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General Guidelines to setting up a website from a teacher/web designerSep 01 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Look at reputationof host, Yu also need to evaluate your specific needs are. Keep expectations realistic. You won't become a millionaire. First, decide on what you expect from the site. I teach classes on web design and how to position your company on the Internet. We are past the days of expecting to make a million bucks the first week. A website is used for the following reasons: 1. E-commerce - yes you can sell stuff on the site with shopping carts, etc. However, don't expect to sell out the store the first day! If you do have a website for e-business, be patient. Give it at least a year! 2. Research - you can provide information to clients or people needing information. You won't make money off of this unless you are planning to put an excerpt from a publication on your website. Remember, people expect FREE research off the web. Most people are NOT willing to pay. 3. Public Relations/Corporate Presence - some companies or groups want to have a website so people know what they do, what they provide, if they are hiring. It is a great way to reduce overhead costs of having people constantly calling in for information. All you have to do is tell people is to go to our website and if there are any other questions, they can call back. A website is often great for time management, this is an underrated and unappreciated benefit of having a website. 4. Provide important customer information - again, you don't have to snail mail out information to the client. As mentioned above, you can have the potential customer go to the website for information. Free versus paid Free sites are what you pay for. Not much. It's okay to have a free website if you have a small nonprofit group or just don't have the funds to pay for hosting and a domain name. However, you can host a site now for less than $10 a month and register the domain name for only a few dollars more. Some of the other detriments include limited storage (usually a max of 25-50 megabytes), slow downloads, quirky problems with downtime, etc. I use Netfirms and have had more than my share of problems but overall I'm happy as the price is right. Paid hosts - this is what you need if you have a real site. There are a lot of them out there. You can search the internet or use some know groups such as verio.net which is excellent. I've used them for two sites that I've designed and am working on. They have good help screens, publish easily and provide necessary technical support when required. When using a paid service, do the following: 1. Get references, check them out. You don't' want a start up company if you are rolling out a huge e-commerce site! 2. If you are using special software such as Front Page (an excellent, easy to use program), make sure they have the extensions to work. Email the company with specific questions as do they support email boxes (info@yourdomain looks so much more professional than billjimbob@aol.com ) and will allow you to create accounts, etc. You may also need to know what the traffic is on the site. Some companies have that feature provided at no additional charge. The inexpensive $7/month ones often offer very little of the "extras" - HTML is a bit complicated to learn, but with practice you can learn it. The joys of FrontPage is that is allows the user to create forms and other special things with minimal training. 3. Do they have 24/7 support? Sure it is nice to have that, but how often do we have to get support at 3 a.m.? Some only offer email support, it works fine with some companies. A company that I've used for nearly four years is pick.net (their website). They are small but I get good service. Emails are answered within 4 hours for the most part. I have had problems with them (who hasn't had a problem with an ISP?!) and they straighten them out very quickly. The Actual Website 1. Plan it out. Sure it can be changed daily or hourly, but it is good to have a "blueprint" of what your site will say/do/communicate. 2. Keep it simple in the beginning. You can keep adding as time goes by. Get a good plan going and utilize it! 3. Avoid unnecessary graphics/animations. Most people want to get the information off the site and leave. They slow down the website. Decide what you want to communicate. 4. Avoid "splash" pages - these are pages that come up before the home page is actually there. They can be slow and add absolutely nothing to the website. If they are done in Flash, make sure they are done correctly. Nothing worse than having a site that crashes the computer. The user may come back once and never again. 5. Make sure your links work! There is nothing worse than a "dead" link or a link going to the wrong page. You must spend time proofing what you have done! This can take longer than the website design and execution. 6. Put links on all pages so that the user can navigate. There is nothing worse than being stuck out in the middle of nowhere on the site and not being able to navigate. 7. If you are selling a product or are a company, make sure they know how to contact you. Put your address/phone/fax/email on EVERY page. Sometimes just one page is printed out from a website. That way the user can contact you a week later. 8. As you revise, don't keep moving pages around on your website. People may bookmark specific pages. If you go through a complete redesign, try to use the same links so people can get back to you. If you must make extensive changes, sometimes it is a good idea to put a pointer on the page to send the person to the new location in the website. 9. Keep content brief. People don't want to spend hours reading what you think is the most beautiful prose in the world. I hope the above information has been helpful. I have taught website design and marketing for over five years now and have written quick encapsulation of what my courses cover. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at info@big-pic.net  |
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