I'm approached very frequently with the question "do you do website design"?  I'm pretty upfront about the fact that I'm not a web "designer" but the reality is that there is a lot more than art that goes into the design of a website.

The availability of open-source Content Management Systems (or CMS for short) has really taken hold in recent years and allowed many, many people to get online quickly by removing the programming element from setting up a site.  If you understand the syntax or language of a particular CMS brand (think Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, or what we use - Dot Net Nuke), then you can dig in and pretty easily configure what's there to get your content online.  Each CMS, as well as the concept of open source in general, has its pros and cons but the bottom line is that building and deplying a useful website doesn't (or shouldn't) run you five figures.

A nice little aftermarket of skin/theme designers and module writers is readily available to do your heavy design and programming lifting for you.

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