I am a Media Developer and I produce Audio, Video, Animated Graphics and Websites. In the past ten years I have seen websites. come and go. Many years ago purchasing a domain name would set you back $70.00 and finding a web hosting company could cost you a few hundred dollars a year. All of that has changed and it is now possible for anyone to create a web site and host it online on a budget. The purpose of this article is to get you to think about what type of web site you want and how to best represent your company.

Clients that I encounter often want similar types of sites. They want flashy animated websites. and really don't have any idea of what goes in to produce a site of that magnitude. If you want flashy animated websites. with cool looking pages then you need to do one of two things.

1. Hire a professional
2. Buy Adobe Flash and learn how to become a professional.

Flash websites. takes a lot time and the client doesn’t understand that. Flash is not as simple as you think. It may take 30 – 50 hours to complete a full flash web site from scratch. This should be taken into consideration when choosing a professional that will work on your site.

Templates are another source of establishing your web presence and some come with flash elements, but it still takes time to decipher the code and customize it for your purposes. It is best to have a budget when hiring a professional for building or customizing a flash web site for your business marketing needs.

Your next option is to purchase Flash and learn how to create the site yourself. Will this actually happen, I don't think so. I just want you to know that there is a lot of work that goes into putting together a Flash site and you should not be shocked when you get a quote for services.

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I have a template now what?

By Tyrone Campbell

Templates are great and they save time but guess what, they need customization as well. They include what we like to call in the industry "Source Files". These source files contain the original layouts as they were created with programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash. Editing these source files will require the programs that created them. Using programs such as Photoshop and Flash require a lot of time and knowledge in order to manipulate the templates that you purchased.

Once you have completed the changes in your template, you can add the content for each of your pages. You will need an HTML editor. The HTML editor will allow you to add the content of your web site and it will save your pages in the proper code that will make it accessible in your web browser. Adobe Dreamweaver is a standard among web developers but there are other programs that will yield the same results as long as you have the time to work on your project. Text formatting is done with a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). If you want to change the colors, fonts and font sizes, this can be done using a text editor or even in Dreamweaver.

Things to remember:

1. Customize your template using a program that can open the source files.
2. Add your content with an HTML Editor.
3. Check all links to pages and make sure that the Navigation is working correctly.
4. Add Meta Descriptions, and Keywords to each page.

I use a Site Builder?

By Tyrone Campbell

Clients come across services that have the capability for you to build your web site through a special control panel or a site builder which can make it easy to add content and publish a web site The option to use a site builder is perfectly fine but it may be limited to a defined library of themes and functions. You will not have the option to edit any source files or to add a totally custom look to the existing template. Site builders are also hosted on a company's server and most of them do not allow any FTP connections. The inability to add custom scripts such as Mortgage Calculators and other Java Script can hinder certain professionals if they want to use a site builder to develop their websites.

Some companies will allow you to download free software where you can create a real nice looking web site only to find that it must be hosted on one of their servers. Which brings me to another point, sites that are created and hosted using site builders cannot be transferred from one company to another. The only thing you own is your content.