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Dedicated
Web Site |
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A dedicated web site is not only a key aspect of marketing your business,
finding clients and maintaining contact with clients. It can also be a way of
reducing your advertising and marketing costs. Furthermore, it adds additional
credibility, as most people now expect established businesses to have a web
site.
At one time, having a web site was expensive and required specialist
expertise. Fortunately, this is no longer true, except for very sophisticated
web sites. If you like, we can set up a complete web
site for you, designed to meet your requirements. Alternatively, if you prefer
to do some of the work yourself, we can handle the elements that you would
prefer not to.
If you are looking to set up your own web site yourself, the remainder of
this page explains what needs to be done:
- Key Steps - What needs to be done
to create a web site
- Choosing the name
- Every site needs a name (know as the "domain name"). Here are some tips on
how to choose a good name.
- Checking if a name is
available - Once you have picked a possible name, you need to
check if it is available as you cannot use a name that someone else is
already using.
- Registering your name
- If the name you've picked for your site is available, you can register it.
This means that you are now the owner, and nobody else can use it.
- Creating your site and
Putting it onto the
internet - Now that you have your site name, you can design and
load your site. For simple sites, this can be done in a day (even by a
novice).
- Advertising and SEO -
Now that you have your site up and working, here is how you tell people
about it.
Hopefully this will help you set up your own site. However, if you would like
to have your own site and do not have the time to do it, we would be happy to do
it for you. Costs to provide, install and configure a web site, complete with a
property database customized to your requirements, from 150 euros.
The key steps in creating a web site are as follows:
- Choose a name. Every web site has a name. The name must be
unique (it is not possible for two or more web sites to have the same name).
Example names are www.google.com and
www.france-property-and-information.com.
- Check if name is available. The name you've chosen may
already be in use by someone else. So, before going any further, you should
check if the name is available. This is free and takes about 5 minutes.
- Register your site name. Once you've chosen a name and
checked if it is available, you can register it. Basically this means that
you are buying the name and are now the owner of it. Once you register a
name, nobody else can use it (unless you decide to give or sell the name to
them). Registering a name takes about 5 minutes and costs between $5US (or 5
euros) and $25US (or 25 euros). The actual cost depends on the type of name
you've chosen (e.g. ending in ".com" or ".info" or ".co.uk"
etc.) and who you register it with.
- Design Site. Design your site involves several steps:
choosing the layout and appearance, writing the text (e.g. a description of
your services), adding logos and other items to improve the appearance and
build a brand name, general administration (e.g. EMAIL addresses, shopping
carts). The amount of time this takes will depend mainly on the complexity
of your site and how much information you want to put on your site. If you
only want to provide a quick description of your services and your contact
details, this can be done in a matter of hours (or less). More complex sites
(e.g. with lengthy descriptions of your services) will take longer.
- Upload your site to the internet. To put your site on the
internet, you need to purchase space on the internet (the companies that
provide internet space are known as host providers). This is easily done.
Except for very large sites, this normally costs between five to ten dollars
(euros) a month. Your site is now live and you now have an internet
business.
- Renew your site name. Once you've registered your site
name, you need to renew it once a year. This takes just a few minutes and
costs about the same as registering a name. However, you don't need to worry
about this until near the end of your first year.
You can advertise your site in a number of ways (e.g. business cards,
magazine advertisements, advertisements on related business sites). One of the
best ways for people to find you is through the search engines. If you can
manage to get your site listed with the search engines and have your site appear
near the top of the first page for search terms related to your business, you
should receive many visitors. For example, if you sell real estate in France,
having your site appear on the first page of search engine results for "French
property" or for "property in France" is very useful. There are a number of
techniques for placing your site at the top of search engine results; these
techniques are known as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and are discussed near
the bottom of this page.
The first step (see above) is to choose the name of our site. The ideal name should be:
- Short. The shorter your name, the easier it is for people
to remember it.
- Memorable. If your name is easy to remember, you will get
more repeat visitors.
- Meaningful. The name should say something about your
business (e.g.
www.holidays-in-france.com) or what
makes your business special (e.g. www.very-cheap-holidays.com).
Some names are more attractive to search engines than others, so a carefully
chosen name may give you higher search engine ratings. However, this is a
relatively minor factor in search engine position and so you can choose to
ignore this consideration.
Most site names are in the format
www.my-site-name.com. However, there are
many different endings. For example, if your site is informative rather than a
business site, you could choose the format
www.my-site-name.info. If you want to make the point that your
site is associated with a specific country, you can choose an ending that
indicates this (e.g. for UK related sites, you could choose
www.my-site-name.co.uk).
The name you've chosen may already be taken. There are a number of on-line
services to check if a name is still available. For example, you could use
www.betterwhois.com. Just click on this link, type in the
name you would like for your web site and hit the search key.
If it comes back and tells you that the web site is "Available", then you can
use it. If it comes back and tells you that the name is "Reserved", then the
name has already been taken by someone else. If the name is owned by someone
else, sometimes you can offer to buy the name from them. However, it is
generally much cheaper and faster simply to choose a different name.
Once you've chosen your site name (provided it is not already owned by
someone else), you need to register it. Registering it consists of informing the
internet administrators that you will be using this site name, so ownership of
it should be assigned to you. This is free of charge, except for an
administrative fee. The administrative fee is typically 5-20 dollars (or euros)
and gives you ownership for one year. The actual cost depends on a number of
factors (such as the type of site name).
When your registration period expires (e.g. after one year), you can renew
your registration. As long as your renew your registration before it expires,
you will always remain the owner of that site name and nobody else can use it.
If you wish, you can register or renew your site name (also known as 'domain
name') for multiple years (e.g. instead of renewing it each year for 20 euros,
you could renew it for a 5-year period for 100 euros). Registering or renewing a
site name for multiple years costs more up-front, but saves you the trouble of
renewing it each year.
Some host providers (see below for discussion of host providers) will
register your site name for you free of charge, as part of the hosting package.
It is extremely important that you renew your site name when it is due.
Failure to renew your site name means that someone else could register it in
their name. In this case, they will then own your site name. You are then faced
with the risk that all your internet clients will automatically be routed to the
new owner when they type in the site name; alternatively you can try to buy the
site name back but will have no choice but to pay whatever the new owner
demands. The failure to renew a site at the cost of 20 euros can easily cost you
thousands.
Fortunately, some host providers will automatically notify you when your site
name is about to expire. However, this is not true of all host providers.
Your site design consists of three major components
- Information. This is the actual text (or information) that
you want on your site. It may include a description about your business or
yourself, your contact details, information on your products and so on. This
can be written by yourself, your staff or you can hire professionals to do
it. In the case of a small business, it will likely be written by yourself.
If you do it yourself, it doesn't cost anything but time.
- Layout. Web sites are normally divided into a number of
pages (e.g. a home page, a contacts page, product information pages, etc.).
One moves from one page to another using navigation buttons. Essentially one
is taking the 'text information' (see above) and reformating it into
multiple pages, with headers and navigation buttons and so on. To do this
used to require a knowledge of the internet programming language HTML.
However, there are now easy-to-use software packages that allow you to do
all of this with almost no technical knowledge. Some packages are very
simple to use and require no programming knowledge, but force you to use a
standard layout. Others (e.g. FrontPage or DreamWeaver) are fairly simple
packages which require you to learn a bit technically but give you much more
flexibility and control over your web site. You may also want to add on
Logos and other items to improve the appearance of your site and to build
brand recognition.
- Additional Packages. Depending on what you want to do with
your site, there are a number of software packages you can add to your site
in order to gain additional functionality. If you are selling products on
line, you will likely want to add a shopping cart and credit card
facilities. You could add a discussion forum or 'blog' as a simple way of
communicating with your customers. You can also add an automated help desk,
reservation service and so on. A basic version of these packages is
relatively cheap to buy. However, to make them successful requires time.
There is no use putting a discussion forum software package on your site
unless you are willing to spend the time to respond to and answer queries
placed on the discussion forum.
Depending on your technical knowledge and the amount of time you have, you
can design the site yourself or hire someone to design it for you, or a mixture
of the two.
To place your site on the internet, you will need to rent space on the
internet (equivalent to space on your computer's hard drive). There are a number
of companies which specialise in providing internet space (they are know as
'host providers') and will provide you a package for 5-10 dollars (euros) per
month. Some host providers will provide space to you free of charge, under the
condition that they can place an advertising banner on your site. This may be
acceptable for a personal or family web site, but is not suitable for a
business.
There are literally thousands of internet host providers. Each has advantages
and disadvantages. For example, some are very good but provide little technical
support whereas other cost a bit more but provide better technical support.
Once you've rented space with a host provider (this should take less than an
hour, once you've decided which host provider you wish to work with), you can
then use automated software to easily upload your site information. Your site
should then be up-and-running.
There are a few minor items that need to be sorted (such as 'DNS Servers'),
but a good host provider will arrange all of this for you.
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Renew
your site name |
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You need to periodically (normally once per year) renew your site name. See the above section on 'registering your site name'.
Once you have your site created and running, you will want to attract
visitors. After all, what is the use of having a web site, if nobody sees it? If
your site is commercial (e.g. selling something), then the more visitors you
have, the more you are likely to sell. The key to having a successful web site
is the combination of a quality site and lots of visitors. There are a number
of approaches to gaining visitors:
- Tell clients. If you have direct contact with people (e.g. if you
have an office that people come to), make sure that you tell them about your
site. Ensure your web address is on your business cards and stationary. If
people know your address, they are often more likely to visit your site for
the latest offers and information, than they are to go back to your office.
- Direct advertising. You can advertise your site in the various
traditional media. This tends to be expensive, but depending on the nature
of your business it can be cost effective.
- On-line listings. Get your site listed in various directories.
- On-line referrals. Get other sites to list your site or refer
people to your site.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Obtain a top position in search
engine listings for keywords related to your business.
Which of these approaches are more effective and economical will depend
largely on the nature of your site and your business. With each of these
approaches there are a number of techniques, some of which are far more
effective than others. If you contact us, we would be happy to discuss your
individual circumstances and explore the various alternatives in more
detail.
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