F
Faevilangel
- Original Poster
- #1
This is an updated version of this thread, which is sadly in need of an upgrade.
This post will help you through the basics of getting your first website online, help you understand the terminology and give you the vital first steps to becoming a website owner.
Why do I need a website?
The simple answer is because everyone expects a business to be online. The way the population find information, products and services has changed from using directories (such as Yellow pages) and going to the local store, to being all about online and word of mouth.
Getting online can revolutionise a business, expanding it's client base from a local operation to an international operation.
How do I get a website?
There are many avenues needed to be passed to get your website online, which will be covered below.
Planning
Before you build a website, you need to know why you want or need a website, it might be to provide information about your business or sell your (or someone else's) products online.
Knowing your ideal target customer e.g. women, children, retired persons etc. Targeting your website is a great way to increase the visibility of a website e.g. compare the market and the meerkat
Knowing your plan is vital as it helps you understand what you're main goal is, and gives the website focus. Without focus, a website is doomed to fail.
Name
Every website needs a name, we acquire that name by purchasing a domain name. Domain names are unique and would enable you to have your own private area on the web.
Purchasing a domain is simple and straight forward, you would visit a domain registrar such as 123-reg who allow you to search for, and buy domain names.
As a UK business, you should consider the .co.uk domain extension all though the .com is also a viable alternative. There are other domain extensions available but these are more specialised for a certain type of business (charities use .org) and country specific(France use .fr).
A domain extension will cost you on a yearly, or 2 yearly basis from £3 a year to £10 a year depending on the extension type. 123-reg explain all the pricing structures.
Hosting
Now you have your domain, we need to point it at a physical location so you can hold your website. This is hosting and is a physical space on a computer, you rent from a provider and they provide the necessary technology and support to keep your website online. You would purchase this on a yearly contract, although many hosts will allow you to pay per month to spread the costs.
Hosting is location based, so it's advised to go for a hosting provider in your customers location. Most of my clients are UK based so I recommend a UK based hosting provider to them as they will be able to get support in UK business times and the speed of a website can be potentially faster if served by a UK provider than an American provider.
There are a lot of hosting providers around, and a few on this forum, do your own research, get recommendations and most important, make sure the hosts services will be able to adequately host your website.
The website development
You have 2 real options when looking into building a website, which are described below.
DIY
Do it yourself websites are popular and represent a large portion of websites built every year. DIY can be beneficial as the costs are lower and the owner keeps full control of the build.
Doing a DIY website is normally achieved by using website building software on a computer or online. The onlinne companies take care of the hosting side of the site leaving the owner to just concentrate on the website build.
There are many website builders which offer a free package for businesses who are just after a really simple website. You're normally limited to the number of pages your website can have.
There are drawbacks to using an online builder including, your design isn't unique (you get to choose from set templates), adding additional services to your website would normally include paying for a premium service and the websites are normally built using a technology called Flash, which is slowly becoming obsolete (a whole new article needed on this).
Popular companies include Moonfruit, Weebly and Wix. Hosting providers also provide free website builders but these are normally not as intuitive or feature rich than the online editors.
Custom site
A custom site is a website built fully or partially by a website developer.
Using a professional website developer can be very beneficial as your website is built to do what you require.
The technical aspects are dealt with, leaving you as the business owner to concentrate on what is going on the website, and not how it works.
If you're considering using a website developer, than there are a few things I do recommend to do:
1) Speak to the developer, and see if they would be someone you can get on with. The last thing you would want is to fall out with the developer in the middle of your project.
2) Do your research on the developer, look at their previous work, speak to their clients and find out how the website build went, was it completed on time and was it built to their standards.
3) Ask the developer for their ideas for your project, it's ok to have your own ideas but prepared to amend them as the developer will have experience in the area and would be ablr to advise you on the best actions.
4) Get a couple of quotes from different developers, so you can compare the costs but the cheapest quote isn't always the best. Be prepared to go for the highest quote if the developer has more experience in your business area and is local to yourself.
Building the website
The most important part, is getting the website built.
We have your domain, we have your hosting and a website developer on board, but how do we go from this stage to having a website online?
Your website needs to be built in a web format known as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) which allows a web browser to read the contents of the HTML file and display it to the user.
HTML is the initial structure of any website, it gives the website it's initial layout which is smartened up using CSS, which adds all the fancy parts including colours and text sizes.
Once you have the foundations for your website, you can input this directly into the HTML file or you can use a scripting language to add content which is created from another source. A good example of dynamic content is the date. A scripting language allows you to have content which you can control from another source, such as user inputs or
If you would like more information on CSS, HTML or scripting languages, W3schools is a very good source of information. I always encourage my clients to have some understanding on the workings of a website as a little information can help you understand what the developer is doing.
Content
Now we have our structure, we need the content. Content is normally made up of images and text which describes your product or service in a way which the visitor is likely to want to buy the text.
Going back to the plan is vital here, as you need to understand who the website is targeted at to understand what type of context your content needs.
Images of cartoons would be ideal for children, but an adult would likely be more interested in a detailed image of the product.
Please make sure the content is clear, easy to read and free from grammar mistakes, as this can give your website a bad impression.
A good article to read on copy writing is this, it gives practical advice on how copy should be written, with real examples.
Your website could be the best looking site in the world, but if the content is inadequate then the visitors are likely to be put off.
Hiring a professional copywriter is something I recommend again, as they can help you get your message across but in a professional manner.
Marketing the website
Now you have your website built, we need to tell people it exists, we can do this via 3 methods:
1) Word of mouth - This is a good way to get some initial visitors but isn't likely to go much further than family an friends.
2) Advertising - Printed advertising can be highly effective but can be costly, especially for a new business.
3) Search engines - Search engines are a massive directory of all the websites on the web, which are ranked depending on the users search queries. Using a search engine is free and is relatively simple to get your website included.
Search engines are likely to be the main promotion of your website, as engines such as Google are searched billions of times a day.
To improve your ranking in search engines, you need to be using a technique called Search Engine Optimisation. Search engine optimisation is highly competitive but also effective when done right.
You can find out more about SEO by following this link, to the Internet marketing and SEO sub forum on this website.
Building a website can be done in a couple of hours, but the most effective websites take weeks to build from an initial plan to a live site. A good website will also be edited on a regular basis to include new content and to keep the site fresh.
If you have any questions on the above, or anything website related, feel free to reply to this post, or create a new post in this sub forum.
This post will help you through the basics of getting your first website online, help you understand the terminology and give you the vital first steps to becoming a website owner.
Why do I need a website?
The simple answer is because everyone expects a business to be online. The way the population find information, products and services has changed from using directories (such as Yellow pages) and going to the local store, to being all about online and word of mouth.
Getting online can revolutionise a business, expanding it's client base from a local operation to an international operation.
How do I get a website?
There are many avenues needed to be passed to get your website online, which will be covered below.
Planning
Before you build a website, you need to know why you want or need a website, it might be to provide information about your business or sell your (or someone else's) products online.
Knowing your ideal target customer e.g. women, children, retired persons etc. Targeting your website is a great way to increase the visibility of a website e.g. compare the market and the meerkat
Knowing your plan is vital as it helps you understand what you're main goal is, and gives the website focus. Without focus, a website is doomed to fail.
Name
Every website needs a name, we acquire that name by purchasing a domain name. Domain names are unique and would enable you to have your own private area on the web.
Purchasing a domain is simple and straight forward, you would visit a domain registrar such as 123-reg who allow you to search for, and buy domain names.
As a UK business, you should consider the .co.uk domain extension all though the .com is also a viable alternative. There are other domain extensions available but these are more specialised for a certain type of business (charities use .org) and country specific(France use .fr).
A domain extension will cost you on a yearly, or 2 yearly basis from £3 a year to £10 a year depending on the extension type. 123-reg explain all the pricing structures.
Hosting
Now you have your domain, we need to point it at a physical location so you can hold your website. This is hosting and is a physical space on a computer, you rent from a provider and they provide the necessary technology and support to keep your website online. You would purchase this on a yearly contract, although many hosts will allow you to pay per month to spread the costs.
Hosting is location based, so it's advised to go for a hosting provider in your customers location. Most of my clients are UK based so I recommend a UK based hosting provider to them as they will be able to get support in UK business times and the speed of a website can be potentially faster if served by a UK provider than an American provider.
There are a lot of hosting providers around, and a few on this forum, do your own research, get recommendations and most important, make sure the hosts services will be able to adequately host your website.
The website development
You have 2 real options when looking into building a website, which are described below.
DIY
Do it yourself websites are popular and represent a large portion of websites built every year. DIY can be beneficial as the costs are lower and the owner keeps full control of the build.
Doing a DIY website is normally achieved by using website building software on a computer or online. The onlinne companies take care of the hosting side of the site leaving the owner to just concentrate on the website build.
There are many website builders which offer a free package for businesses who are just after a really simple website. You're normally limited to the number of pages your website can have.
There are drawbacks to using an online builder including, your design isn't unique (you get to choose from set templates), adding additional services to your website would normally include paying for a premium service and the websites are normally built using a technology called Flash, which is slowly becoming obsolete (a whole new article needed on this).
Popular companies include Moonfruit, Weebly and Wix. Hosting providers also provide free website builders but these are normally not as intuitive or feature rich than the online editors.
Custom site
A custom site is a website built fully or partially by a website developer.
Using a professional website developer can be very beneficial as your website is built to do what you require.
The technical aspects are dealt with, leaving you as the business owner to concentrate on what is going on the website, and not how it works.
If you're considering using a website developer, than there are a few things I do recommend to do:
1) Speak to the developer, and see if they would be someone you can get on with. The last thing you would want is to fall out with the developer in the middle of your project.
2) Do your research on the developer, look at their previous work, speak to their clients and find out how the website build went, was it completed on time and was it built to their standards.
3) Ask the developer for their ideas for your project, it's ok to have your own ideas but prepared to amend them as the developer will have experience in the area and would be ablr to advise you on the best actions.
4) Get a couple of quotes from different developers, so you can compare the costs but the cheapest quote isn't always the best. Be prepared to go for the highest quote if the developer has more experience in your business area and is local to yourself.
Building the website
The most important part, is getting the website built.
We have your domain, we have your hosting and a website developer on board, but how do we go from this stage to having a website online?
Your website needs to be built in a web format known as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) which allows a web browser to read the contents of the HTML file and display it to the user.
HTML is the initial structure of any website, it gives the website it's initial layout which is smartened up using CSS, which adds all the fancy parts including colours and text sizes.
Once you have the foundations for your website, you can input this directly into the HTML file or you can use a scripting language to add content which is created from another source. A good example of dynamic content is the date. A scripting language allows you to have content which you can control from another source, such as user inputs or
If you would like more information on CSS, HTML or scripting languages, W3schools is a very good source of information. I always encourage my clients to have some understanding on the workings of a website as a little information can help you understand what the developer is doing.
Content
Now we have our structure, we need the content. Content is normally made up of images and text which describes your product or service in a way which the visitor is likely to want to buy the text.
Going back to the plan is vital here, as you need to understand who the website is targeted at to understand what type of context your content needs.
Images of cartoons would be ideal for children, but an adult would likely be more interested in a detailed image of the product.
Please make sure the content is clear, easy to read and free from grammar mistakes, as this can give your website a bad impression.
A good article to read on copy writing is this, it gives practical advice on how copy should be written, with real examples.
Your website could be the best looking site in the world, but if the content is inadequate then the visitors are likely to be put off.
Hiring a professional copywriter is something I recommend again, as they can help you get your message across but in a professional manner.
Marketing the website
Now you have your website built, we need to tell people it exists, we can do this via 3 methods:
1) Word of mouth - This is a good way to get some initial visitors but isn't likely to go much further than family an friends.
2) Advertising - Printed advertising can be highly effective but can be costly, especially for a new business.
3) Search engines - Search engines are a massive directory of all the websites on the web, which are ranked depending on the users search queries. Using a search engine is free and is relatively simple to get your website included.
Search engines are likely to be the main promotion of your website, as engines such as Google are searched billions of times a day.
To improve your ranking in search engines, you need to be using a technique called Search Engine Optimisation. Search engine optimisation is highly competitive but also effective when done right.
You can find out more about SEO by following this link, to the Internet marketing and SEO sub forum on this website.
Building a website can be done in a couple of hours, but the most effective websites take weeks to build from an initial plan to a live site. A good website will also be edited on a regular basis to include new content and to keep the site fresh.
If you have any questions on the above, or anything website related, feel free to reply to this post, or create a new post in this sub forum.
