tried. Pls. look at the 2 ALL CAPS note inside):
Copyright 2009 Cesar Dalagan All Rights Reserved Disclaimer
Privacy
Can you or anybody hekp me? Please?
Best regards,
Eric,
I see my posting have been removed. I am sorry if you did not like my posting. But which is true I found the LIMITATION with Xsitpro I just said that. Also I said I love Xsitepro and VERY GOOD one to build Static sites NOT for PHP base Dynamic sites. All the bets Eric.
My thoughts regarding “all in one” programs would apply to SBI. It can be great for newbies, but I wouldn’t want my entire business to be reliant on their system. Additionally, such systems often don’t allow the level of freedom you will want once you really know what you’re doing.
I have not used it to build an entire site, so I can’t speak from experience, but it looks like their site manager feature can help with that. But that’s one area where a program like XSitePro really excels. With Xsite it’s easy to add multiple pages, and it will build your navigation menu for you too. That’s a reason I like WordPress too.
I didn’t remove any posts…
Haha the funny thing is I was accidentally looking at the website of the commenter ABOVE you!
Check out the aweber opt-in form at the top of his page: http://www.reachsuccessonline.com/bloggingproductreviews/index.php
Take a look at his source code, or ask him how he does it 😉
Hi Eric,
Thanks for YOUR reply. I do not know what happened. I did post and after awhile did not find it. Anyway !! Any suggestion if it is possible to build PHP base Dynamic site with Xsitepro2.All the best.
B.Regards
Thanks Eric, I will be changing my site with this information.
The posts disappear until they are approved 🙂
I do not think XSite can build a PHP site.