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Starting Your Own Web Site
An important contribution of the internet is that is a catalyst for making information active rather than passive. For example, if someone has a great recipe for pizza, they can post the information on the internet where the data itself becomes active and interacts with visitors. In a sense, this active-information phenomenon is one of the key motivators for people posting content online. More than just "reaching out and touching someone", the internet provides a way to "put it out there and let it be touched".
Here are some key things to do:
Get your own domain name (www.YourCompany.com) if you have a business or wish to project a professional image.
Stay away from the FREE home page hosting companies that have excessive pop-ups, banners and frames.
If you have a company, plan on starting your own internet venture, want to use a shopping cart for ecommerce transactions, or just wish to have more control of the website you're developing, you'll need your own domain name.
The internet is a virtual world with vast amount of information stored in various physical locations. This information is actually in many different computers that are linked together by hard wire and wireless communication electro-magnetic signals. The virtual world is indexed by domains. A domain name is a unique identifier of your web site. The domain name, typically typed in a form of URL in a browser, is mapped by the DNS (Domain Name System) to the IP address of the computer where your web site is located. So, to be part of the WWW (World Wide Web), you need a unique domain name. As an example, take the domain name of the site anywhere.com. The .com is an extension, most domains fall into .com, .org, .net, .edu, .org, .biz, etc. categories. ".com" extension (top-level domains) is most common for commercial web sites. Non-profit organizations might prefer using .org, internet related may use .net, universities would use .edu, etc.
A domain name can be any thing you choose, as long as there is no conflict with an existing domain name. The best domain name should serve your purpose... i.e., it should reflects your site's content; and it should be easy for people to remember so you can promote your site.
When you come up with a name, you must start by checking to see if it already exists. If it is available most web hosts will be happy to register and host your domain for you, but I suggest you register it yourself, this way YOU are in control.
Step 2 - Choose a Hosting Provider|
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If you are considering a small website to attract customers, it's better to have an ISP that will host your web page for a small monthly charge. There are free ones, but do you really want your customers to get annoyed with you every time they visit your site? Better to pay for the services and get a reliable host that gives YOU the control of your website. Need a Web Host? A Virtual Dedicated Server? or a Dedicated Server? We have a few that are cost competitive, and best of all never have any downtime. This is a major biggie! If your host has downtime YOU SUFFER THE LOSS, no matter what their excuse is, your customers will think you are out of business when they can't find you... and you lose a customer. Can you imagine starting an advertising campaign that may have cost you $3,000, $4,000, or maybe even $10,000, and without telling you your host decides to perform some maintenance that week and as a result your websites go down for a few days... this little omission just cost YOU the entire campaign... and if you think they will pay for your loss... well guess again!
Be concerned with your uptime. There are different
packages that will allow your website to grow with your business.
What you want to look for is outstanding support service, high
site availability & best performance, with as much web space, bandwidth (monthly
transfer) as you may need at inexpensive & affordable rates. You may also
need Frontpage extensions,
ASP Support, Scripting, SSI, PHP, CGI
(cgi-bin), Perl, Python, Fast CGI, anonymous FTP, Java, custom error pages, web
statistics, domain name management, domain aliases, domain forwarding,
sub-domains, email access, email aliases, and email forwarding. See if a shopping cart
is available if you need it (osCommerce is good).
Here are some things to consider: Disk Space and Bandwidth If your site contains mostly text pages, you don't need much space and bandwidth. Most of web pages with a few images take between 10KB to 50KB disk spaces. If, say, your web site will have about 30 pages with an average size of 30KB, then the space needed is no more than 1MB. If in average you will have 200 visitors to your site daily with 5 page views, then the monthly transfer is about 30KB x 5 x 200 x 30 = 0.9 GB. You got the idea, and be sure to leave some room for growth. If your site contains images, sound files, movie clips, etc, you need a lot more space. Check the size of your multimedia files on your system to get an idea how much space you need. A space of 10 to 100MB and a bandwidth of 1 to 10GB would meet the needs of a small site with light traffic. Business sites may need 100 MB or more disk space with 10 to 30 GB or more monthly transfer, depending on the expected traffic. If you have a database for your site, estimate how big it can grow. Servers and Network Speed CPU speed and number, RAM size, hard disk type, etc. are the main parameters to check for the servers. Most of the hosts are shared, which means you share the same web server with other web sites. Consider dedicated servers for high-traffic sites, strong security need, or specialized software. Most servers run on either Unix (Linux) or Microsoft Windows NT/2000 platforms. Unix operating system is more reliable and stable and less expensive. Windows are less stable, and more expensive to maintain. If you need a lot of Microsoft technology for your web site, you may consider Windows. Compare a few examples to see the feature differences at Unix/Linux Hosting and Windows Hosting. Network speed depends on the capacity, but traffic load also affects the performance. A few bandwidth references are list below:
What features you need for your web site? Do you need scripting languages like CGI, PHP, ASP, etc.? Do you need multimedia support, email support, etc.? What database you will use? Do you need E-commerce support? Remember some features are only available on Windows, for example, Access databases. If you used FrontPage to build your site, make sure a Unix host has FrontPage extensions installed.
It is very important to get the type of support you need when you need it. E-mail support, chat support are common, you may need a phone number in case of emergency. Check out the hour restrictions on support. Also browse the host's web site for technical questions or FAQ pages to determine the support and professional level of the host. A web server can go down, most hosts have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, make sure there are some sort of monitoring available, and what are the backup scheme. Also check if the host has security features.
Remember, you get what you pay for. There are free hosting, but many require advertising on your site, and they don't provide reliable support. Beware of the word 'unlimited', it's nothing more a marketing term, be sure to read the term and conditions of the host, you will not be getting unlimited space and bandwidth no matter what they claim. Also, remember that quality support is expensive, while disk space are very cheap. Don't overlook set up fee and domain registration fee. Think how long your site will be hosted with the host, then decide if a setup fee is worth it. After determining the features you need for you site, check out prices and details. There are web hosts that don't specify space, bandwidth, and all the features, make sure you understand exactly what you will get. We will even give a FREE LISTING on our Yellow Pages Directory. |
Step 3 - Build Your Site
Once you have your domain hosted, you're now ready to develop your content and post it online.
First you will need to buy a good web authoring tool called an HTML Editor, here are a few choice comparisons. Microsoft made an acceptable web authoring tool called FrontPage, but this product was discontinued with FrontPage 2003 and the replacement program is a little too pricey for me.
I recommend you pick up a few books on HTML and JavaScript so you can add value to your site. Some programs make uploading your files to the internet as simple as hitting a button (along with your FTP username and password).
When designing your
site, think about what value it will offer your visitors. Will your
site be any different than other sites? Will people actually visit
your site? Also, plan on taking an active role promoting your site
via search engines, banner exchanges, cooperative deals with others sites,
advertising and various other creative promotions.
Step 4
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Traffic is what you need for your web site, you need to effectively promote your pages. Visitors to your site come from these categories: Search Engines, links from other sites, and advertising your site.
Major Search Engines
Major search engines are listed below. The add URL page of each engine is listed. Some of them are free.
There are web site submission services which submit your URL to multiple search engines. Note, only the top search engines are effective, so compare how much you will spend if you submit by yourself to the top ten. Topseo, WorldSubmit are such search engine submission services.
Search Engine Optimization
Web-savvy companies know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is
the most cost-effective marketing vehicle for driving qualified traffic to their
web sites. WebPosition
Gold is the industry's #1 solution for SEO, helping you to optimize your
site's relevancy and visibility with search engines to improve your search
positions.
Download your FREE Trial Version
Key Words are one or multiple word combinations that describe
your web site and your business.
WebPosition Gold will
help you do this correctly.
Concentrate on emphasizing 10 keywords or keyword combinations. Use Key Word
META tag in the heading section of you code. Use key words in < title > of your
web page. (See next section on Meta Tag). Don't attempt to artificially
emphasize a keyword with continual repetition. Most search engines have
algorithms to exclude words repeated too frequently.
Use Meta
Tags
The major META tags that affect promotion include "Title", "Description" and "KeyWords"
tags. Add those meta tag related to your site, to increase the ranks of a search
engine search.
Example:
< head >
<title>Low cost Web Hosting Plans for personal and business use.</title>
<META Name="Description" Content="Affordable web hosting
solutions for personal and business">
<META Name="Keywords" Content="web hosting, hosting comparison,
low cost web
hosting.">
< /head >
Check Your Rank
Search engines, like Google, create their listings automatically. They "spider" the web, then add to their indices if they determine that your site provides useful information. If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and that can affect how you are listed.
Directories, such as the Open Directory, depends on humans for listings. You submit a description to the directory for your site, a search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted. Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing.
Search engine sort through the millions of pages it knows about and present you with ones that match your keywords you typed in, the most relevant ones come first. Crawler-based search engines follow an algorithm. One of the the main rules in a ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Some search engines index more web pages than others. The result is that no search engine produces the same results. Search engines may penalize web pages if they detect spamming, an example is when a keyword is repeated hundreds of times on a page.
You need to know your position in
keyword search. You could test each of your 10 or more key words on each of the
top 5 search engines and compare the results. Modify some of the pages and meta
tags, and do it again. Don't spend too much effort on it, enhance your web site
is more important than playing ranking game.
Use Paid Advertising
Such as pay-per-click, and paid directory listings.
Exchange Links
Exchange links with other web sites, this will bring you more traffic as well as increase your page rank in engine search.
Promotion Resources
There are many online resources to help you to promote your web sites. Search the web for site promotion tips.
Get your FREE LISTING on our Yellow Pages Directory.
