Planning a Web Site

There are some technical things to consider when planning a web site. If your target audience is likely to be very high tech, or you have a relatively captive audience such as an Intranet, you can plan to add more bells and whistles to your site. These might include lots of graphics, animation, sound and video.

If you are trying to appeal to the mass market, you might consider doing without some of the graphics, animations, etc. in order to minimize the time it takes for your web pages to load. Many users will get impatient and leave your site after only a few seconds if they feel like nothing is happening.

Web sites roughly divide into these categories:

If you are planning on having products to sell, then you need to look for Web Hosting Services with e-commerce options such as large server space, shopping carts and other special programming capabilities, as well as merchant accounts for processing credit card payments.

Information sites are usually less complex and do not require e-commerce options or large amounts of server space. Some very large information sites will use databases to help deliver vast amounts of information. Java and JavaScript can be used to implement more complex features or graphical presentations.

Here are some great reports on setting up and promoting a web site.

The basic procedure for building a web site is:

Find or create the content for the site

You will need to assemble all the content for your site before actually creating the site. This includes writing all the text describing your business, products or organization (including an overview for the main page, specific product descriptions, information or articles, order forms, etc.) ; finding graphics that illustrate those products or ideas (including logos, photos, drawings, illustrations, brochures, etc.); organizing other elements that you want to include (including sounds, videos, animations, etc.).

You may want to hire a writer or editor to help with the creation or polishing of the text. Graphics will have to be scanned or created by a graphic artist and then converted into gifs or jpegs. Sounds, videos and animations must be converted into an appropriate format for the web.

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Organize the content for your site

One you have all of these elements in hand, you can begin to organize your site by deciding what categories of information you have to present and placing each category on a separate page. You might want to do a sketch of each page that shows where each element goes and what page (or other web site) each link goes to. In the process of doing this, you may discover other content that needs to be acquired before creating your site.

It is a good idea to look at other web sites and see how they are organized and then decide what might work best for your site.

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Create the pages for the site

There are several ways to create a web site including:

If you're looking for a quick, easy and inexpensive way to sell your products on the Internet, check out this Ecommerce Total Package, which includes absolutely everything anyone needs to open an online store. There is no programming necessary, so literally anyone can do it, even Internet newcomers. It includes secure credit card processing and free web hosting. It also comes with the Cyber Circular, an email tool that helps make sales, the Admin System for transaction management, and Store Statistics. Anyone can get a working online store set up for as little as $49.95 per month.

EayOk Hosting & More would like to put 2 cents into the above. It is this: "our hosting prices are still better because you have a choice of using PayPal to accept your payments if you are selling products or services. PayPal does not charge $49.95 per month."

Choose a Domain Name

When you sign up with an ISP you are usually given some web server space to use. The URL for these web sites is generally something like www.ispname.net/~yourname. Although this may be good enough for personal home pages, a real business should invest in a domain name of their own.

The biggest problem with choosing a domain name is finding one that hasn't already been registered. Some names that have been registered are not currently in use and others have been abandoned. There are people who buy up domain names in hopes of selling that name to someone in the future. To check on the availability of a name here are several possibilities. Check with Internet Domain Registrars, DomainReseller, Domains For Sale, Domain Race Premier Domain Auction, Afternic - The Domain Name Exchange or domains-seller.com.

A good domain name should give the user some idea about the name or nature of your business. Short names are easier to remember, advertise and enter into a browser. Up until recently there was a limit to the length of your name to 23 characters. That limit is now 67 characters, so if a short name doesn't suit you or the name you really want is already taken, perhaps a longer name will do.

At the moment there are five common extensions you can get for your name. They are .org (usually reserved for non-profit organizations), .edu (for educational organizations), .gov (for government web sites), .net (for Internet service providers) and .com (for commercial ventures). There are also many country specific extensions (.CA, .UK, .MX, .FR, .DK, .DE, .CH, .BE, .AT, .AU, .CZ). There is talk about expanding these extensions so that there are many more domain name possibilities, but for now if you're in business, choose a .com extension.

New Domain Names Available

The Internet has several new extensions for domain names, which work the same as the .com names. One of these is the .cc extension, which is really the country code for the Cocos Islands, but is now being offered for anyone's use. eNIC is registering .cc names now and has several options and payment plans available. You can pay for 1 year, 2 years, or even pay monthly. eNIC is also offering email forwarding and free domain parking. For more information click here.

More new extensions, also referred to as Top Level Domains (TLDs) are becoming available as well. These include .BIZ, .NAME, .INFO, .PRO, .MUSEUM, .AERO, .COOP as well as a few others which are being considered. It is still not certain that all of these will be adopted. Some of these may cost considerable more than others. For more information check out this CNET news article. You can pre-register for any of these TLDs at Registrars.com.

There are also some other TLDs being used in new ways, such as .tv which is the country code for Tuvalu, a small Pacific Island nation, which has entered into an agreement with dotTV, to market .tv domain names to the general public. If you're business has something to do with television, a .tv name might be good for you.

Similarly .ws (short for "website") is the country code for Samoa, but is now available for use by the public. If your preferred .com domain name is taken, and you can't wait for or afford a .biz name, you might consider .ws instead.

Internet Domain Registrars can take care of all your domain name registration needs, including the new .tv, .cc, and .ws domains. They also offer free url forwarding and Asian domain names.

Domain Name Parking

If you're not quite ready to find a web host and set up your web site, but you've decided on a great domain name, you can still register that name. Many registrars will provide you with a page for free that you can "park" your domain on, until you get your web site together. You still have to pay the Registrar's fees to park or reserve a domain name.

Long Domain Names

Here's a note about the new long domain names from Brent Winters. The following information is Copyright 1997,99 by FirstPlace Software All Rights Reserved. FirstPlace publishes WebPosition Gold, the award-winning Web promotion software to both improve and monitor your search engine rankings.

As you may now know, domain names are no longer limited to 23 characters. They can now be up to 67 characters long including the extension. What this means is that you can now get longer domain names that you couldn't get before. You can also get domains that include a great many keywords. Including keywords in your domain can significantly improve your rankings on many major search engines.

If you missed the article discussing this, you can still find it here.

We've received several questions I'd like to address:

"I went to Network Solutions and they didn't allow 67 character domains. What gives?"

Network Solutions is currently updating their system to handle the new format. However, since the US government broke up Network Solution's monopoly on domain names, many companies are now authorized to license domains on the Web such as the popular service Cory Rudl recommended, Registrars. An extra side benefit of this service beyond the support for the long domains is that they're less expensive than Network Solutions at $30 per year per domain rather than $35. (You must still purchase 2 years at a time). The URL to order these domains is accessible via Cory's Internet Marketing Center site.

"Are 67 character domains fully supported on the Web and by browsers?"

The longer domains are accessible across the Web as demonstrated by this 52 character URL: http://www.wow-this-domain-name-is-really-long-and-it-works.com/

I have heard in the last week or so that there are a couple of caveats. Netscape browsers currently have trouble with domains longer than 59 characters although IE has no problems with them. Therefore, I'd recommend you keep your domain selections to 59 characters or less to ensure maximum compatibility. The only other caveat is that some hosting services are just recently hearing about the new, longer domains. As I understand it, hosting the longer format is fairly straightforward for hosts, but it helps when your host is already familiar with the new standard.

For more information on Domain Names see the InterNIC FAQ or the WDVL Domain Names page.

Find a web host provider

After you've got all the planning and at least most of the production work out of the way, you can look for a web hosting service. There are many of these, offering many levels of size and services. Here are a few things to consider:

Here's a good site for finding a web host. Or choose from one of the following:

This Ecommerce Total Package includes absolutely everything anyone needs to open an online store. There is no programming necessary, so literally anyone can do it, even Internet newcomers. It includes secure credit card processing and free web hosting. It also comes with the Cyber Circular, an email tool that helps make sales, the Admin System for transaction management, and Store Statistics. Anyone can get a working online store set up for as little as $49.95 per month.

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Upload, update and maintain the site

Once you have your domain name and web host provider, you can start creating your web site. The first thing you need to do is to register your server IP addresses with Internic (or whoever you registered your domain name with) so that web surfers who try to access your domain name will be connected to your server. There are two names and numbers they will need to know, called the primary and secondary DNS names and IP addresses. These will be supplied by your web host or server administrator.

While this administrative step is taking place, you should create a home page (at least a temporary one) and FTP it to your new web server. If you already have your web site ready to go, then go ahead and upload it and start testing to make sure everything looks and works the way you want it to. The only thing you will need for this step is your server's main IP address, your user name and the password for your web server account to enter into your FTP program. Here'a good primer on using FTP.

If you're having someone else design your site then they will probably take care of these steps for you. Otherwise, some HTML editing programs have the ability to upload files to your server automatically. If you're not using one of these, there are FTP clients such as CuteFTP and Fetch that you can use to upload files to your server. You may also need to use Telnet to communicate with the server.

From time to time, you will need to update the site. You should check periodically to make sure all the links on your site are still valid. There may be other information that needs updating too. You will probably want to add pages to your site as well. Most sites continue to grow and grow.

You should also test your site for browser compatibility, broken links, etc. Different browsers display your pages slightly differently and it is good to find any problems your pages might have before your viewers come and then leave after an unsatisfactory experience. Here are a few sites that will help you test your web page's compatibility:

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Promote the site

There are a number of ways to promote your site once you have it up and running. Probably the most important way is through search engines or directories. Another way is by advertising. A third way is by publicity. Here are some great reports on setting up and promoting a web site.

Here's an important free report on The Top 10 Internet Marketing Blunders! Make sure you don't commit these common errors.

A great book on the subject of Internet Marketing by Kevin Bramlett:

"The Web Traffic Bible is one of the most comprehensive books available today on the subject of driving traffic to your website. If you are serious about the success of your website, then you must become a student of Internet Marketing. The techniques Kevin Bramlett discusses in this book are tried and true methods that will definitely help you cost-effectively drive traffic to your site!"

---Brett Thomas, respected Internet Authority and Author of the Best-selling Book and Video Series, "Making Money on the Net".

Advertising

You can advertise your web site several ways. There are "Banner Exchanges" where you place an ad for your site on someone else's site in exchange for placing an ad on your site for theirs.

You can get your web site posted to over 137,000 directories and FFA Links pages for FREE by joining LINKS2U. You should set up a free e-mail account first and use that address rather than your regular e-mail address for this purpose.

You can pay to have an advertisement placed on someone else's web site. Sometimes these ads are paid for on a per click basis. Other times you pay a commission on any sale that the ad generates. Sometimes this is called an Affiliation program.

You can also run ads in newsletters, newspapers or magazines.

Classified advertising is often a good way to get started in promoting your web site. There are both free and paid classified available on the Internet.

For more information see the Advertising section on this web site.

Link Exchanges

You can also exchange links with other web site owners offering products or information that are of interest to your prospective customers. Send each webmaster a personalized email explaining why you think a link to your site would benefit their visitors. If possible make a suggestion about where to place the link. Always offer a link back to their site.

Publicity

You can write up a press release and send it out to newsletters, newspapers or magazines. This is a good source of free advertising. Make sure you word your press release like a news story though, as opposed to an advertisement.

Internet Keywords

With an Internet Keyword, your customers don't need to know your complicated URL address with its http, www, and gibberish letters. Users can just type in the real name of your company, products, or services at the browser line, hit Enter, and they're at the right Web page immediately. Here's a Microsoft site that gives you all the information about this.

Search Engines

By some counts there are over 1500 search engines. Fortunately there are services available to submit your URL to most of these. Each of the major search engines, or more precisely services, handles submissions a bit differently though. You should probably take the time to submit your web site to the top twenty or so by hand because about 95% of the searches are handled by these engines.

I like selfpromotion.com because they have lots of good advice on getting listed with the search engines and tell you which ones are best done manually and then do the rest for you automatically.

Yahoo is a good example of a directory rather than a search engine. You must go to Yahoo's site and submit your URL for each category that you feel relates to your web site. The Yahoo's editors actually go to your site and then add you to their database.

Most search engines rely on a combination of people checking out submitted URLs and automatic "spiders" or "crawlers" that automatically search the web for new sites, updated sites, and sites or pages that no longer exist. These are all added to a large database or index. When you do a search, the "search engine" then sorts through all this information and presents you with a list of relevant links.

For more about search engines see:

Promotion Services

Here's a good service that will submit your web site to 2500 search engines, 12,000 Free Links pages, 1200 Internet malls and classified ad sites and membership in the best banner exchanges all for one low price.

There are many services like this on the Internet. Here's another one called "MGAWEB" worth taking a look at.

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Links to Great Sites About Web Site Development