Website Development Application -- Dreamweaver vs Expression -- Create a Website part 4

If you want to use a website development application you have many choices. The two most popular website development applications are Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Expression.  These applications write HTML and CSS code for your website. You can actually create a whole website with these web development applications. However, while you may read online that you can use these without knowing any HTML or CSS…I disagree with that. If you truly have no knowledge of how HTML or CSS work you’ll be very limited in what you can do with these applications. To really use these properly you should have a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, how the web works, and how browsers work.

What these applications are really intended to do is help write mundane HTML and CSS to make web development easier and to aid in some of the more boring parts of creating a website. It is not actually intended to completely write all the HTML and CSS for you.

A common criticism about these applications is that when it writes the HTML for you, the code is much larger than it would be if it was hand written and this slows down your website's speed. However, these applications have been getting much better recently so this is not as much of a concern as it use to be.

Using a website development application to create your website or blog is not a bad option because these tools give you a lot of web design flexibility and can save you a lot of time. Just make sure you learn at least some HTML and CSS before using a web development application so you understand how the code works that these applications are writing.

Dreamweaver vs Expression

If you are debating whether to use Dreamweaver or Expression you really won’t go wrong with either; however, if you have prior knowledge of Adobe programs, like Photoshop, than use Dreamweaver because other Adobe programs easily integrate with Dreamweaver. On the other hand, I believe Expression is easier to use and has less of a learning curve (*also Dreamweaver can sometimes feel a little cluttered when using it). So if you’re looking to use something right away…consider going with Expression.

Ideally, you should download trial versions for both Dreamweaver and Expression and test what works best for you!

*note—I would discourage you from creating a blog or basic website from scratch using a web development application or HTML/CSS because it will create way more work for you than if you just used the blogging platform from Wordpress.org (no technical knowledge is needed if you use Wordpress—read about it at "How To Create Your Own Website"). 

A better option is to learn a little HTML/CSS or have a Website Development Application write snippets of HTML for you so you can edit your blog/website's HTML code in certain areas where you want to change the look or function.

So what are your thoughts? Feel free to comment below.

Also, make sure to check out my new report about some important internet marketing changes.