Thursday, June 4, 2009

What Should You Consider Before Starting Your Website? Tips and Facts

If you are wondering - What Should You Consider Before Starting Your Website? Here is a run through. Firstly, you must choose a Domain name or the name of your site. In some cases, the name that you have in mind would already be taken. So you must check the availability and get it registered.

The next important step in setting up a website is choosing a Web Host who can show your site to the world. So you will be using their services for running your own site and choosing the right one with good speed is essential.

Designing a site is another major stage in establishing your website. It should be visible on search engines to get more clicks. You should be clear in your mind about what you want to achieve finally with the website.

Are you a starting a new online business or service? Are you now moving to online sales and business due to cost cutting? You must establish the aim of your site before you launch it. Your goal should determine the website design.

The website should be easy for people to use. In the sense that there may be people who barely know how to use the internet, there are the average internet users and high internet users. Does not matter who click on your website, they should be able to find all the information. So it should not be too technical or difficult to understand it.

You must remember to make the website as friendly as possible for the users. Try to put in many scroll down bars and customer friendly windows. So the users can save time in unnecessary typing and ask them questions, so the right information can be given.

When you are designing the website, it's recommended to use more pictures, maps and symbols. Nobody has the time to read through pages of text and on the other hand - a picture says a thousand words.

There is an average number of minutes a person spends on a new website. If the site is not able to meet the needs or satisfy the customer in the first few minutes, you may lose that customer for life. Once the user rejects the website this way, he may never again make an attempt to jump on the site again. So, first looks and impressions matter.

While designing the website make sure you provide links to all possible services like payment, inquiry, service, suggestions, locations and so on. The home page is the most important window of your entire website design. Make it bold, outstanding and capturing.

Even the layout or the outlay of the design matters. So does the colors, fonts and images that you use. You should employ a software professional company who can understand your work, business, product and your goals. You may be doing only online business or using the site for additional business. The website designer should understand the objectives and goals of your business.

Finally there is one last thing on what should you consider before starting your website. Make plans and lay down deadlines for website maintenance. You should identify the person who is going to change the fields and pages on the site. You must update information on the website frequently. Nobody likes to see an outdated website. It will chase the users away. So web site maintenance is necessary.

The article is written by John Choo, a website designer Malaysia, he own a design company also offer website maintenance service, web application develop, CMS, SEO services for the client globally.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Choo

What Do I Need to Have My Own Website?

In our Website Basics Explained series we will show you where to start to get your first website, and what you need to go online.

What exactly do I need have my own website? It is normal if you have right now that 'it's all Greek to me' feeling when it comes to website design. In this overview, we'll take a brief look at what it takes to get your own website live on the internet.

Your Website
You can either make your own website, or pay a professional web designer to do it for you. Websites are build in a web programming language like HTML, PHP and others. Once it's created, your website will consist of several website files.

A Domain Name

In addition to creating the files your website consists of, it will need a unique identifier in the world wide web, called domain name like yourwebsite.com. This domain name needs to be registered with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) by a licensed Domain Registrant, and you will have to pay an annual fee for the registration, which is usually not more than $10 a year for available dot.com domains. Many domain names these days are already registered, so it might be a tough choice to find a good one which is still available.

Web Hosting
In order to make the files you or your web designer created for your website available in the internet, they need to be stored on secure web server that is running special software to ensure the accessibility and functionality of your website. Web Hosting Companies offer this service, and you will need to select a reliable company with secure servers in order to store and 'host' your website files. The web hosting fee for a regular website is usually between $5 and $8 per month, with extra-charge for specific add-ons (e.g. for secure payment sites). It pays to select a web hosting company with reliable and safe equipment. You can visit our website to find out which company we recommend to all our customers as the most reliable and secure web host.

This is all you need to get your own website, and if you learn how to make your own website or find the right web designer to design your website, you can be online within a few weeks!

If you want to know more about how to find the right web designer, how much a website may cost, and what you or your web design professional can do 'search engine optimization', please read our other articles in the 'Website Basics Explained' series.

If you want to know more about web design and how you can get your website on the front page of Yahoo and Google, please visit our website San Diego Web Designer.

If you are interested in learning how to make your own website, please read the free step-by-step guide Make Your Own Website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Claudia_Schulze

How to Contract With a Web Designer?

In our Website Basics Explained series we will show you where to start to get your first website, and what you need to go online.

If you followed our checklist in our article How To Find The Right Web Designer you have already selected a couple web designers you consider to hire to create your website. Now it's time to get in touch with the designers you selected, explain your project, and ask for a quote.

Website Scope Of Work Checklist
Before you start, try to find out your scope of work. It's not necessary to describe your website's layout and content in detail, but answers to the following questions will help your web designer better understand what kind of website you need, and whether he or she can provide these services:

* Who are my potential visitors, what are their demographics and location (nationwide online shoppers to buy my products, or local customers in need of my services)?
* What do I want them to do (buy my product, contact me, subscribe to my newsletter)?
* What is my budget (see our article How Much To Pay For A Web Designer)?
* Do I have a logo and content (text and photos) to provide, or do I want the web designer to create this for me? (not every web designer does copy writing or design logos, and it will add to your costs)
* Do I have a specific design, layout, content or navigation of my website in mind (finding some sample websites you like is always a big help)?
* Will my website need constant updates (e.g. maintain store inventory, add new content, photos, events)? Then you will need a dynamic website with 'back office' part where you can do these updates yourself, or you have to outsource it.

Ask For A Detailed Quote
Unfortunately, the prices designers charge for their services vary drastically. When you ask for a quote for your website, make sure your web designer can outline all costs and the work in detail for you. Also ask about a guarantee of work. Stated policies such as, "We will do as many drafts as necessary until you are 100% satisfied", or a money back guarantee will give you a clear idea of the designers' confidence that they can deliver.

These days there are many pre-developed scripts and templates your web designer could use to create a website fast and cheap. However, if you want to give your business an individual look, graphic design work and copy writing can take lots of time, and many web designers will charge you by the hour rather than a fixed fee. Do you have a logo, photos, and the content copy, or do you want your web designer to come up with it? The more you can provide the better.

In any case you should insist on a detailed quote, and sign a written agreement. Also define how many free drafts are included until you finally approve the end result, and make sure they have enough manpower to work on you website. Beware of companies and individuals who claim to be web designers or developers but don't show their background, references or past work.

Cash Or Contract?
Even when a web designer has put a lot of work in an individual quote for you, you are not obligated to use their services unless you are perfectly confident they are right for the job. The checklist in our article How To Find The Right Web Designer should increase your chances of successfully finding and hiring a Web designer or developer who meets your needs and those of your website.

Once you decide on the web designer you want to hire, ask him for a contract. It doesn't have to be more than a one page document, but you should both sign a written contract.

As your web designer usually has to order the domain name and web hosting for you, it's likely that they will charge you an upfront deposit to cover these costs. For the payment terms of the web design fee we recommend that you negotiate 'milestone' payments (e.g. 30% after the first draft, and the remainder due upon project completion).

If you want to know more about web design and how you can get your website on the front page of Yahoo and Google, please visit our website San Diego Web Designer.

If you are interested in learning how to make your own website, please read the free step-by-step guide Make Your Own Website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Claudia_Schulze

How Much to Pay For a Web Designer?

In our 'Website Basics Explained ' series we will show you where to start to get your first website, and what you need to go online.

The prices web designers put on their services vary drastically. Like most purchases, with web design, you tend to get what you pay for. If your project is fairly small and straightforward, freelancers may charge less than big agencies. By 'small' we mean a regular website with about five pages like 'Home', 'Services', 'References', 'About', 'Contact'.
Of course the sky is the limit when it comes to individual services, and there are also certainly regional differences, but here are some rules of thumb.

How Much Does A Website Cost?
The one-time set-up fee for a 'basic' individual website with up to five pages done by a Web Design Freelancer or a professional Web Designer ranges between $350 and $1,000, depending from where you are located, and how much 'individuality' your website requires, and what material you can provide.

Do you have logo, photos and text for your website, or does your web designer need to invest his time to creating the content too? Graphic design work and copy writing takes a lot of time, and you need to find an agreement with your web designer, how many drafts are included until you finally approve the end result. Don't get fooled by 'paying by the page', because once your main layout is set up, it takes only a fraction of the time to add another page. If you get a cheap quote it is likely that the web designer will use a out-of-the-box template, and your website might not look as individual as you wish! Of course, the sky is the limit when it comes to web design. For highly individual professional websites you should get a detailed quote from different web design companies and compare before you sign a contract.

How Much Does A Shopping Cart Website Cost?
The creation of a shopping cart website is usually a very individual task. If you have a small business with only a couple hundred products, you should be able to find a web designer who can use standard e-commerce software which is available for under $300 (your web designer might even be able to use a web host that offers free shopping cart scripts). The more requirements you have the more costly it will be, but there are a couple of free or cheap scripts out which a good website designer can use and adapt to your needs. The total cost of a small shopping cart website one-time set-up fee should not be more than $1,000 to $1,500. All professional shopping cart scripts include an online 'back office' where you could even update your inventory in the future fairly easily yourself.

If you have a couple thousand items to sell and need a real professional shopping cart website, you will have to get an individual quote from different web design companies to compare. Make sure you talk about the support and maintenance costs too!

If you need just one simple page to capture email addresses, you can even try to get a freelancer to adapt a free available website template for you. His one-time set-up fee should not be more than $300. But with such a website it is crucial that you get a person who knows how to optimize your website in regards to the keywords your customers will search for. You might even think of buying an existing website. Here is having a website only as good as continuous efforts to market your website in order to generate the traffic you are looking for. This can be very time and/or money intensive depending from your product. Time means somebody has to constantly promote your website by e.g. submitting articles to blogs and ezines, money means you can instead invest in Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing to get your website instantly ranking on top of the search engines result pages.

We hope these basic numbers will give you an idea what you have to budget to get your own website.

If you want to know more about web design and how you can get your website on the front page of Yahoo and Google, please visit our website San Diego Web Designer.

If you are interested in learning how to make your own website, please read the free setp-by-step guide Make Your Own Website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Claudia_Schulze

Ecommerce Website Design Made Easy

Ecommerce web design has been a popular topic since the birth of the web. Once people got used to using computers to communicate, it didn't take long for people start using them to sell to one another. But as many of the web's first business owners discovered, if you build it, they won't necessarily come. In fact, doing business online can be extremely tough -- all of your competitors are just a few clicks away, and customers are willing to leave your site based on the slightest of flaws.

This is why savvy startups have placed such a high value on great ecommerce website design. A seamless site that doesn't give users any time to pause is a site that's going to keep them around from the initial visit to the final sale. And a great design does more than keep them from backing off: it can also be a way to show that your site is legitimate, established, and that it has invested in being a good business (before deposit insurance and banking regulations, most banks had trouble getting customers to trust them. One trick they used was to have extremely expensive buildings -- so their customers knew that the bank had sunk too much money into their business for it to make sense for them to cut and run).

Great ecommerce web design also has a calming influence on your customers. That huge diversity of options and opportunities can create a lot of stress for customers. Your customers may feel overwhelmed by their options, or stressed by the savings they might be missing -- or even confused by the proliferation of reviews and recommendations that the web has spawned. Don't let them panic: create a soothing web design that makes them feel right at home, and they're likely to stay close.

So what are the keys to good ecommerce web design? You need a site that is friendly, professional, and simple:

* Friendly websites use soft colors, rounded edges, and an uncluttered design to give users a sense of peace of mind.
* A professional website shows users that you mean business -- not that you're after their money, but that you'll treat them with respect, as a customer rather than just another Internet user.
* Your ecommerce website desigb should be simple enough to sell without doing too much else. The tendency among many website owners is to have a website that does everything for everyone. But by taking away features instead of piling them on, you may find that you end up with a site where people spend less time fiddling with your features and more time buying your products.

Coming up with good ecommerce website design isn't easy, but it's very rewarding for your business. Good ecommerce website design doesn't just show your customers an easy-to-use site. It's also a way for you to clarify your own ideas. Once you strip away the extra cruft and featuritis, the site you're left with showcases how you really want to do business.

Byrne Hobart is a New Yorker with widely, perhaps even bizarrely varied interests. He's an experienced marketer, with a strong background in ecommerce website design.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Byrne_Hobart

Wedding Photographers Can Market More Effectively by Placing Wedding Venue Comments on Website

The wedding photography industry is competitive. To thrive in this environment, most photographers need to execute an effective marketing plan. With increased traffic going to the web, having a web strategy is essential. This article looks at how listing local wedding venues on a photography website along with some photography related commentary can benefit the photographer, his clients and the wedding venue.

The photographer benefits by having these listings on the site because it conveys the message that he is an expert in the area, his key search engine rankings will be enhanced and his relationship with vendors can be built.

When a client reads a comment on various wedding locations from a photographer's perspective, he is able to see the depth of the author's knowledge. He is able to see that the photographer is not just a startup shooting his first wedding, but is an experience professional with a detailed knowledge of shooting in a number of different locations. A potential client can also get a feel for a photographer's shooting style and preferences as he reads the critiques. The client should also gain some insight on the photographic benefits of choosing one venue over another.

Additionally, writing these evaluations can help the photographer's website improve its page ranking on valuable keywords. When posting a venue commentary it is helpful to the client to see an address. This address will have the city's name tied to it. This will help a website gain search engine strength on the name of the city.

A photographer can also create contacts and enhance his relationships with the venue managers by posting venue comments on his website. Like the photographer, the venue is in business and is benefited by additional exposure. By contacting the venue and explaining his plans to write the commentary and asking for feedback, a photographer can establish a positive working relationship with the venue managers.

With the advent of digital photography and relatively cheap digital cameras and related software, the photography industry has become increasingly competitive as more people are entering its ranks. Adding helpful content - such as venue listings will help a photographer distinguish himself from the majority of these professionals.

The author, through photo journalism, provides a unique expressive perspective for weddings, seniors, events, proms and newborns.

In addition, she works as a Laguna Beach Wedding Photographer with a knack for shooting in rural areas such as the local wineries. She also teaches photography classes to a number of Orange County Photographers.

While Vanessa began her business in the Temecula area, she later move to Newport Beach and began serving Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, and Irvine.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vanessa_Honda

3 Critical Questions For ECommerce Web Development

Planning is the most important stage in eCommerce web development. Once the design team, the coders and the graphic designers have begun working on a particular plan, it's difficult and costly to change course. It's also here where many lose their way. Without any basis or starting point, it's easy to get confused about how to do it. Here are three big questions whose answers should prove excellent launchpads for your site plan.

To whom are you selling?

Marketers call this consideration the 'target market' in their professional lingo. Regardless of what you call it, your target market will definitely have to be one of the biggest factors in your eCommerce website design. After all, they'll be the ones who'll see the site and to whom the site should be appealing.

Although you could get off with not specifying your target market in your business plan, you simply can't proceed with eCommerce web development until you define it. That's because certain elements and design considerations work differently for different people. Pages with lots of moving images, for example, might not appeal to older buyers; in the same vein, elaborately written descriptions will be under-appreciated by younger crowds.

How are you different?

Establishments in shopping malls have it easy: a fancy window display and loud music can immediately set them apart from adjacent shops. How do you set yourself apart in the big, big world of the Internet? Your answer to this question will also dictate much of the direction of your eventual eCommerce web development.

Do you have a quirky, eclectic company image? Design a site with lots of kiddie graphics and a web application game or two. Are you trying to come off more as a sophisticated online retailer? Put little visual details like minimalist or Victorian themes into the design. Is an online clearance outlet the goal for your company's image? Show customers special offers and discounts at every turn.

You're bound to have just one or two advantages over the next website on the Internet. That's why, once you've identified the things that set you apart, your eCommerce website design should reflect that very thoroughly. It's not enough that the customers see it; they have to feel and remember your advantage as well.

Do your products have special requirements?

Not all products are made equal, so it's highly likely that the needs of your site and your products will be very different from the next site's. Here are a few examples.

If your eCommerce company sells audio hardware, for example, the typical shopping cart software with the click-pay-deliver model will work for inexpensive things like regular earphones. That won't, however, be enough to sell high-end $5,000 theater systems. One common eCommerce solution to this kind of problem is to incorporate a live help system that will have a live customer service representative selling high-end equipment for you.

Aside from high-end items where customers tend to ask a lot of technical questions, there are countless other situations where the usual model won't cut it. Observe how other retailers sell similar items and check what special measures need to be done with you.

It's usually very helpful to have someone on your team who's well-versed with eCommerce web development. He or she should be able to advise you on the specific nuances for your business, thus giving you a better and more profitable site overall.

Jelecos.com has a long roster of companies that we've helped with their eCommerce web development. Let us help you create the optimal ecommerce web design and system for your site as well.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ronaldo_Rick