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Before Your Have Your Website Designed
1. Think About the Design and Development
Before you begin to have a website designed there are a number of important factors that need to be considered. To begin, you will need to think about the overall design and development of your site. How do you want it to look? Do you want to start with something basic that can be built on as your new business grows, or are you an already established business and want all your information available? Colours and images are important and should reflect the colours used in your corporate identity. What features do you want to incorporate into your website? There are many things to consider regarding the design details of your website. These details are determined by the purpose of your site and your budget. Obviously, a site that simply describes your business will cost less than a site that actually sells goods online. We can help you with this process by providing you with a questionnaire about your website design and development details.
2. Register Your Domain Name
You will need to choose a “Domain Name.” This is the name allocated to your website that will give you a position (or domain) on the Internet (e.g. ‘yourname.com,’ ‘.net,’ ‘.ca,’ ‘.org,’ etc.). Your Internet address is known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), which will look something like this: “http://www.yourname.com.” You should always choose a domain name that reflects the name of your business. When you choose a domain name, you will need to find out if that name has already been allocated to another company, or individual. You can “Click Here” to go to NetFirms.ca and see if the name you want has already been taken. They have a small panel on their front page where you can search for a name. NetFirms also offers very good deals on hosting plans with your chosen domain name being part of the package. Prices for just the registration of your name vary between companies and are usually based on year-to-year allocations.
3. Find a Hosting Company
Unless you have your own server (most don’t), you will need to find a company that will host your website on the Internet. We like NetFirms.ca because they offer reasonably priced packages according to your needs. However, there are several ways to find a hosting company. To begin your search for an affordable host company in your area, consult your yellow pages under “Internet Services.” You can also find several host companies on the Internet. Just "Google" Canadian Web Hosting companies. If you decide to go this route, I have stressed using a Canadian company. Otherwise, you will have to contend with currency equivalents and fluctuating exchange rates. Perhaps you may know someone who has had success with a certain host company, or someone who has their own server and they will host your website. Hosting companies have different rates according to the size of your site, the functions required by your website (i.e. PHP, server-side scripting, etc.) as well as the amount of serving capability you might need (how many people will be visiting on your site daily). Host companies usually charge an upfront annual rate based on a monthly fee.
4. Think About Marketing Your Website
You will also have to determine how you will market your website. How do you intend to maximize your presence on the Internet? Just by being on the Internet does not mean that you will automatically increase awareness and sales for your business. People need to know how to find you on the Internet. Of course, it is a given, that you will advertise your website address on all of your business stationery and promotional items, but there are basic steps that you need to take in marketing yourself on the Internet. Listing your URL with several major Search Engines is the first step you should take after you have your site uploaded to the Internet. Search Engines are places like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. By submitting your URL to these Search Engines, your website can be found by a person when they enter some keywords into the search bars to locate the websites, or information they are looking for. The keywords are actually hidden in the code of your website and also in what is known as the META tags. We include these keywords in all websites that we design. It should also be noted that some Search Engines will actually pay you if you allow them to advertise links on your web page. As an example, “Click Here” and check out Google advertising programs.
There are many way to advertise your website right on the Internet. For example, many communities have business directories listed on the Internet. Don't miss this opportunity to advertise your website and business.
You might also consider having some "Banners" designed and place them on related websites. Banners are the small (usually animated) advertisements that you see on many web pages. Some companies will let you display your banner on their site free of charge because you may have a service that complements theirs, or they in fact, use your service and want to provide your link on their website. Other companies will charge. You should contact them as their charge may be nominal.
Another good tool to use in marketing your website is your e-mail. You could send out a well-worded and attractively designed e-mail letters to your clients, or potential clients notifying them of your new website, or about sales or specials that you may be running.
Lately, the phenomenum of social networking is taking over the Internet. Sites like “Ecademy,“ “LinkedIn,” “MySpace” and of course, “Facebook” are great places to advertise your website. Ecademy and LinkedIn are more often used for business networking.
Pop-up and pop-under windows is a means of advertising that pops another website on top of, or underneath a website being visited. I strongly discourage doing this. Most people find this very annoying, will view them as spam and close them as soon as they appear. Most people configure their Internet Browsers to disable the ability for these windows from popping up, or under.
And as a final thought, there are companies that offer website marketing as their service. If you are a high–profile company and have a large advertising budget, you may want to consider hiring one of these companies to assist you in marketing your business via the Internet.
5. Consider Ongoing Maintenance
You will need to consider the ongoing maintenance of your website. Keep the information on your site up-to-date. There is nothing more frustrating than visiting a website only to find that the information on it is outdated. We can provide you with a regular maintenance and updates and we offer three months of free updates for every website that we design after it is uploaded to your domain.