If you're a pro, web site builders will save you weeks of work and allow you (or your clients) to easily maintain the site.
The reviewed products are the current leaders in their fields and are arranged in order of capabilities - from an extremely easy-to-use online web site builder for creating small sites to comprehensive business web site builder.
If you're new to site building and just want to try it for free, you can use the first four products as free web site builders - in addition to paid services, they enable you to create a web site for free with some limitations.
They give you a chance to test your netwriting skills for free.
You can cancel the project at any time if something goes wrong, or switch to a paid version if
you are totally delighted with the result and want to remove restrictions and include additional features.
1&1 Instant Website
This is a popular web site builder, which anyone can use to quickly create small sites
(up to 12 pages) without the need of HTML programming skills or expensive desktop software.
It's suitable for those who just want to make small professional looking web sites very quickly,
easily and inexpensively - affiliates, home and small businesses, families, hobbies, sports teams, etc.
Unlike other reviewed free web site builders, 1&1 Instant Website requires no registration to get started. You can create a web site for free immediately and see what your pages would look like before you join 1&1.
Building a web site is a five-step process...
- Choose your layout from a library of 120 website templates.
- Refine your design - choose your favorite graphic and pick the font size, text colour, and navigation button style.
- Edit your content with easy to use online editor.
- Add extra features like Flash animation, a counter, feedback forms, guest books and more.
- Publish your web site.
1&1 also offers cheap domain registration and a wide variety of hosting plans.
Click here for more details.
Site Studio
Unlike other reviewed web site builders, this browser-based solution for site design and construction from Positive Software Corporation isn't a standalone tool. It's a software that hosting providers can install on their servers to help users build professionally looking sites without knowing anything about FTP, HTML, or imaging software.Key features of Site Studio:
- Simple to use: Site Studio guides you step-by-step, providing simple choices regarding colour, style and images. There is no software to buy, and no code to learn.
- Layout templates: Site Studio provides over 1000 professionally designed templates. The content of your site is stored separately from the layout. You can completely change the look and feel of your site in a few clicks of the mouse, without ever having to retype any information.
- Customizable colour schemes: Site Studio includes a number of built-in colour combinations that look great with any layout. All the colours can be changed, either by using a point-and-click colour picker, or typing in the colour as a hex number.
- Complete control over images: you can upload your own images without having to leave your browser. The required images, including logos, rollover buttons and sidebars, can also be generated automatically in the colours you want, with the desired text.
- Variety of pages: Site Studio includes a lot of predefined page templates: About, Links, Download, Firm Profile, Survey Form, FAQ, Catalog, ICQ Contact Center, Site Map, Contact Me, Services, Add-A-Cart Catalog, Amazon Web Store, etc. Generic Page template enables creation of custom pages that do not fall into any other categories. Advanced users can copy-paste existing HTML pages and create web pages based on their own HTML code.
- One-click publishing: The web site is published with one click. But even after publishing, you can go back and change it as much as you wish.
Many hosting providers offer this web site builder for an additional fee. However, here are three inexpensive hosting services which provide their clients with Site Studio for free...
- InfinityHost
They offer 400 MB of disk space and 15 GB of traffic for $7.95 a month or $6.95 a month if you pay for 2 years up front (no setup fee). Additionally, you can host up to 3 domains (separate sites) within one account - a low-cost solution for owners of multiple sites.