Web site design and hosting overview
Going to create new web site? Do not know where to start? That is all right, every one gets the same questions when starting his/her first web site.... and some do it every time and all the time.
Quick considerations when creating new web site
The idea
When we decide to create new web site, we shall already know the answer of the following questions:
- Why we need web site?
- What we want to do with this web site and what we want to show there?
- What kind of visitors we are targeting with our web site?
Additionally, are we creating a personal web site, a company (or corporate) web site, or community web site?
The answer of the questions above shall define the objective, shall establish the purpose of the web site.
Depends of the site purpose, it may have one or more of the following modules:
- introductory web pages
- informative web pages
- product catalogs
- contacts, feed back web pages
- customer support modules
- users forums
- content management modules
- other kind of web pages or web site modules
Web site purpose
Do not forget also, that we are creating the web site for our visitors, but not for ourselves. So, lets think about what the visitor is looking for while searching Internet.
I can think of the following main reasons:
- The visitor is looking for INFORMATION
- The visitor wants TO BUY a product or service
- The visitor is looking for ENTERTAINMENT
- The visitor is looking for BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
- If there is any other reason, then it goes here
Web design implementation
Now, when we know what web site we need, what kind of information we want to publish and what is the main purpose of the web site, we have to find a way to build it. The process of creation of web pages, their layout, text and images arrangement and the creation of links between these web pages in such way, so all of them to be accessible under one main name (domain also called web site name) is what we call web site design (sometimes called also web design, site design or web development).
Who will create the web site?
It could be the owner of the site if he/she has the required technical skills to cover the requirements or it could be an agency specialized in web design and Internet technology.
For the purpose of this article we will assume that the web site owner and the web designer are different persons.
Lets say that You, the owner of the site have selected the web design company (or web designer). Read here, how to select web designer. What to expect next?
The web design process usually starts with discussion between you and the designer about your requirement. At this moment you shall be ready with some additional text and / or graphical materials, picture, photos, that you want to place on your web site. In most cases the designer can help you preparing all or some of them, but you must have some samples in order to better illustrate the web site purpose. The first meeting with your web site designer should set up the web site "architecture"; how many pages will be created, what information will be shown and where, what would be the site navigation technique, will be there any specific modules like web site forum, product catalog, e-commerce modules, etc. You have to negotiate also what part of the textual and graphical materials will be provided by you and what part will be created by the designer.
At this stage the web design service provider is able to calculate the price and the time required for your web site development. When you agree all details concerning the design, development time and the price, do not forget to set up at least one intermediate meeting to check the overall progress of the site development and to make sure that the design is on the right track, that all colors, pictures, text and navigation is as it is expected by you. This is also the time when you could still change some details of the project, without affecting the development time and cost.
Web site hosting: Where to host my web site
When the site design is ready, it must be placed on a computer that is connected to internet and has web server software running on it. Otherwise there is no way to make it possible for the people to access it via Internet browser. This computer could be your own computer connected to Internet or it could be paid service provided by other company. The service is called hosting service and the company that provides it is hosting provider.
Read: WebSite Hosting Guide
Domain name
Each web site shall have its unique name, the name is used to distinguish different web sites similarly as the people have different names. This name is called domain name. For example google.com is domain name and we can access the web site located at www.google.com via Internet using web browser. It is possible also to create another different web site and publish it as a sub site (sub domain) at similar address, for example dir.google.com is sub domain / sub site of the main domain name google.com.
You have to carefully select a domain name for you and register it. One domain site is usually registered for a period of one year and then every year you need to renew it.
Very often the hosting provider also offer domain registration and even free domain names together with the hosting packages. Some web design companies also offer hosting services and domain registration services as well. However, depending of your needs, often it could be wise for design to select a company that is focused on web design services only, while for hosting and domain registration to select company that is specialised in web hosting technology.
Payment
Just a suggestion - do not pay the whole sum in advance. Preferably do not pay nothing in advance. Set up a payment schedule according to the design progress. Ask to see the progress, and if satisfied, then pay for the part that has been developed. Make the final payment when you see the project completed. Make sure that you receive on CD / DVD or other media the completed web design project as well as all files used for its development.
Read: WebSite optimization Guide, Tips and Tricks, and SEO
Lets assume that your web design is ready, you have registered new domain name and the web site is already hosted in Internet, so the people who browse Internet are able to access it from their personal computers. If you have web counter or web site visits statistics page, then you might be surprised that there is no visits (except your own) or may be just only a very few visits per day. That is quite natural as nobody knows about your web site yet. There are several steps to be done long term on regular basis in order to get more visitors. Some of these are:
- register the web site in search engines like google, yahoo and msn
- register the site in different internet directories
- ask other web site owners and designers to add a link to your site
- be patient
- optimize your web pages content to match the search engines requirement for quality web site content
Promote your web site in internet
Other ways to promote your web site:
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