Building a Website on a Budget

BUILDING A WEBSITE ON A BUDGET

(New Plymouth, New Zealand)---Let’s face it; the thought of building a website is daunting to most. And yet how do start-up businesses create a site without putting a second mortgage on the family home? We’ve found 3 options to get around forking out $1,000’s for your website in order of expense: hire a graphic designer, learn a WYSIWYG editor or use a template program through a hosting company such as Freeparking.

Regardless of location, most New Zealand cities over 50,000 will have at least 25 graphic designers or design companies to choose from. With the average design rate fluctuating between $75-$100 per hour you want to make sure you’ve created a detailed scope for your designer to follow including logo concept, colours, menus, copy, log-in, online shopping &payments, security and most important: your budget. From this information your designer should be able to tell you what’s doable and what’s a dream and give you a timeline. Plan on spending between $2,500-$5,000 for a basic site plus your domain and hosting costs (averaging $20/mo).

Popular WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors include Adobe’s Dreamweaver and Microsoft’s Expression Web. These programs allow you to create a site using their tools, however you will also need to purchase additional products such as Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop or pay a designer to create or manipulate images. Again you’ll want to think through your look and feel, page content and other important elements. Most WSIWYG’s have online manuals and tutorials that will help you walk through, but take heed that learning the program will take time, especially for those with no prior design experience. You’ll pay upwards of NZ $600 for these programs plus your domain and hosting costs.

Probably the quickest and least expensive route is to use a packaged template program through a web hosting company. These programs are usually packaged with multiple templates, a domain name, e-mail, and web hosting. You’re able to use existing templates and designs to create your own site and have the other necessary elements to be online. We found a special deal at Freeparking (www.freeparking.co.nz) where all-inclusive SiteBuilder packages are offered between $16-20/month and include a domain name, e-mail, web hosting, templates and extras such as e-newsletters, web forms, event calendars and shopping carts. As an added bonus all SiteBuilder purchases made between June-July will be entered to win 1 of 10 gift vouchers (i.e. day spa session, golf analysis, etc).

Freeparking is New Zealand’s most popular provider of domain names, e-mail and web hosting solutions. With Freeparking you have peace of mind knowing that you are dealing with a respected name in the industry since 2000. As a result, customers receive timely and helpful service from technicians who care about assisting them with their online goals. For more information on Freeparking please visit www.freeparking.co.nz.

ENDS

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