There's really four main options when building a website.
Hire a web programmer to build and maintain your website for you, costing you thousands of dollars up front and then a hundred or so more every time you want a change. If you know you're going to be a big success and you've got the cash and you want to spend your time on other things like marketing and innovating, then this may be the perfect option for you.
To find someone good, ask around. Ask how reliable the programmer was, how quickly they completed the work, how detailed their billing is (in other words, do you really know what the person billed you for?), how fun it was to work with them, how creative they were, how quickly they responded to your emails, and of course, the quality of the work.
For this type of work, I recommend JenTekk Web Solutions. That's who I use when I need a job done that I can't do myself. Jen is experienced, fast, responds to every email quickly, and offers different billing prices based on priority-- if you want it done fast, it will cost more than if you're willing to wait a bit. She bills honestly, writing down a list of everything that she did and how long it took. She accepts PayPal payments (which is very convenient) and has a great sense of humour (very important). (And no, I'm not mentioning Jen because she's my sister or something. I didn't know her from a hole in the ground when she started working with me. And I don't get paid to send you her way. She simply deserves it.)
You can hire a web programmer to build you a site with a content management system. This means that they include an interface whereby you can figure out how to add a page or edit a page by clicking on a few buttons. Personally, I don't find this to be as easy as it sounds. It's cheaper than option #1 but a lot moe work, of course. If you're planning on having your business for a long time and if you will have to change products often, and if you're still in the planning stages with a lot of time in which to learn how to do this, you may find it worth it to learn how.
You can try to build your site yourself using Dreamweaver or another technology and upload it to a webhost via FTP. People used to use FrontPage from Microsoft but it was taken off the market because it would put bad code into websites and make them look wonky in places. You'll definitely need large chunk of time, a manual and determination to go this route.
You can use an easy website builder. These are programs where you should be able to add and edit a page at the click of a button. You don't need to know HTML, you just type like you would in a word processor. This type of editing is called WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get.
Unfortunately, many if not most, website builders are not as easy as they sound. They may use C Panel which is not intuitive at all.
I can honestly say that of all the builders I've tried (and I'm too afriad to name names) PowerSuit Hosting is the easiest. Why would I offer something that I didn't think was the best? Also, it's only $16.99/month, if you pay for the year. If you want to pay month by month, it's $19.99/month. A very reasonable cost to run your own website when you can make as many changes as you'd like, whenever you want.
It's not perfectly everything that you could possibly want. A website is like a house. You can make a bunch of basic websites like builders make spec homes that all look alike and they will work. You can live in such a house and have your basic needs met. But it won't be your dream house. Every person's idea of a dream house is different, so no builder is going to have blueprints already for your perfect idea of a home. Maybe you want a laundry chute from the upstairs hallway. Maybe you want a fireplace in the bathroom. (Note that I did say "dream" house.)
Well, it's the same with your dream website. Your perfect site might have really sophisticated flash and a pop-up search engine. No builder can anticipate your every wish for your website and it would be overwhelming to offer all these options to someone just starting out building a simple site for the first time.
Now, this little analogy is NOT to say that the PowerSuit Hosting Builder is bland, basic and useless. That's far from the case! There are a lot of powerful things that the PowerSuit Hosting Easy Website Builder can do. And if you want a more customized home page like I have, there is a simple way to bypass the template index.
The real advantages to PowerSuit Hosting are the built-in shopping cart and the ease of adding and changing pages. There's a maximum of three buttons to click on to edit a page. You can embed photos easily right into your page. You an arrange things in a table by clicking on the little grid that pops up in this screenshot (my explanations about the page are in red text):
As for the shopping cart, it's very easy to set up and use. It is in USD, but if you want to use CAD you can easily integrate PsiGate (though it will cost more) or PayPal's cart for free. Other shopping carts can also be added, if you'd prefer.
Another thing that I love about PowerSuit Hosting is the clean, simple interface. Here's a screenshot of the page after you've chosen your template. (This template is not available when first signing up, but once you get past the initial screen, you'll see it as one of the choices.). Notice the buttons at the top. Want to edit this page? Simply click Edit. Want to get to your other pages to edit one of them? Click Manage Pages. Want to find out how to do something or ask for help? Click Help & Support. There you'll find a Knowledge Base written in a handy little language called "English". I should specify "Plain English"!Still don't understand a little something or don't see your answer? Send in a Support Ticket and the handy staff will answer your question and fix your problem for you (they usually just fix it and then tell you how they did it so that you can do it the next time) within a day.
Building a website with PowerSuit Hosting's Easy Website Builder is like moving into a new house. It takes a while to get used to which lightswitches turn on which lights and where all the electrical outlets are. But once you know their location, you can find them in seconds without really thinking. You WILL get to know your new "house" in no time.
I could talk more about how great it is and explain how to use it but it's best that you visit the actual sales page! Try it out.
Don't hesitate to email me with any questions. And for more specific information on how to build a website, see the other topics on the How-To page. ;-)
