There are those days when you need a website, yet you are not looking to invest too much time or money. Still, you would like it to look professional and useful because there is no point in having a website no one will visit. You also need them to decide to use your services or to buy your product if they do visit.
This is usually the case if you are just starting out – you have an idea for a blog, service or product, and you need people to get to know about it. You Googled, or asked a friend who knows a friend, how much will it cost to get the website done, and the price range was a hard slap back into the reality.
Then, as a next step, people usually look for do-it-yourself solutions. Truth is, there is an incredible amount of website builders available. Not a small amount of blogs or other small websites are made using these. You can easily recognize them by the white background, often unusual and troublesome to read font, and a single color set for the whole website. Trust us, the customization options these solutions will offer you for your bucks are nothing more than that.
The best giveaway clue is if you see a footer or banner ad saying: “Made with love by websiteforfree.com. Contact us!”, because let’s face it, there is no such thing as free lunch. The impression you would like to make is: “My business is important, and so will you be if you were my client”. Not: “I don’t care enough about all this to get a professional-looking website”.
If you lose credibility, you might as well delete the whole website before you start selling. Banners and things for free scream “Scam”. Scammers are everywhere, and you need your website to look as impeccable as possible. Otherwise, people will just leave and find someone or something else.
We don’t mean to discourage you, though. You still need the website, and nothing changed about your budget unless you hit a scratch-off jackpot while reading this. We want to let you know that in your situation you can both have the cake and eat it. Yes, it is possible, if you are using Slides application from Designmodo. Let us show you how.
Ah, another website generator.
Well, yes, and no. Yes, because it has the same benefits the website generators have over hiring a development team to get your website up and running. It is way cheaper than that, as it allows you to do it yourself. Effortlessly, in a couple of hours that would take you if you would like to customize it to the last detail, you can have your website, and soon enough, visitors and revenue!
However, no part is much more important. The benefits of using Slides compared to any other website builder are in two totally different leagues.
Unlike website generators that offer minimal customization, with Slides you can create just the website you wanted. All the bling and functionalities included.
First, there is no need to create anything from scratch as there are over 180 slides already created for your convenience. If you wanted to, you could also create them from scratch, but we will leave that story for later on. From these slides, you can create a simple one-page website or multi-page website, there are no limitations on that part.
Setting the overlay for your website is another piece of cake. After you choose all the slides you need to have to fit your content, simply use the drag and drop feature of this application to arrange them as you would like. If you’re not into this, that is alright too, as you can also choose one of the 15 already pre-made templates and use them to get the job done.
Each of the slides has an animated effect. There are over ten different effects between slides, which you can pick and use to give your do-it-yourself website a bit of a movement. Have all slides stack like cards, or zen-in on your customer’s screen to deliver the message you want them to get.
Speaking of slides – you can change so much more than a single color or font. You can change that, of course, too. You can also edit the background, add a video, or change every single aspect of the design to fit your vision for the website. Make it look like you want it to look – professional and pricey.
If you stopped at this, you would end up with a beautiful website and a horrible experience for your users. You need to add some dropdown or sidebar to help them navigate through your website. You also need the call to action buttons, sliders to showcase what you are offering, background music to make them relaxed or caught doing something else instead of working. You do not need to hire a developer to add all this – you can add it yourself through this application.
Now, just by having it look dashing and dazzling, you are not done yet. You need it to serve a purpose. It needs to be useful. Yes, it will inform the readers and let them know you exist, but you should use this application to do much more than that in order to make your customers happy to give you their money.
First, you can use this app to add instant messaging, for example. You need to be able to communicate with your customers, offer them help, or answer any questions they have and that could stand in the way of them purchasing what you are offering. You need to collect their emails so that you can send them informative emails and showcase your new products or services every now and then. You can do this by adding a subscription or contact us form on your website.
Awesome! How do I create all that?
First of all, use the application to create the template. Choose the slides, and arrange them as you see fit, drag them and drop them to your liking. Pick how you would like them to move, and edit the design in the app. Tweak the design, fonts, colors, pictures, anything, until you are happy. Add the music if you want to. Turn off the preloading for the mobile version – you don’t want them to have to wait more than seven seconds, because the statistics say they won’t.
Once you are done, preview what you created using the blue eye button in the top right corner. If you are happy with it, just download it to the root folder of your website. Or any folder for that matter.
Now it is time to add the functionalities like slider, buttons or interactive messaging. It’s simple! Start coding!
Don’t freak out – it is not that difficult with this app. All you need is a basic understanding of HTML, and to follow the manual carefully. Yes, you actually get a manual, with clear instructions and code examples. You need a code editor, for example, Sublime Editor, using which you will edit and change the code of your website.
All you have to do to make these changes and add the functionalities you want is to copy and paste the code from the manual into the right place in your downloaded code. Manual is very clear and precise about how to do it, so as long as you follow the instructions, both you and your website will be just fine.
If you are feeling stuck, you can also copy one of the existing examples on their website. Some of them include full-screen background video or even a loader to keep your customers interested while your complex website is loading. You can also head out to YouTube for their tutorial videos. Seeing the creators of this application do their thing can be very much helpful.
Once you are done with coding and tweaking the design, there you should have it. Just like we promised – a cheap yet quite beautiful website which will dazzle your customers, and get the word out that you know what you are doing!