Web Editors

We have covered getting a domain name and finding a good host for your domain, now it is time to create your web site.  Most of the web hosting sites, including Lunarpage and Mom Webs have templates and online web site creators, however we can tell you from experience of having tried these from several different hosts, they are not easy, they are slow and cumbersome.  Web editors are expensive, but a good one is worth every penny, especially if you are going to take this seriously.

There are shareware editors out there that can simplify the web building process and this can save you a lot of money, but in most cases as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Here we will cover 2 of our favorite and most powerful web editing software tools on the market, and one lesser program which will do the job, although it may be a bit cumbersome and it is beneficial if you learn a little html coding.

Coffee Cup HTML Editor

Free trial - $49.95 to buy

This is the cheapest WYSIWYG editor out there.  WYSIWYG means, "What you see it what you get", it is like an editor that you can create tables, put your header in, format your text, just like w word processor, and what you see while working on it is exactly as it should appear when visitors see it online.  I will not go into great detail about it, I do not use it on a daily basis, but for the purposes of presenting an affordable alternative to the $200 - $400 web editors, I did download and install it on my computer, and create a plain and simple web page for Debs Pansies so you can get an idea of how to set up a web page, and to show that this software will work.  The advantage of Coffee Cup's html editor is you can try it free for 30 days, if you would like to give this a try, you can download it here.

XSitePro

$197

The easiest program to use for creating small web sites, we would recommend using XSitePro.  XSitePro can be licensed on two computers for one purchase, and when our computers died it was easy enough to write them and they sent us a new license for our replacement computers, no questions asked.

XSitePro uses cascading style sheets to set up the appearance of your web site, but you don't have to worry about what cascading stye sheets are or how to use them.  You simply create your banner, set up your side bars and color schemes, and XSitePro automatically takes everything from there.  When you create a new page as I did this one, it starts you with a box to create your page name, then it automatically creates the page for you.  If you want the page to show up on the navigation bar on the left, just click the box for "Show in navigation menu", and your page will automatically be included through out your web site.  once the set up process is done, each page you add, you enter a little pertinent information about it, then go to the design page, and it is as simple as using a text editor like word or lotus word pro.  You simply add the content into the page, and everything else is done for you.  If you want to create a page different from all the rest without the navigation bars and right column, just click the Ignore page settings box, and create a seperate page as you want it.

I could tell you a lot about XSitePro, but they have a video online that will show you how powerful this is for building quick and easily maintained sites: Click here to view the "7 Reasons Why You Need XSitePro Now!" video

Like I said, we use XSitePro, The Gourd Reserve and this web site here are both created and maintained by XSitePro, so if your interested in this powerful software, Click here to buy XSite Pro

The downside to XSitePro is, if you are building a large site, and you add a new page, it will re-create every single page on the web site, then re-upload the entire site.  The Gourd Reserve is currently 589 pages not counting the forum, and it takes a little while for it to upload.  I don't mind, I upload it when I have something else to do, with broadband it takes about 15 minutes.

Dreamweaver

$200 - $400

Dreamweaver is probably the most powerful professional web site editor on the market.  It is so versitile and has so many powerful features, I cannot begin to explain them all. For beginners it hs tutorials, for the pros it has a small learning curve to get up and going until you get in to all the scipting and extra features it has. It should have been my editor of choice for The Gourd Reserve, due to the size of the web site and the length of time it requires to upload the website when I make a major change.  With Dreamweaver, I like to do my web pages with an shtml extension with allows me to do server side includes.  Again, if you are a beginner, this can be confusing, but Dreamweaver simplifies this process through it's script link buttons.  Basically what this means is, I create a page than only includes my navigation bar, I create another page for my right bar deals and advertisements, and when I create a new page, these pages are written into the page where I put them by the server.  The worst part of it is once you figure it out, you need to make an html page with the meta=refresh tags pointing to your index.shtml, and name that page index.html because most servers look for an index.htm or .html page.  I know all this sounds confusing, but if you get the program and play with it, run through the tutorials, and use the help files where needed, you will learn rather quickly and using the program becomes fairly intuitive, just like using any other word processor.

Have your site built? now it is time to create a potential cash flow.