Web Sites Do-It-Yourself for Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1. Exploring the Best Ways to Create Web Sites

In This Chapter

• Checking out Web site success stories

• Creating Web sites with templates

• Exploring Web design options

• Choosing the best Web design program

Creating a Web site can open doors for you that you never knew existed. Every day, thousands more people connect to the Web for the first time, and those who are already online get more adept at using online tools and services. The effect of all these people reaching out to each other to play, laugh, argue, buy, sell, trade, collaborate, invent, experiment, research, learn, and just chat about the mundane details of what constitutes a perfect cup of coffee — are transforming the world.

Thanks to the ever-simpler, easier, and less expensive Web technologies that you discover in this book, you can create a Web site today that just a few years ago would have required a crack team of programmers, the computing power of a room full of servers, and a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Today's Internet is a friendlier place where programs like Dreamweaver and WordPress make it so easy that even celebrities and politicians can run their own sites. And if they can do it, believe me, you can, too! For just a few dollars per month, you can host your site on a professional Web server. At that price, almost any old businesses can afford to try new tricks, and new businesses can launch with little investment.

Whether you're new to Web design or want to take your Web skills to the next level ...