Who is going to make your site?

If you need a website and you need to decide if you are going to do it your self or have someone to make for you. 

The follow are the items I feel you should consider.  If you are paying someone else you should protect your investment by making sure that you say within your budget and get and know what you paying for.

 

1. Domain Registration: Getting your name.   

This is one of the most important things to learn. Register your own domain name and make sure it gets renewed every year.  Having control over a domain name is like having the title to a car. If you have had it you have control it. If you do have control you could find it closed for a number of reasons. And I have seen that done to many times.

You need to know where it is registered, and how much it cost. It should not cost more that $10 to $12 dollars.    

When you get  the domain name  you must point it to the your web server.

If you use Easy4u2do.com it will automatically point the domain name to the Coastland Technologies Servers. And that will save you a step in the setup. 

 

 2. Web Hosting:  Every website needs to be hosted. 

 Hosting is keeping the files that make up your website.  Your websites is made up of files.  Some of the files are pictures and some are text. The more advanced sites use files that are special text files call scripts or programs. And websites also use other server features like databases. You need to have room to expand, but you do not need to have an expensive hosting to start.  It is best to be at a place that you can grow larger and you not need to change services as you are growing.   ( Coastland Technologies is good for that..) 

 3. Web Designer: To have a website you need a designer. 

 Do you need a designer to do the designer besides you?    Maybe , depending on what your site is going to be used for.   And also on how much you know about doing it you’re self.    If you are doing your local clubs site, and you have some free time, it is a great way to start to learn what it is all about.  If you have a small business I think getting help is smart move.  A good web designer should understand the logic behind getting sites listed on search engine and the importance of Search Engine optimization and Search Engine Marketing.  And can have it done in a reasonable time with professional looking results.  If you are doing a business site, you need to look at things differently. 

 4. The Web Design:  Websites do not need to cost you a second mortgage. 

Most of the larger sites started as a smaller site and grew. This is the safest way to do it. You start and expand as you need it.  

Here is the the best keep secret of them all..  Make a plan..  

Order to the madness…

1 Purpose

2 Usability

3 Looks.

 

The last one it is almost optional.  Using for example; Google, Yahoo, craigslist and MSN. Even with the plain white pages the purpose and usability make those the most used sites on the internet.     

 Well .. Yes, a site needs to look good, I am not saying it doesn’t but if it doesn’t do what you need then you don’t need it.  You need to not be swayed by looks alone.   Knowing what you need your site to do will point you into picking out the type of site you need. 

 

A lot of the time, a simple site is all you need.  The more you need your site to do the more it cost.  A simple site could be considered an electronic brochure or an information only site.  You can expect to pay from  $200 for a basic to $500 or $600 for a nicer site.   Designer rates very from designer to designer.  From $25 to $125 an hour..  A good designer getting $50 working on a $200 site will get in about 4 hours.   In that 4 hours a good designer can have a lot done on a site..    then you pay the same person $600 and the time goes from 4 hours to 12 hours..   That you figure a designer who chargers more can get more or better stuff done in a hour than the one who is cheapest.    And when you figure what may take the talented designer one hour to do  could take a who doesn't know a day to week to get done..   

 The next step up would be a catalog site. These sites have a catalog of produces or services. This could include a list of inventory but no on line payment systems.  Car dealerships would be an example where you see the cars listed online but must go to the dealer to buy it.  Then ecommerce site add more to the mix by adding in a payment systems.  You can expect to pay $1000 for an E-commerce starter site.   A community portal sites add more features and cost.     

If you need more than a simple site, that need updating more that once every six months to a year then you should be looking a site that is CMS or web applications.   Knowing how often you site need updating will help pick out the right type of site to have.   If you are going to reach for high rank in the search engines, you must keep fresh content in the site.  And to do that you should look at having some type of Content Management System or web applications.   That is hard to do with a site that is not dynamic and only has static content.    A good designer’s job is to help you get into the right size site for you.   

 

5. Updates and Maintenance:  Build and forget, NOT

Sites need to be updated.  You should plan to update your site by having your design company includes updates and changes in their package, or make it to where you can perform the updates your self.   You should not let a site stay static.

 

6. Customer Service:  This is the most important step.  Make sure you can always talk to a real person.  Using a web support form and email messages is fine most times, but if at sometime you need to talk to real person and can’t, that is a problem.  This is where having a designer and hosting company that work well together is important. 

 

7. Web Marketing:  This is just as important as having a site. You can pay as much as you like for a website, but it is useless without traffic. Traffic comes from two basic ways, you tell someone or they search and find your site.  

 

Make sure your design company builds a good marketable website for you and provide you the services you need to get your site submitted to the search engines. 

 You should know how to tell if a site is SEO.  So you can be sure the designer will not try to take advantage of you. 

A site should have search engine friendly URLs. This means when you navigate into the site the url should also have key word for your site and area of the site you are in. All pages on the site should have meta key words and page meta descriptions tag.  And the content in the pages should have the correct key words used for the pages and from the search engine friendly URLs.   A good marketing company had tools to track how pages are doing and make changed need to help raise the rank of a page.

 Everyone knows the formula to put a page at the top of a search site is a well keep under tight security.  The most a company can do is all the correct things to make it show up well. If someone guarantees you the top spot, they are promising something they can not deliver, that I can guarantee.        

They may also have programs to help with web pay advertising.   You need to talk to your web design company about the items above and how much they cost.  A truly good web design company will have the ability to help with the items you need.