DICTIONARY -
Find out what all those arcane initials and terms refer to.
SITE DESIGN -
The details are quite thoroughly covered right here at my site or using the links on this page to research it in as much depth as you care to pursue. The actual functional process is outlined in a practical manner on my worksheet.
REGISTRATION -
Once your web site is built and ready to publish on the
internet it will be necessary to pay a registry service
somewhere about $35US/year to assign a unique address and
name for your site. This is what is termed a URL. For
instance, mine is www.mahati.net
Whoever is hosting your site can arrange this for you.
HOSTING -
If you are reading this on a computer you already are using an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who is, for a certain fee, making your connection to the internet and providing a space and format to receive and write e-mails. Most ISPs also offer the further but similar service of hosting web pages, providing a space on their computer where you can post your site and access it so that you can make changes to it. They generally charge additional fees for business sites that vary according to the technical servicing requirements. Simplest personal pages may not require any aditional fee but they will place your name under their address and may also insert an ad on your page. A small organization that just wishes to display its services and be ad-free and have its own address with a few frills and conveniences will be paying something like $10US/month . Business sites for on-line commerce requiring complex programming and maintenance can run $100US/month and up.You may find that you want one company as an ISP to link to the internet and another that you like better to do the site hosting.
PROMOTION -
Fine; you have finally got it together, after all that work
and money, and have your home page sitting there
comfortably in cyberspace. But now who is going to come for
a visit? How will they find you? Will they discover that
you are the very one they have been looking for?
These questions are the basis for the answers to them that
were formulated on my worksheet used when your web site was
put together. During its construction, it was oriented in
all possible ways to be appealing and accessible to your
target audience. Now we just need to make the final
connection with them.
For a small, personal (as opposed to corporate) site,
word-of-mouth is a big factor in drawing people in. Also,
keep referring to your site in correspondences. Get your
URL showing up on notices and articles on subjects in your
area. You can submit it free to Google.com, the largest
search engine and DMOZ.com, the biggest directory.
Yahoo.com, another large directory of importance, will give
a free listing to a non-profit site but charges $300US for a review
elsewise(not recommended as of 10/10/02).
Free listings take a long time to be
reviewed, often many months, with no guarantee of
inclusion.
It is important to search around for any small
directories, groups or individual sites that specialize in
your field that will list a link to your page. Major search
engines such as Inktomi and Google use popularity ranking
systems that rate your pages' listing priority based on how
many good quality, relevant web sites have links to your
pages.
Even though your site may be well optimized for search
engine results, if your area has a lot of competition of
the same kind, it is chancy whether you will pull
consistently high ranking without paying for inclusion with
other major information listings distributors, particularly
Inktomi( positiontech.com ) at $39US/year.
Then we jump into the pool of paid advertisement schemes
and advertising budgets which is a large, complex subject
that requires a good bit of researching for the site owner
to be competent and is really too much for this primer.
Suffice it to say that after you have lured someone to your
site through your ads, the bottom line is whether they are
pleased with what they find when they arrive.
It will take considerable time and patience and good
judgment to access all the publicity venues that will be
pertinent to your case. If it all seems too much, you can
hire professionals from about $50US/year and up (way up),
depending on the depth and extent of service.
So what is the minimum bottom line for all this? Using my
pricing, which is mid-market average, for a single page
site you have spent $150US as a one time expense. You will
have to register the site yearly for about $35US and will
probably be paying (if you aren't already) at least about
$300 a year for hosting, including your email. That's it,
assuming you do your own promotion and use only free
submitions. For further information on this area:
bruceclay offers many services and excellent explanations.
Spiderfood is a complex but easily digested taste of search engine optimization criteria.
E-COMMERCE -
As mentioned above, the complexeties of internet marketing strategies is really going beyond the basic website designing questions and into the realm of what the business can do with this tool once it is optimized for use in web commerce. For the rank novice I include a couple of introductory sites on the subject as well as my own brief overview. You need to know about this stuff before you put a site on line.
Straight-foreward info on small businesses by Dr.Ebiz
PAGE DESIGN ELEMENTS:
.- HTML 4.01 Specification:
W3C standards
defined (technical).
Tutorials on aspects of
writing HTML documents.
- Browser deviants:
Variations as analyzed at WebMonkey. .
- Color and copy strictures:
Color
topics. A great collection of links to good sources of
tutorials, articles and charts.
Color
chart. Well organized presentation with swatches arranged
by hue groupings.
Compatible color
schemes generated by colorschemer.com.
Typography tutorial by Webmonkey. .
- Navigation and searches.
Navigation:
The basics.
Spiderfood is a
complex but easily digested taste of search engine
optimization criteria. .
- Style of writing and design.
Websitetips'
links to many good references.
Mahati Communications General
description of the factors involved in how we do it
here.
.
GENERAL REFERENCES:
Dictionary of
associated terms.
Elements of proper site
design.
WebsiteTips.com
WebMonkey.com
This page
validates as error free HTML4.01 mark up writing.