THE COST OF FREE GRAPHICS

Your site is a direct reflection of your style, tastes and preferences. It's also a testament to your creativity and talent. Often, a first time web designer will use shortcuts to get their site up and running. Believe me, there's plenty of "free" material out there and it's tempting to "git 'r done" quickly. Sometimes, that can be a costly mistake.

Run a search for "free content" and you'll find a host of backgrounds, banners, buttons, bells, whistles, free java script, calendars, guest books, form mail, autoresponders, chat rooms, and more! You name it, anything you can imagine for your site is out there... and it's FREE! All kinds of goodies just there for the taking! That's great, right?

Not always! Even on the web, free isn't always "free." There's usually a "catch." The catch is most likely free advertising on your site for the original designer. If their site is popular, chances are thousands are using the same elements so you've just lost half your "uniqueness."

Another catch: While there's plenty of "free to use" materials out there, you'll find most of it is for "personal" sites only. In exchange for use, they require you link back to them for credit. If you sell ANYthing on your site, whether products or services, you are considered a professional and/or "for profit" site and are disqualified from said usage.

There are exclusions for "not for profit organizations," (i.e. charities) but they're very limited. If you have a ".org" site, that doesn't make you a not for profit "legally." I recommend good quality, bona-fide legal counsel on this one. To claim a non-profit status, you must be registered with IRS as a non-profit organization. Cheat on this one and all your assets (including losses) can be confiscated by dear ole' Uncle Sam.

The same is true if you use paid affiliate links, you collect referral fees or you get paid for click-thrus from your site. I don't care how you want to wax semantics, they're "profits" and you can't get around it. Many are tempted by saying, "I just want to recoup the cost of my site to keep it up and running." Even so, you are still a "for profit" site, even if you make a loss!

If you want a site that reflects your style and the overall flavor of your content, you will, by necessity, have to learn to design your own elements, or at the very least, how to customize a template. That's an entirely different article.

Most hosting companies offer free templates and

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