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Make up a list of keywords you’d like to have on your site. These items help your site be found by someone conducting an internet search. On online T.V seller would use the keywords ‘T.V’s’ or ‘well priced televisions’. Should a potential customer enter your keywords on a major search engine, they can find your site much easier in the list of results. You will find that further information on company logo design is on that site.

Web design companies charge for changes made after your first site design is completed; if you plan to update your content frequently, you’ll want to investigate the amount of money they charge. Dependent on the number of alterations that your website will require, the majority of development firms will agree to either a rate per hour or to a set rate per month. You could also choose to have a tool called a content management system added to the site when it is created. In such a way, you would be capable of changing your information simply by imputing data directly via your web browser. It can cost a lot to add this in the beginning, but if you think you’ll be changing content frequently, it could save you a lot of money, too. Knowing what you want in the beginning of your site production lets you get a finished site faster. You will also be far more satisfied with the results.

One of the best and most cost effective ways of building a website is by using an open source website management system such as Joomla, Wordpress, or Drupal and there are many others in addition to this.

Joomla is the most popular web content management system available today, and is the one we will focus on for this lesson. Like the other platforms mentioned it costs nothing! All you pay for is web hosting which can be as low as $4 or $5 per month depending on where you signup. Hosting is also a cost involved in any website venture, regardless of what system you build it with.

The open source content management system, or CMS for short, is a web based application you then run on your web host.

Sound tricky? It’s actually incredibly easy, many web hosts offer one click installs for the most popular open source apps, so your site is basically up and running in a matter of minutes. Check with your host though - not all web hosts provide the quick setup tools mentioned. Don’t lose heart if they don’t - you can still do a manual install with just a little more work (we won’t cover that today).

Once you have it installed and running you will probably want to customize the look and feel of your site - these systems all come with a default template design, but it’s usually pretty uninspiring! There are plenty of free template design options available though.

For the Joomla CMS we recommend getting started with one of these Free Joomla Templates - it will give you a good idea for what is possible, and will most likely provide you with a solid and professional foundation for years to come. After you have got a handle on the system you may want to look at upgrading to a professional Joomla template for which there are also many available at very reasonable prices, usually from around $30 upwards.

10 years ago a website with the level of functionality found in Joomla would have set you back half a million dollars - Isn’t amazing what we can do today thanks to the open source community!