| There
are several things you
probably should know before spending your money on a brand
new
website. Fortunatley none of the most important things you do need to
know are technical in any way. The following three points are the most
important things you need to know: 1. Do I need a website? 2. What am I going to use my website for, ie what purpose will it serve? 3. What do I expect to get out of a website? Most web developers will tell you that all businesses need an online presence, and that a business is in the nineteenth century without an online presence, and that having one will transform your business by getting extra revenue from all the online sales you will get. They are no better than used car salesmen! If you have a widely recognised brand this may work, other than that it will not. Don't believe everything you read! Before looking to purchase a website consider what you wish to get out of it. The majority of websites do not actually directly generate sales. Most websites exist to provide information, or to advertise the goods and services of a business. Obviously this may eventually indirectly generate income, but it will not happen overnight. Going ahead with your website If you have worked out these three things, and have decided you do want a website, you will want to consider two additional things, one technical and one not technical. 1. Does my business have a business name? 2. Is the domain name that matches my business name available? At this point you may be asking " What is a domain name ? " In simple terms, a domain name is literally what you type into your browser to get a webpage. This will usually represent the name of a business, which, in turn, becomes the name of the website. A popular example is Microsoft. Over in Seattle, USA, a large company called Microsoft purchased the domain name microsoft.com.au, pointed that domain name to their web page files located on a server they had and clicked save. This means that anyone who opens up any web browser and types in www.microsoft.com.au will be directed to that server that contains those web page files. What is you need for a website to work In short, here there is only three things needed for a website to work. Here they are, in order of importance: 1. The content we want to put on a website in some digital format 2. A domain name registered, and pointing to the IP address of a computer that has the right website content loaded onto it 3. A powerful computer that is always on, and has its own IP address Generally, the first point above is handled by a web developer or web designer, and the second two points are handed by a web host. Qual Technologies is both a web developer and a web host, meaning we can handle all three points. I will break these points down a little more to explain them. 1. The content of a website in some digital format: Most websites are saved in a digital format known as HTML. HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language, came about basically as a common standard so that any computer connected to the internet that had a web browser on any different type of computer could open up a file and be able to show it in a format that the browser's user could understand and interact with. It is for this reason that most website content is in this format. There are other types of formats that are also widely used, for the same reason. What this means for you as a potential website owner, is that in order for other people to be able to view what you want them too, ie your website content, you will have to make certain that the format of the content is viewable on web browsers, and the easiest way to do this is by making sure that your website content is in either HTML format or another format that is suitable for all web browsers to view. The primary focus of the web developer, such as Qual Technologies, is to do just this, ie convert whatever content a user wants to put on the internet into a format that can be used by everyone's web browser, like HTML. 2. A domain name registered, and pointing to the IP address of a computer that has the right website content loaded onto it. After we have converted our content into the right format, we need to make sure other people can connect to it. We do this by firstly registering a Domain name, which we touched on earlier. After registering a domain name, we need to make sure that that domain name is actually doing what it is supposed to do, ie getting people to view the content we created in step one. We do this by setting the DNS (Domain Name Servers) of the domain name to point to the physical location( IP Address, or Internet Protocol Address) of the actual computer that has out files stored on it. Domain Name Servers are just high powered computers that tell web browsers where to look to find that domain name, ie the physical location of that computer that has the website content. In order to find the physical location of the content, the DNS computer has to know the IP Address of the computer that has the website content. Like humans having a street address, every machine connected to the internet has its own unique address, it is called an IP Address. To see your current IP Address of the machine you are using right now to view this page, click here. The last two paragraphs go over most people's heads, do not worry! If you did understand it, feel free to apply at Qual Technologies for a position :) To summarise point 2, we are making sure the domain name we have registered links to the actual machine that our website content is stored on. This step is generally covered by a Web Host, such as Qual Technologies. 3. A powerful computer that is always on, and has its own IP address Step 2 will obviously only work if we have a computer connected to the internet and it is always on ( otherwise other people cannot connect to it), and has our correct content stored on it for people to access. We also need an IP address that does not change. This is called a Static IP Address. If the computer that stores your website changes its address, then this will wreck our DNS settings we mentioned in step two. What this will mean, is that everyone's web browsers will be still trying to find your website at the old address, meaning noone will be able to find our new address, meaning noone will find our content, meaning our website does not work. I will note that is theoretically possible to use Dynamic IP Addresses ( IP Addresses that change address every time they connect to the internet ) in order to host a website, but this is not an easy thing to setup or maintain, and as such, should be left to people who are experts with DNS. Once you have these three points setup correctly, you have a working website. This step is called Web Hosting. A Web Hosting Company ( like us ) provide this ongoing service, generally for a monthly fee. Maintaining and Owning a Successful Website The hardest part for a website owner is not setting up the website. Generally, this is left to a web developer / web host to do this for the owner. The hardest part of owning a website is keeping it current to get repeat visitors. Like an old newspaper, once a person has seen a website, they are unlikely to return to that website unless they really require something from it. The key to keeping your website visitors returning then, is to constantly update the site with whatever is new in the world of the business. Specials, news, gossip, whatever, just keep it updated as regularly as possible. Constantly adding of new content greatly increases the chances of repeat visitors, and repeat visitors is usually the sign of a successful website. Getting Higher Search Results Nearly everyone who owns a website wants high search results, and wants their results to come up first on Google, Yahoo and MSN Search. Unfortunatley, despite what all that spam email and lots of people tell you, there are only two ways to make this happen, one of them instantly and one of them gradually. The instant method is simply to pay the particular search engine you fancy a lot of money up front for higher search engine listings for a given search criteria. This only will ensure your high listings while you keep paying the search engine for that service. Very good for the search engine provider, not so good for you, as i) it only works with the particular criteria you specify and ii) lots of other people pay for the same service, so to get ahead of them you just pay more than them. The gradual method is a little more difficult. In days past, a specific bit of a web page called a Meta Tag was used for search engines to access so they could determine the content of your web page. As people got to understand the way search engines worked however, they started to manipulate this for their own purposes, and change the Meta Tags on their site to try and get more hits from a search engine than the site was genuinely entitled too. These days search engines tend to guard the way they work so that website owners cannot manipulate the way they work to their own advantage. A general guide togetting high search results is to provide good, relevant content, with lots of relevant links to other sites that also provide good content. Note that linking to sites that are fraudulent or illegal will nearly always result in your site's search engine ranking being penalised, or possibly even unlisted. A site that is popular and gets lots of hits will also usually out perform a similar site that is less popular for a given search. What do you need in order to start a website As a minimum, here is what you require in order to own your own website:
Summary Please note that this guide is not the be all and end all of websites, and there are plenty of topics to do with them that this has not covered. It is really here to provide a general understanding of what you are getting yourself into when you consider a website. Thank you for reading, and if you have comments, please email me here |