Developing a website is about much more than just SEO, so for those whose responsibility extends beyond search engine optimization, I thought I would discuss the tools I use for designing and developing a site. If you are a company with a decent budget, then you probably use high-end tools such as Dreamweaver and Photoshop. However, I am a cheapskate, and have never been able to justify spending that kind of money on tools, when there are other tools that work just fine for me. So what do I use?
For WYSIWYG design, I use SiteSpinner by Virtual Mechanics. It outputs pretty clean CSS code. I have always shied away from WYSIWYG editors because they created such funky code, but Sitespinner does a good job - not perfect - but good.
To clean up the few bits of extraneous code that SiteSpinner leaves behind, I load HTMLKit. It is a great HTML editor with more bells and whistles than I can name here. Just trust me that it is very good - and it is free. Cant beat that with a stick.
Finally, I use Paint Shop Pro for all my graphics work. I have used this for many years, and find it to be as powerful as I need it to be, without the enormous cost of Photoshop. Plus, it is just easier for me to use, which admittedly might be because I am used to it.
So there you have it. My trilogy of web design tools that I depend upon nearly every day. Later, I will discuss some other interesting little tools I use occasionally.
