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3 Tools That Can Turn Anyone Into a Web Developer [No Coding Required]

Posted in Blogging, Guest Post, and WordPress And SEO

Last updated on February 10, 2018

Last updated on 24th August 2017

3 Essential Online Tools which can help to develop a website

According to a study by Synchrony Financial, 85% of consumers start their research online before buying a product. However, 46% of small businesses in the U.S. don’t have their own website due to cost concerns and the perceived complexity associated with creating one. This means that almost half of small businesses are losing out on potential revenue because they do not have a website or a web developer.

 

Fortunately, a lot of online tools are now available for individuals who have no coding experience or knowledge of HTML to build and design their own websites and web pages. Even better, these tools are very affordable and accessible.

 

We decided to test out some of these tools to see if building a website can really be as easy as people say.  So with zero HTML or coding experience, we ventured into unchartered territory and are reporting back on what we found.

Option #1: Web Developer 

Website developers are one of the easiest tools on the market today for creating a multi-paged, fully functional website. Website builders are What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) platforms, which means you can see the changes you are making to your website as they are being made.

 

Not only that, website builders employ a drag and drop feature and users only need to provide images and text to design their own website.  This means no dealing with HTML or any other coding that people typically think of when picturing web design.

 

Below are photos of the back-end page of a website builder that shows it’s clean and intuitive interface. Users can choose from the sidebar the features that they want to add to their websites such as images, newsletter alerts, and text boxes. Then they just click on the feature and drag it where they want it to appear on their website. Yes, it is as easy as it sounds.

 

This was my first experience using a website builder and I was able to create a sleek-looking homepage in less than one hour.

 

I used Weebly for this example since it comes highly recommended. Weebly offers free accounts but you will probably want to purchase a package in order to use your own custom domain name and avoid having Weebly ads show on your pages. Their least expensive paid plan is just $8 per month, which includes a free domain name (ex: pvariel.com).

Option #2: Landing Page Builder

A great option if you just need to create a single landing page is to use landing page builders. Landing pages are useful when promoting a new product, promotions or an event as they are designed to easily capture leads.

 

Landing page builders have ready-made templates and provide instructions on suggested content on different areas of the page – strategically structured to encourage customers to respond to the page’s CTA (call-to-action). Links to landings pages are easily shareable on different platforms such as social media sites, blogs or websites and can be conveniently integrated with a user’s email, marketing or CRM tools.

 

The photo above shows the back-end interface of Unbounce, a popular landing page builder. As you can see, all the necessary information and materials are provided and users simply need to upload photos and edit text boxes.

 

Below is an actual mockup landing page that I created with Unbounce. You can build one in under 45 minutes as long as you have a pretty good idea of what you want your page to look like before you get started. The basic Unbounce package costs $79 per month and you can create up to 75 landing pages.

 

Landing pages are also customizable to give users better control on who sees their offers and products based on their location and browsing history. For example, a targeted location means customers who visit from a particular country get free shipping. Targeting by browsing history means users can offer “new customer” promos to those who are visiting the site for the first time. This helps to make landing pages more targeted and effective.

Option #3: WordPress Templates

WordPress is the most popular content management systems (CMS) available today, with almost 27% of all websites using this platform.  Though it is a little bit more difficult to use than the first two options, it is also way customizable. And while many think that you need to know HTML in order to create a WordPress website, this is actually not the case. Sure, coding experience will give your website a more customized feel, however, there are plenty of pre-made templates available that a beginner can use to create a nice looking site.

 

Templates are pre-designed web pages that anyone can easily use and edit according to their preference. WordPress’ back-end interface enables users to add content to their site, while the chosen template designates how the content will look on the front end of the website.

The photo above shows the templates page of WordPress where users can choose from hundreds of options divided into Free and Premium categories.

 

Once you’ve chosen a template, you can input your site title, edit your site identity, change colors and background, add a header image and even add widgets – a feature that can be useful for those with basic HTML knowledge and want to add more interactive features to their website sidebar.

 

 

Here’s an actual website that I was able to create in under an hour using a ready-made WordPress template.

 

WordPress is free to download, and the only costs associated with having a site are the cost of your domain name (~$15 per year) and the monthly costs of hosting the site (~5 per month).

Bottom Line

Having an official online presence is non-negotiable and these readily available (and inexpensive) tools give businesses fewer reasons not to have one – no coding background is no longer an excuse.

With these accessible tools, you only need creative ideas and great products to sell – once you have them, these online tools do a lot of the rest of the work for you!

I express my thanks to Philipscom for the opportunity given to present this write-up to the readers of #philipscom.

I invite the readers of philipscom to share your experience in this regard in the comment box below.  Please share your views.

This is a guest contribution from Jacky Chou the founder of Indexsy.

Jacky Chou is the Founder of Indexsy.com, head of growth at EyeEm, and pretty good with a stapler. Indexsy provides its clients with full digital marketing solutions including the web, logo designing, website auditing, SEO and various other services connected with web development.   His works appeared on HuffingtonPost, Entrepreneur, and Forbes.  In 2016/2017, he worked with brands such as Grammarly, Trademob, East Dane (Subsidiary of Amazon), Movable Ink, OneFootball, Overdope and many more.  You can reach him via his web page Indexsy.

 

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5 Comments

  1. Hey Philip,

    These tools really sounds well with their advanced featured to help people to become Web developer, from my experience these tool will surely help at-list to understand primary factors of web design.

    We know very well our landing page plays crucial role to target potential audience so if your are going to develop a perfect landing page then you must need a professional designer or effective tools and I think Landing page builder will surely bridge the gap. Eventually, thanks for exploring these potential tools for us.

    With best wishes,

    Amar kumar

    April 15, 2017
    |Reply
  2. Stacy
    Stacy

    Hi Jacky,
    I read your whole post with full concentration and learned a lot,
    and I am encouraged by this post.
    But I want to know can I make a custom website through these tools?
    Thank you.
    – Stacy

    April 16, 2017
    |Reply
  3. Online Journalist
    Online Journalist

    Happy that I stumbled upon this site. The content seems to be useful even for people like me. I have saved it to go through in detail again. Thank you author for sharing.

    April 16, 2017
    |Reply
  4. Thrive landing page builder and wordpress templates are best and easy to use.

    April 26, 2017
    |Reply
  5. nekraj bhartiya
    nekraj bhartiya

    Landing page builder is my favorit tool.Yes I am big fan leadpages.

    Cheers Your FB mate
    nekraj

    May 5, 2017
    |Reply

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