Web Development on the Cheap

A technology analyst explains that getting your company on the World Wide Web doesn't have to be difficult or costly.

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With the right tools, climbing onto the World Wide Web can be easy -- both on your pocketbook and on your brain

Ready to bring your business onto the World Wide Web but worried about the expense? Wish you had the technical know-how to put up a site yourself?

Take heart. You don't have to learn hypertext markup language (HTML), the special programming and formatting language for Web pages. You don't have to be an experienced computer programmer or have a crack management information system staff or hire an expensive consultant. You don't even have to lay out big bucks for complicated software packages.

To build a site on the Web, you do have to do two things: you have to create the "pages," or screen-by-screen displays, that will be presented to people who visit your site; and you have to make your presentation available on a computer that's linked to the Internet through your Web server.

The good news about your first task: many software packages today do HTML coding automatically. With those Web-authoring tools, you can start from scratch, or you can convert documents written with word-processing programs like Word or WordPerfect into HTML. The good news about your second task: you can pay an Internet service provider (ISP) a small monthly fee to display your Web pages on its server.

In 1995 hundreds of companies introduced software and services to help you set up your Web site. Fierce competition among them is making prices plummet, and some of the tools they've developed are designed to enable even the most technologically challenged businessperson to develop impressive Web pages.

If your goal is to create a usable Web business site quickly -- without learning HTML -- a few of the new tools stand out. The most helpful I've tried are HTML Transit and Internet Creator.

HTML Transit (InfoAccess Inc., http://www.infoaccess .com, Bellevue, Wash., 800-344-9737, $495) converts documents that are created in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect -- or any other word-processing program that supports the popular RTF (rich text format) style -- into Web pages and allows you to build links between them. HTML Transit isn't the only tool that converts documents created with popular word processors, but it is one of the most thorough. It controls document conversion through templates that categorize each style being translated. For example, you could specify that all italicized text in your word-processed document be displayed in red on your Web pages.

I found that the most difficult part of using HTML Transit was setting up the conversion templates initially. But a new Quickstart feature now walks you through the set-up process -- a good alter-native to slogging through Transit's manual. Transit also comes with several sample templates that can be used without modification. And you can sample HTML Transit for two weeks at the InfoAccess Web site.

The other top performer, Internet Creator (Forman Interactive Corp., http://www.forman.com, Brooklyn, N.Y., 800-299-9638, $149), prompts you to describe your business and the basic information you want to display on your home page -- after which it automatically generates your first Web document, complete with lines, borders, "buttons," and other stylish graphic elements. If your site is intended as a basic billboard -- or as a placeholder for future development -- your work is done.

In addition to Internet Creator, Forman Interactive offers the Web Site Startup Kit ($599). Fill out information on printed templates, and Forman will set up all graphics, order forms, and other elements of your Web page. It will also host your site for the first month.

If your site is intended as a crafted, comprehensive information source, however, there's plenty more you can do. With Internet Creator, you can develop every element of a Web site -- including hypertext links to other pages, search indexes, and E-mail order forms -- by filling out on-screen forms. And "detail" graphics, like colorful lines, small arrows, and button-type images, are automatically included, adding a professional look to your pages. Inserting images (say, pictures of your products) is a matter of clicking on an "image" button and filling out a simple form -- so easy that the hardest part of designing your Web page may be scanning in the image you want to display. The program also takes audio clips. Still, a form-based development system is necessarily standardized: every page Internet Creator generates has the same general style. So it's not the best tool for designing artistically innovative sites -- no really spiffy graphics here.

On the other hand, if you want to publish a catalog or provide other on-line information, it's hard to argue with the value of a tool that has no learning curve. Richard Green of Greenstone Productions Inc., in Dunn, N.C. -- which sells consumer products -- used Internet Creator to develop Greenstone Catalog Warehouse. "Internet Creator is a walk in the park when it comes to creating an on-line catalog store," says Green. "And it's saving me thousands of dollars in the time required to maintain the site."

Two other nifty features of Internet Creator: a secure bankcard transfer capability for placing orders by credit card and a shopping-basket feature. (Shoppers click on those items they want to order, and each item is held "in a basket" until they finish browsing. Items are totaled up and shoppers "check out" by placing an order.)

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