Factors to consider when ordering a Website
Internet Literacy - Part 11
Forward: In this part of the series, I give you factors to consider when ordering a website.
By: Chrysanthus Date Published: 31 Aug 2012
Introduction
Who can own a Website?
Is it only a company that can own a website? No. You can have a website of your own whose URL is your name: something like, http://www.john-smith.org . Here, “org” means none profit organization. If it were commercial (for profit), the extension would be either “com” or “biz”. In a web site of your own, it is information about you that is in the website: information such as biography and achievements. Many stars have websites of their own. It is not your responsibility to design a website; you have to pay a company or somebody to do it for you.
The Domain Name
Examples of domain names are: yahoo.com, google.com, bing.com, fine-hosting.com, broad-network.com, fine-network.com, final-network.com, web-pcphone.com, final-music.com, programming-solutions.biz, cool-mathematics.biz, miss-world-by-you.com, net-ads.biz, website-promo.biz. All these are domain names that are in existence today. You can just type any of them in the address bar of your browser and click Go. If you do that you will see the home page of the site. Note: you do not have to type the preceding, “http://www.” in the address bar, when you want a site.
Before you ask for a website to own, you have to choose a domain name. The domain name should have the text of the name of the website. For example, the name of the social network site I mentioned in the previous part of the series is, Broad Network. The domain name is, broad-network.com . The name of the site is usually displayed at the top of the home page.
There is a problem with choosing a domain name. You can choose the name of the site and domain name that someone else has already chosen. That is, you can choose a domain name that is already in existence in the Internet. So, before you see the website designer, you have to choose several domain names just in case some of the names you have chosen have already been taken. If you cannot come up with more domain names or any domain name at all, the website designer will choose one for you.
After choosing the domain name, the preceding “http://www.” without the quotes can always be attached to the domain name and typed in the address bar of the Internet user’s browser. “http://www.” is an optional item for the address of a website and it is not even chosen by you.
A website consists mainly of web pages and optionally a database. Hosting means keeping the web pages and the optional database in a web server. It is not your responsibility to know whether a website needs a database. It is the responsibility of the website designer to know that and tell you. However, it is good for you to know the difference, so that the website designer does not deceive and cheat you. Also know that a website with a database costs more. Web pages are similar to word processor pages and conveys information mainly though text. A database would be needed if users will have to login and be interacting with the site. Interacting here, means you put in information into the site today and you wait for a response either from the site or out of the site, today, or some other day in future. Interacting can also mean that somebody puts in information into the site and you respond by replying in the site or doing something outside the site. A shopping site for example must have a database.
Domain Name and Hosting Purchase
The domain name and hosting are purchased independently. Before I continue, know that domain name authorization, website design and hosting are three different independent activities. To pay for your domain name and hosting, there are 3 possibilities:
- You can give the money to your website designer to pay for you. Your website designer is not the person who gives you (authorizes you to use) the domain name and is not necessarily the person who owns the web server to host the website for you. For this possibility, you pay the website designer for designing and hosting. In this case the website designer takes care of everything: domain name authorization, designing and hosting.
- You can search the web (Internet) and purchase the domain name yourself using your credit card. Then you send the domain name text and money for hosting to your website designer. In this case the website designer becomes responsible for hosting. To do things this way, you will need to know how to work with domain name servers; that is a technical issue that you will hardly have the time to learn. Even web designers are not really expected to know that. However the professionals called, webmasters are expected to know that. In my opinion, you should only do this if you are a Webmaster.
- You can search the web for a hosting company. The one I recommend is, http://www.fine-hosting.com (see below). Go to their contact page and tell them exactly what the kind of website is it you want. They may tell you what is best for you. There you pay for a domain name and hosting. They will give you a domain name hosting space. They will also give you a user name and password (you may choose your own user name and password). You will then send all the information they have given you to your website designer. He will then design the website (including the web pages) and then submit the website to the hosting company (http://www.fine-hosting.com) (see below). A hosting company knows how to work with domain name servers.
The money you pay to a website designer for designing, is independent of the money you pay for domain name (authorization) and is independent of the money you pay for hosting. You pay the website designer money for designing your website (including the web pages).
Information in Web Pages
It is your responsibility to provide the text information and/or images and/or videos for the web pages of your website. If you must do this yourself, then know that the text for each web page must have a lot of keywords for the web page. If you cannot do this, then ask and pay a new person to do this for you. You can still ask the website designer to do this for you. If the website designer cannot do this, then is will subcontract that part of the work to another person.
Having enough keywords in the text of a page is not all the skill you need to produce the text of the page. The text of each web page should have good style and good presentation. So, if you can write the text of a web page with enough keywords and with good style and good presentation, then you are in the position to produce all the text for all your web pages. Else, have someone do it for you and pay the person.
The website designer I recommend is, http://www.web-pcphone.com/ (see below). At this website design company, all you need to do is to send to them a summary of all the text of the website and any specific details (if the specific details are many – no problem), pay then installmentally or everything upfront; they will do the rest for you: complete text for each page with good styling and presentation, domain name, hosting and maintenance of the website. You do not need to send a summary of the text for each page to them. You send a summary of text for the whole website (and necessary details in any form, even list form).
The website design company I have recommended will also design websites for smartphones.
Assume that your website has been designed with a domain name and it is already hosted. That is, any Internet user can type the domain name in the address bar of his browser to access your website. If that is all you have done, which is fine, and if your website was for business, then a whole year may pass without you having any customer. Even 3 years may pass, without you having any customer. Even if Internet users are to use your site free, 3 years may still pass without you having any reasonable number of visitors. When I say 3 years, I mean it. Note that 3 years is a duration for which some businesses are closing up after starting well.
You need to have your site promoted. What is promotion? Promotion means lobbying in the Internet so that people can see your site (and its pages) when they type keywords into search engines. Conventional promotion takes at least 3 months for you to start having a reasonable number of visitors (customers). If you want to start having visitors immediately, then you have to pay for that at the promoter. The promoter company I recommend for you is, http://www.website-promo.biz (see below).
Note: promotion contract is typically for one year. Noting stops you from going into a contract for less time or more time.
If you want a website, the first thing to do is to purchase a domain name. This is under the assumption that the website will be designed and hosted in at most 1 month. You can purchase the domain name last if you are sure that nobody has it already and nobody will have it by the time you want it. You can give the website designer money to purchase it for you after he has designed the website. In that case he may purchase a modified form of the domain name that you want, because the exact domain name you want might have been taken (already existing).
The next thing to do is to contact a website designer (company). If the website designer is in your city, then you can contact the company physically. Otherwise you go to the search engine and look for one in your country or any country. I have recommended one for you above, and with that you do not need to look for any website designer with the search engine. This company recommended above serves all countries. The function of the website designer is to design the website for you and display it in his local network. After that you pay him and he gives you your website in the form of files. He is not responsible for your domain name; he is not responsible for your hosting. If you are very sure of what (the files) the website designer will give you, then you can stop the transaction with the designer at this point, and continue with hosting and promotion on your own, with different companies.
After that, the next thing to do is hosting and domain name. There after is promotion. You can have one website designer do all these for you. You can see a different company for each phase, if you are really sure of what you are doing. The website design company recommended above will do all these for you.
So, there are 4 phases to obtain a running website. The phases are: domain name authorization, website design, hosting and promotion. In the hosting phase the domain name and website space, are joined. The website design phase can be broken down into two sub phases, which are: production of text for web pages and technical (programming) website design. Note: each phase costs.
The links for the companies mentioned in the passage are given below.
Yes, today, you have to learn how to drive, how to read and write, be computer literate and be Internet literate. We stop here and continue in the next part of the series.
Chrys