If you’re like most new online sellers, you do not have a lot of income to drop. As a matter of fact, you’re probably trying internet marketing because you need extra cash. If that’s the case, then you also won’t have thousands of dollars to spend on website design. The good news is that you don’t need a bunch of cash to get a decent website. Here are some ways to get a decent website for less.

Alternatives to big-ticket Design

First, you must understand that you can’t have all the bells and whistles for cheap. If you want a fancy website with hundreds of pages and advanced features, then you’ll have to pay for it. There are some things you just can’t get done on the cheap. Or at the least, you can’t get it done well. You could get lucky and find a new designer willing to do thousands of dollars worth of work for cheap, but don’t count on it. Usually, when it comes to design, you get what you pay for. Now that you’ve been warned, let’s move on to brighter things.

This article assumes you want to hire someone to design your website. Of course you could design it yourself, but that’s not always an option. It’s time to call a freelance designer when you need help. You’ll probably want to avoid design businesses because they charge much more freelancers.

Design businesses usually have high operating costs and employees to pay. More than likely, the cost will be passed on to you. So avoid big design businesses unless you’ve the revenue to spend. Freelance designers, on the other hand, are usually sole proprietors with few operating expenses and no employees to pay. As a result, you can get good service for less.

At this point, when price is a major concern, all you want is a basic website. Remember, the fancy stuff costs more. So keep it simple. You can get a nice one or two page mini-site designed for less than a hundred dollars. However, you should choose your designer with care. There are some unscrupulous people out to take your money.

The best way to find a good freelancer is to ask for recommendations. Ask other internet sellers who they use and advocate. Whenever you belong to online marketing bulletin boards, merely start a topic asking about good designers. This is preferable to using freelance job bidding sites. There’s probably some good talent there, but you can never be sure about who you’re getting.

So if you can’t build your website yourself, a independent designer is your best bet. But keep the website uncomplicated and small-scale. A mini-site is the best way to get started  for low-cost.

The Newbies Toolkit 

If you’re serious about internet marketing, you’ll eventually need your own website. Most internet marketers have at least two or three websites to their name. But what do you do if you’re not a designer and can’t afford to hire a good one? Website templates are your answer. There are plenty of affordable website templates from which to choose. You simply have to add a few personal touches to make the template your own. This article will give you some great advice on how to make smart template choices.

When you see pretty websites, you probably think the website owner spent hours designing the site. Who knows, maybe they did. But it’s also likely that the webmaster simply personalized a template. Many internet marketers use website templates to save time.

You can have two or three websites up and running within a few days with a good website template. Compare that to the time it would take to design a website from scratch. It takes days or even weeks to plan and complete a website from the ground up. It’s great if you have time to do that, but there’s nothing wrong with using a pre-designed template.

Templates Equal Time Saved

Pre-designed templates are usually already set up to work with various browsers. This saves you hours of time that would be spent checking your template in different browsers. You also don’t have to waste time fussing with design elements that don’t look the way you wanted them too. However, there are some pitfalls that you should avoid.

The most obvious drawback to using a website template is that other people will have it too. Choosing a very popular template isn’t such a good idea unless you make changes. As a rule of thumb, always make changes to any website template you use. You never know how many other people are using the same design. Making changes in moderation will save you from looking like a copycat.

Don’t go overboard with your changes. The whole point is to save time by using a template. If you spend hours making tons of changes, then you’re not really saving time. The trick is to find a balance between enough changes and too many changes.

To avoid wasting too much time, just change a few things that are easy to edit. For example, let’s say you find a layout that’s perfect for your poker website. The only problem is that the template header contains a bunch of flowers and the color scheme is pink and black. You can easily fix this by replacing the original graphic with one that’s suitable to your site. Changing the colors should also be a snap.

Is the Template User Friendly?

You should base your template choice on usability. Never pick a template just because it looks good. Good looks are worthless if the template doesn’t serve your purpose. Besides, a pretty template won’t matter if visitors find your website difficult to use.

Some steps to take include:

1.Checking to make sure the font sizes aren’t too small. There are many beautiful websites (and blogs) on the internet that requires a magnifying class to read. In other words, they’re beautiful to look at but not easy to read. This shouldn’t be a huge problem since you can normally adjust font size. But when using a blog template, it’s sometimes difficult to adjust the font size.
2.Making sure the navigation is easy to use. People should be able to easily move from one page to the next. They also shouldn’t have to hunt for the menu.

These are just a few things to keep in mind when you’re looking for a free or low-cost website template.

www.templatemonster.com is one source.

Our favorite is www.pixelmill.net

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A big mistake that many new internet marketers make is not learning anything about website design. Even if the website’s main page will be a blog, it helps to learn a bit about design. After all, your website represents you. If it fails to make a good impression then you fail to make a good impression. That’s why it important to know enough about design to make sure your website is user friendly.

Designing a Pleasant Website

Make sure your website is easy to navigate. The menu should be clearly displayed on the left or right side of the page. You can also put it across the top of the page beneath the header. Some people put the menu at the bottom beneath the content, but that’s not a good idea. Putting your menu at the bottom makes it harder to spot, and your visitors may get annoyed and leave.

Your website should also be easy to read. One fault of many blog designs is that the text is too small to read. A pretty design is useless if people need a magnifying glass to read the content. So always put usability above looks. Use reasonably sized fonts and adequate line spacing.

People sometimes forget that it’s hard to read text when it’s too close together. This is why you should always check the line spacing between words, lines of text, and paragraphs. Better yet, make your fonts adjustable so readers can resize the fonts to their liking. You can find blog templates with this feature already built-in. And of course, it’s easy enough to adjust a traditional website’s text.

Pay Attention to Graphics

Graphics are a major concern. Very few people will stick around waiting for slow graphics to load. And with the popularity of Web 2.0, people are loading their pages with even more graphics than before. Web 2.0 graphics look good, but that doesn’t mean your website or blog should be overloaded with images. If you must use them, then at least make sure they’re optimized for faster loading times.

And last, but not least, make sure your website looks good in various browsers. Don’t take the lazy way out and tell your visitors to use either Internet Explorer or Firefox. It’s your job to design, or have designed, a website that visitors can use no matter which browser they’re using.

So to recap:

• Make navigation easy
• Use good sized fonts or make fonts adjustable
• Use enough line spacing
• Don’t overdo it with graphics
• Test your website with various browsers

You’d be surprised how many people fail to do these five simple things. Please keep these steps in mind when designing your next website. Also check your current website to make sure it measures up.