Building a Website – If a Child Can Do It, Why Is It So Hard?

Websites are becoming so easy to do that even a child can create one. And many have. But how about the other greater percentage of the population that are no longer children. Building a website can be confusing and overwhelming. In addition, when we decide to make the plunge to create a website we have to pay upfront fees and then learn afterwards, often experiencing buyer’s remorse because we realized that we could have gotten a better deal if we had only known what to do beforehand. This is a true story, as I have a friend that came to me yesterday telling me she decided that she wanted to buy a website but had no idea what to do afterwards. I gave her some advice and helped her out because I felt so bad that she spent over $200 for a contract on a website domain name and hosting service.

After this incident I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be so much easier if there were a simple to read free website guide on how to build and create a website. I’ve come across blogs that try to explain website basics but they inundate you with so much information and so much text. I’m the type of person that wants something easy to read (pictures definitely help) with concise information that I can easily remember and take away with me.

In this free user guide I would want to see step by step the process of preparing and planning for a website and then of course the development and maintenance of a website.

Beneficial topics to discuss in a free guide:

1. Hosting options – There are so many different types of hosting packages out there, knowing that these different packages exists and determining which package is best for you is vital
2. Content and Design – I personally know that a bad website can really hurt a business. There are even websites that are dedicated to showcasing horrible websites. Speaking briefly about how the design and content should be organized would help those webmaster who are clueless on how to really engage a visitor through their website
3. SEO – I think SEO is becoming more important, discussing in a user guide what SEO is and the benefits it provides as well as easy to follow tips to help people get started (because SEO can get super complicated) can really optimize a website and bring more traffic to their page.

These are just some ideas on topics people should be aware of before spending hundreds of dollars on a website package.

If you have any other ideas of helpful tips or topics to be aware of when deciding to build a website, I’d love to hear it!