5 Website Builder Designs to Die For

by Melanie Citron

You are finally ready to launch your website! Now all you need to do is pick a website design—but which one? With so many free website builder designs online, how will you know which one is right for you?

Well, we’ve done the work for you and scoured the internet for the 5 best website builder designs around. Check these out!

Free Website Builder Designs

In our opinion, WordPress themes provide you with the most options when it comes to website designs. There are literally thousands to choose from, in all colors, motifs, and moods that match up with any personal or small business website you have in mind. All the themes below can be found at Wordpress Themes Resource Page:

eProduct Theme

This is a theme for a business with a vision. If you’ve got digital products you want to showcase, then this theme is a must-have to get your message across. The large product image, clear buttons, and functional text make this edgy theme work. The light blue/dark blue combination is attractive and subtle. Your product will stand out and market itself with the eProduct theme.

Academy Theme

This theme is a winner amongst educational institutions and when you browse the theme, you’ll see why. The classic dark blue, maroon, and white colors of the theme speak traditional and reliable, and with ample room for pictures, your place of education and the students that make it shine will get a place in the spotlight.

Consultant Theme

This is a theme that allows for flexibility and creativity. It’s ideal for a consultant or professional whose main goal is to market themselves and their services. There’s room in this theme to show off your personality, skills, work experience, and of course, your services offered. There are five different color schemes available for this clean, crisp design.

Retromania

If you’re looking for something a bit more fun, then you may want to consider a design like Retromania. This site screams Americana with its faded out stars and stripes in the background and iconic display of 1960s media items.

Mini

Here is a theme for the minimalists among us. It’s simple, with clear, straight lines, and no unnecessary bells and whistles. It gets to the point of what you have to offer—your content—and allows for no focus on anything else, except of course for the occasional picture here and there.

About the author: Melanie Citron is a freelance author who wants the web to be open to everyone. She regularly researches and writes about great free or low cost resources to help all have a great presence on the web. See more of her writing at BuildMySiteforFree.com.

4 Website Builder Programs that are Free

by Melanie Citron

You decided that you want to start a blog or website but you don’t know how. Don’t worry. With website builder programs, creating your own website has never been easier!

Website Builder Programs

Website builder programs are not just a set of editing tools; they are solutions for business people. You don’t have to spend money on programmers and web designers to create your website anymore. The following 4 website building programs will save you time and money and allow even the most non-technical of people to create, design, and manage websites.

WordPress

WordPress is an open source blog publishing application that is used for basic content management. This free application is suitable for small businesses, which are always looking for ways to cut spending. The WordPress program includes a virtually unlimited number of templates, plugins, and themes, and has become increasingly popular because of its simplicity and functionality.

WordPress is very easy to install and use, especially for individuals who are not technically savvy. You simply download the WordPress program onto your computer, find a web host, and begin creating your site.

A unique feature of the WordPress software is that you can switch hosts if you need to. Many website building programs force you stay with a single host, which can damaging if you choose the wrong host. The portability of WordPress is essential.

If you install WordPress with the BlueHost webhosting service, you’ll get unlimited file storage and a quality web server.

WordPress also includes SEO plugins for Google searches. This allows WordPress authors to be more visible to their audiences.

WordPress is one of the only free website builder programs that is actually free, long-term, and not just as a trial. Definitely an advantage!

Intuit/Homestead

Intuit/Homestead is another website builder that is suitable for small businesses, who want their website up and running quickly.

It is inexpensive and available for free for 30 days. After the 30 days, it costs between $4.99 for a basic package and $19.95 a month for a business package.

Intuit/Homestead makes it easy to set up and create your website without hassle. With over 2000 templates available, it allows for convenient website design, hosting, e-commerce and marketing. If time is an issue you can have your website customized to your needs by the Inuit/Homestead professionals at a nominal fee.

Site2You

Site2You has a different approach to building a free website. Site2You offers a free 7-day trial. After the trial period it costs between $19.95 and $49.95 a month to manage your site.

This advanced website builder lets anyone create and manage websites quickly and successfully. This allows you to design a website with unlimited pages for one flat fee.

Site Studio

Site Studio is a browser-based solution for website design and construction. Hosting providers can install Site Studio’s software on their servers to help users build professional-looking websites without technical knowledge.

Site Studio provides a simple to use step-by-step instructional guide, regarding choices of color, style, and images; and there are over a thousand customized templates to choose from.

Why WordPress is the Best Free Website Builder

by Melanie Citron

There’s a reason why WordPress is the world’s most beloved blogging platform and the best free website builder around: It’s because people love what works.

People are attracted to clean, efficient, organized sites that instruct them how to achieve their desired goals in a step-wise fashion, with just a click of the mouse here and a click of the mouse there. People like choices, and colors, and templates, and features, and a finished product that shines.

In short, people like WordPress because WordPress likes people.

WordPress is User-Friendly

WordPress is the most user-friendly website builder, providing website builders ranging from no prior programming experience to top-tier programming Ph.D. students with a playground on which to explore, build, play, and show-off.

Here’s how it works. First you choose a web host—BuildMySiteforFree.com takes the challenge out of that by recommending Blue Host (In addition to many other benefits and savings, people appreciate Blue Host’s quality customer service, having 24/7 help, now, when they need it, and not later when they’ve gotten themselves even deeper in and more stressed out by a problem).—then you download and install the WordPress software (which takes all of one click and less than five minutes), and then you begin designing and building your site by following simple instructions.

WordPress is Packed with Features

The free WordPress web building software offers dozens of free features, including themes and templates to choose from, an integrated stats system, blogs, photo and video uploads, sidebar widgets, and more!

Still not convinced that WordPress is the best free website builder around? Most free website builder programs will help you set up your website, but when it comes to personalizing it, jazzing it up, and truly making it your own, it will leave you high and dry. WordPress will not only help you set up and manage your website, but will make available to you thousands of Plugins that will allow you to further enhance the functionality of your website. Some Plugins cost money, but you’ll have no trouble finding Plugins that suit your needs that are also free.

Popular WordPress Plugins

WordPress is constantly updating their list of Plugins. Here are some of the most popular and most often downloaded WordPress Plugins:

Fast and Secure Contact Form
Google Analytics for WordPress
WordPress Stats
Broken Link Checker
Advanced Rating and Review Star System
WPtouch iPhone Theme
WP e-Commerce
WP Security Scan
Twitter Widget Pro
ShareThis
Post Videos and Photo Galleries
WP-Polls
MobilePress
SEO Packs
And thousands more!

What More Do You Need?

WordPress provides a website builder program for the people. It is attractive, simple, elegant, and comprehensive. And most of all, what the people really like after all, is that it’s free, and provides an endless number of options.

Are All Free Website Builder Programs the Same?

by Melanie Citron

Having your own website gives you the opportunity to share your passions and expertise with the public, start your own internet business, or simply provide a place for you to express your random thoughts and feelings. Unless you’ve got capital to start up with and lots of time on your hands, however, building a website can get time consuming and expensive.

Don’t rule out free website builder programs! They’ll provide soup-to-nuts stepwise information and templates that will guide you through the process of building your own website, without vacuuming out your bank account by forcing you to hire someone who charges upwards to $100 an hour, or more.

Free Website Building

Free website builder programs allow you to test drive the making of a successful website. It enables you to test out your content, brush up on your programming a bit, and figure out which features are important to you as a webmaster and which features you can do without.

So how do you know how to choose a free website builder? Are all free programs the same?

Well, yes and no—don’t you hate answers like that? All free builders will provide the basics—template options, text editors, at least a few web pages that visitors to your site can click through to. However, each free program does offer its own additional features and restrictions.

Free Program Comparison

Below you’ll find a comparison of the top free website builder programs and some of their key offerings: template options, page limit, hidden costs, and additional features.

Wordpress

Template library: over 1,000+ templates, themes, and designs.
Hidden costs: None. Downloading WordPress is free. The only thing you’ll need to pay for is a webhost to host the software, if you don’t already have one. (WordPress recommends BlueHost.)
Pages: There’s no official page limit, and, your storage space is only limited by which web host you choose. (And if you choose BlueHost as your webhost, you’ll get unlimited file storage.)
Extra features include: Many free widgets and Plugins that help personalize and add functionality to your site. “Unlimited” and “free” are essential to WordPress lingo.

Intuit Websites (Homestead)

Template library: 2,000+ customizable templates.
Hidden costs: 30 days free and then $4.99/month for a basic package and $19.95/month for the business package.
Pages: The basic package includes five pages and the business package includes an unlimited number of pages.
Extra features include: 200,000 images to choose from, option to use Intuit for free hosting or buy your own domain, and no ad banners on your website.

Site Studio

Templates: 1000+ customizable templates.
Hidden costs: You must choose a website hosting service to work alongside with.
Pages: A large variety of pages including pages on About Us, Contact Form, FAQ, Links, Downloads, Services, Store, Shopping Cart, and many more.
Extra features include: Browser-based website builder program, no programming knowledge necessary, and one-click publishing.

Site2You

Templates: Hundreds. Site2You is partnered with TemplateMonster.
Hidden costs: Site2You is actually only free for a seven day free trial period and then costs between $19.95/month and $49.95/month to register and manage your site.
Pages: Unlimited.
Extra features include: Access to stock photos (royalty free), unlimited mail boxes, and personalized website text.

The 15 Minute Free Website Builder

by Melanie Citron

It’s everyone’s goal: To get a large task done in the shortest amount of time possible. Website building is a project that could take hours, days, or even weeks; that is, unless, you know where to go and what to do to build a quality website in minutes. Yes, you read that right: minutes.

First you need to know how to choose the right website builder. If you’re looking for a program that will pass the 15-minute rule, you may want to consider using WordPress. WordPress is a free website builder that’s packed with options, services, and features—most of them free, all of them easy to use.

How WordPress Will Save You Time

Building a website from scratch through WordPress is easy.

You’ll start by signing up with a web hosting partner—one host that is highly recommended is Blue Host which offers an easy 3-click installation process—which will also get you your own domain for free. You then download the WordPress software and get to work creating your site, using personalizable templates or putting your own programming knowledge to use by creating your own pages. Although it’s not necessary, if you DO happen to have programming knowledge, the WordPress builder program allows you to enter the data control center and play around with programming yourself.

Of course once you’ve got WordPress, you’ll have a world of options at your fingertips.

If you would like step by step instructions as to how to install and configure Wordpress you will want to take a free online course to which will also get you better acquainted with WordPress’ and the website building process.

How WordPress Will Save You Money

WordPress offers free software and there are tons of free add-ons for your website-your only expense needs will be for a web host. One key criteria you should look for in a host, in addition to maximum storage

and lots of free features, should be their technical support and customer service. For example, Blue Host, offers 24 hour a day, 7 day a week phone support where you can actually talk to a person rather then rely on an FAQ, email or chat support. The bottom line is that Wordpress is a fantastic platform that is supported by hundreds and probably thousands of developers worldwide. Once you decide where to host your site you will have everything you need to succeed.

For most people, however, there are enough free options on WordPress to keep their sites cost-free. WordPress users can choose from over 1,000 free designs and templates and an endless number of free widgets and Plugins that add lots of functionality to their site.

And it can’t hurt to say it one more time: It only takes about 15 minutes to build your own website!