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Establishing your Internet Presence
By: Frank Voorburg, Tue Jun 20th, 2006
Introduction This article shows you what is involved to
get your own website up and running. This information can help
you with preparing the requirements for your website. Having
well defined requirements will result in a better website while
making it easier for both you and the web designer to whom you
outsourced your project.
Outsourcing your web development project You are planning
on outsourcing your web development project, right? A mistake
commonly made by small businesses is to think that they can
simply throw together their own website by using basic knowledge
of HTML, the language in which webpages are written.
I agree that having a basic understanding of HTML or tools such
as Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver can lower your
costs in the long run. This allows you to do the maintenance on
the website contents yourself. However, please don't make the
mistake of setting up your webpage yourself. Trust me that
outsourcing your web development project will save you a
significant amount of time and frustration.
Making preparations Before outsourcing your project,
collect the information as written in this section.
- Domain name. Your website requires an Internet
address such as http://www.yourname.com. Brainstorm a few domain
names that are short and descriptive for your type of business.
You can check availability yourself or ask your web designer to
take care of the registration.
- Images. Most
businesses have digital versions of their logo and products.
Collect these and pass them on to your web designer.
- Content. Don't expect your web designer to copy write
all the contents of your website. He doesn't know your business
as well as you. Create a simple document with: your mission
statement, history of your business, customer testimonials,
contact information, and an introduction to your company.
- Layout. A good logo can spark the creativity of the
web designer. If you want to further steer this creativity,
provide your web designer with your preferred color scheme. It's
even better if you can provide a list with Internet addresses of
websites that you like.
What to ask for After
collecting all this information, you are ready to contact your
web designer. Here is a good hint: request your web designer to
first deliver a design of your website for your approval before
he starts implementing the website. Ask for at least the
following tasks to be completed:
- Domain name
registration. Your web designer will know where to go for
this and who is offering a good mix between reliability and
cost.
- Obtain hosting account. You need to be
able to store your website on a server computer that is
connected to the Internet 24-7. For this a hosting account is
needed.
- Website development. This consists of
your web designer making a design and then implementing the
design of your website.
- Search engine
submission. Make sure your customers can find your website
on the Internet. For this it has to be submitted to the search
engines.
- Free support. If a web designer
believes in the quality of his own work, he won't mind giving
you free support for at least a few weeks regarding his work
results.
How much it will cost There or two
types of costs involved, one time costs and recurring costs. The
latter consist of your hosting account and the renewal of your
domain name. Even if your web designer obtained these for you,
they are your responsibility. These can vary greatly depending
on your provider and website size and complexity. For a basic
website you can expect these recurring costs to be approximately
$100/year.
The one time costs consist of the actual website development. A
basic website containing up to 10 pages will take approximately
1 week to design and implement. The hourly rate for web
designers varies greatly based on their location and skills and
will be somewhere between $15 and $75.
Conclusion The contents of this article outlined what you
should do to obtain a website that satisfies your requirements
and expectations. It also gives you a guideline for calculating
the costs allowing you to properly budget your web development
project. Let me emphasize it one more time: don't waste your
time and energy, outsource your web development project to a
professional web designer.
About the author:
About the Author
Frank Voorburg is an
ecommerce consultant and owner of Feaser LLC. Feaser LLC offers affordable
ecommerce and webdesign services.
