Cheap Website Design Software

There are few pieces of software you will need in order to make designing a website a much easier task. The two main ones are an HTML editor (usually a WYSIWYG one) and a graphics or image editor. Another helpful but not essential program is and FTP client. This way once you are done building and creating your website you can transfer or upload the files to a web host.

It is possible to completely build website in a simple text editing program like MS Notepad. You can enter the code for line by line and make changes while reviewing them in a Browser. You will need to save the file each time and refresh your browser each time as well. This is quite cumbersome even if you happen to know HTML, CSS and Java Script inside and out. A MUCH easier way is to use a WYSIWYG HTML editor that allows you to build and see your work from a graphical interface. You can download a really good free open source HTML editor called KompoZer from the official website here. There are loads of tutorials available on the website as well.

All the fancy code and CSS can only go so far with look and feel. You are still going to need to incorporate images into your website design. For that you will need a good graphics or image editor. The GIMP just happens to be a great image editor which also happens to be free as well. It rivals the commercial software and has many great plug-ins too. It runs on Mac, PC and Linux. Download it from the official GIMP website here. Be sure to download a plugin called Save For Web as well. This will allow you to optimize all your images and save them in web compliant formats.

Although KompoZer has a built in publishing area it can be a little restrictive. It is always nice to use FTP to transfer your file back and forth from the web host. Yet another free open source program called FillZilla is available from their official website here. This FTP client is awesome and it too rivals commercial products out there.

With these three programs you will have all the basic tools need to create great looking and functional websites.