For love? For money? No…for the perfect website.

As you can see from my blog (and myspace, and a really bad instant change to my webpage), I’m updating my website…again. This could get really expensive if I didn’t do it myself.

I’ll be really egotistical, and assume that YOU, too, might want to build your own website using my method. Now, I’m sure there are easier ways these days (I’ve heard WordPress is a breeze), but this is the way I know. So, I’m going to take you along on the ride.

Step One: HTML editor. I started my journey with NVu. This is a free HTML editor you can find at http://www.nvu.com (as with most free stuff, it has a few bugs). They have a new editor called KOMPOZER (which I haven’t tried out yet) so what I illustrate here will be using NVu.

I’m not a computer geek, I’m just a really good “tweaker”. I tried putting all the elements together in NVu and it was a disaster. I simply don’t have the ability to compose an elegant site; however, I know what I like.

Step Two: – The Template So, I went out and looked at website templates (Warning! This stage can take a long time! So, make sure you budget accordingly).
There are lots of sites out there with templates (free and for purchase). Now, I know I’m going to make lots of changes, so I hate to buy one. But I’ll list some of the sites I’ve looked in the past.

http://www.enchantingdesignz.com/ – if you write fantasy or love fairy/mermaid artwork, this is the site for you. The templates are reasonably priced and they also have some free ones you can download and use as is (or tweak).

http://www.csstemplateheaven.com/ – Dieter has some lovely classic, elegant, and artistic templates for sale. All of them are under $15. You can download them for free, but you don’t get the PSD file (Free might be okay if you aren’t planning on tweaking the layout much – for an example see www.pamskochinski.com)

Free templates: www.oswd.com (has over 2000 webtemplates, some are simple, some are simply stunning)

http://www.freecsstemplates.org/ : they also had a nice selection of templates.

I’m sure there are others, but these are the websites I select from.

Things to think about while selecting a templates is whether you want to use a header graphic (theirs or yours), a background graphic that stays fixed while the text floats (what size and shape is the graphic you want to use), and how much content you want/need. Do you want one, two, or three columns? The nice thing about free templates is that if you make a mistake, you haven’t wasted any money.

So, your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to go out and select and download a template.

I’ll talk about tweaking that template later this week.