How To Create A Website In Minutes
Over the past week I’ve read a couple of posts having to do with building websites at an incredible pace (see Keith’s and Joe’s post. This is due in part to the experience some have accumulated like getting it down to a science. But credit can also be given to the advancements in technology. While we will always need programmers to do what they’ve always done, the doors continue to open for non-programmers making it easier to post some very nice sites. Seriously, if you can drag and drop, type some content, and can choose a template, you’re minutes away from developing your next website or sales letter.
Here are a few tools that can help you do that.
Blinkweb
I’ve heard of this one before, but after reading Keith’s post about it, it rekindled my interest. Sign-up is free and it allows you to quickly create pages for sales letters (like landing pages) or sites designed to contain content. You start out with giving your project a name, then you’re taken to an editor. On the left is your toolbox: layouts, widgets, and pages. On your right, the canvas you work on.
When you’re done, you have the option of giving it a subdomain to blinkweb.com (which is free). So if you have a site about “puppies”, you’d probably name it puppies.blinkweb.com. Or if you prefer, you can can purchase your own unique domain name via Blinkweb or even transfer one.
Blinkweb can host your site for free. If you have a host of your own, then you can download the site and upload it to your server. How cool is that?
Here’s a quick sample using some dummy text as filler (click the image to go there).
Wix
Are you ready for something even sexier? Wix is even cooler. It enables you to create flash-based websites in the same manner as I described above with Blinkweb. Wix has a lot of other things it offers, too, like the rotating images, importing from its own resource of royalty-free images or even using Flickr.
There’s a slight learning curve involved with this one, but don’t be intimidated as there are quite a lot of templates to start out with and get the feel for it all. Additionally, the interface is very intuitive. You can also publish to Wix.com or email your creation to your friends. Even create embed code like you would for YouTube videos.
I know search engines are getting better at indexing flash sites, but I’m not ready to make that jump. I’d much prefer to see this sort of thing used in the MMO niche as opposed to mile-long sales pages.
I made a simple little demo here (click the image to go there):
So what ideas come to mind? Do you see the potential in what these services can do for you?
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Keith James Lock | Aug 24, 2008 | Reply
Hey thanks for the shoutout…don’t forget Weebly too. It’s very similar to BlinkWeb and allows you to download the site as well. Apparently it’s quite easy to rank in Google for the subdomains from Weebly.
Wix is pretty cool…I’ve never seen that one
Mark Sierra | Aug 24, 2008 | Reply
@Keith
You’re welcome! Yes, I remember Weebly, too. I should have gone through my bookmarks at diigo before posting as there are several type services out there.
Keith James Lock | Aug 24, 2008 | Reply
They suggest using Weebly in the 30 day challenge to try to rank for your chosen keyword
Keith James Locks last blog post..Blog Boost Giveaway
Mark Sierra | Aug 24, 2008 | Reply
I haven’t gotten into that challenge and from the looks of it, probably won’t be worth starting at the beginning for me since it’s at the end of the month now. How’s it working for you?
Big Blogger | Aug 25, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Mark & Keith,
great suggestions that allow to save time (our scarcest resource).
As for Flash sites, I don’t like them very much: they sometimes look very cool, but for the search egines I’m convinced that plain text is still the best.
ciao
alexander
Mark Sierra | Aug 25, 2008 | Reply
@Big Blogger
Yeah, flash sites, even if used properly, are more for visual appeal as opposed to search engines. Personally, I think their purpose should be short-lived and be very focused.
shawal | Aug 25, 2008 | Reply
Very interesting tool to build a website, going to try it….
Mark Sierra | Aug 25, 2008 | Reply
@shawal
Excellent! You’re bound to find at least one of them useful to meet your needs.
Zath | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
I’m never sure whether these sites are really that useful, I can’t help but think there must be a limit to how many different sites can be created?
I’m still focussed on using Wordpress for my sites.
Mark Sierra | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
@Zath
I don’t think there’s a limit actually, that wouldn’t be good for these services. I’m interested in seeing how they perform in the SERPs.