Recently, I had a client who wanted a site designed that he could makes changes himself. He had already transferred his existing site to Network Solution (NS), and I promised that I could design his site NS’s features. It was a new realm for me, but in spite of my trepidation because I had always designed sites myself from scratch, I threw myself into it.
My first hurdle was making sure that I could design the new site without affecting the existing one. Fortunately, the content management system (CMS) allows for this, so I felt a lot more free to experiment and learn what NS’s Website Builder Tool offers.
First of all, it does help if you know HTML and Web development, but it’s not necessary. It is necessary that you are not afraid of technology and taking chances. You have to be willing to play around with things and start over if you make a big mistake along the way. It’s part of the learning process.
Although you have to select a template, and you are limited if you stick to free templates, once you have selected one, you have a lot of flexibility in changing colors, fonts, placement and much more. You just have to make good use of each of the features and make sure you try more than one, so you find the most of efficient and best way to make the changes. I do recommend staying away from CSS and using the Master Changes instead. It is much simpler, and you are more likely to make the change you actually want.
Overall, this has proven to be a good CMS, and I am willing to use it again for any clients who come my way and ask for the ability to manage their own site. While it’s not as flexible as doing it yourself, it should work well for the majority of small business sites out there.
