Want to create a website? Not sure which web page design software to use? This article offers help on building your website with web page design software and what to look for when choosing a web page design software. Keep reading for more on website builders, blogs, and more.

If we define the term web page design software as "software with which you can design a web page (or even a whole website)" as opposed to "software that is labeled as web page design software," then we'll get a much more accurate view of what applications people are actually using to design their web pages.

At one end of the spectrum is drag-and-drop web builders, offered with may shared and  free web hosting options. Often used with templates that allow more or less opportunity for the user to customize, these web builders are easy to use and get sites up quickly. They may also have severe limitations. What these web builders all have in common is that they are used through the webmaster's web browser.

At the other end of the spectrum is the high-end desktop application, such as Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 or less expensive boxed software like WebPlus X4, a Windows only product. These products are designed to allow you to prepare and test your site privately, and have a moderately to extremely sophisticated approach, including coding.

And then there are developers who create entire websites from scratch, using whatever coding tools and languages they are most familiar with or that are most appropriate to the particular project.

What's often not considered when people talk about web page design software is the wide range of software with which many people build their websites that doesn't explicitly go by that title. This includes blogging software, such as WordPress, now adapted to be able to include static pages and create an entire site, using, should one choose to do so, themes to help determine the look of the site. Others combine their WordPress blog with a site using other other software. This includes the US Post Office, Stanford, MIT, Stephen Colbert, Second Life, Reuters, Rolling Stone, and Yahoo!

Also in this category are content management systems. The Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences website is built with Joomla! So are the websites of Nikon Instruments, Sprint Customer Feedback, Jetstar, and the official website of the country of Latvia. Drupal claims credit for the AOL Corporate website, as well as Amherst College, Sony Music, and Fast Company.

Other software that can be used to design web pages includes the wide range of shopping cart software that is available, including Agora Cart, OS Commerce, Zen Cart, Magento, and more. In addition, shopping cart plug-ins can be added to blogging software and/or Content Management System software to make it function as an ecommerce site.

Web page design software of any of these types may come with templates and include plug-ins or add-ons or widgets to assist the webmaster in adding site functionality.

So as you consider how you're going to build your website, keep in mind not only the standard choices that first come to mind, but the whole range of choices. Consider the focus of your website, find some sites that have a design similar to what you're looking for, and find out how they were built. You can use this research as a jumping off point to make a choice of an appropriate web page design software for your purposes.