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Beginners Guide to the Web
Beginners Start Here
The internet is a minefield of new words and acronyms in fact it can be a great way to make a small fortune.......especially if you start with a large fortune. This section is not intended as a detailed history or explanation. It is intended to give you enough information to at least understand what you need and assist you in making an informed decision.
There are four basic components (read costs) when it comes to owning a web site.
1. Design
2. Domain name
3. Hosting
4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Design
Many people think the World Wide Web (WWW) is the internet, but in reality the internet is made up of a number of areas. The WWW is basically the system that allows you to browse using a 'browser" program such as Internet Explorer, Netscape or
Mozilla. These browsers are intended to display information written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) on your computer. The really clever thing about HTML is its ability to display information in a consistent way to all browsers, no matter what type of computer or screen size that you are using to view it with. Or at least that is the intention, but there are some inconsistencies and these should be considered when designing a web site.
A web site is anything from one to possibly hundreds of HTML web pages which are presented to you as if they were all located in one physical location . Normally the Home page is the entry point and this will provide the browser with 'hyperlinks' to all or some of the other pages within the site. The Home page being the first page viewed, is therefore the most important single page on your site. It is estimated that you only have 15 to 25 seconds to catch the attention of your visitor, before they get bored and click elsewhere. So your home page must not only look good, it must provide your visitor with some useful or entertaining information within a very short time span.
The other pages in your web site can take a little longer to load however, they should all follow a consistent design and navigation concept.
So, Web Design is very important but it is only the one aspect of your web site. It involves the layout, graphic design, photographs, the actual text information and the navigation (buttons or hyperlinks) for people to find their way around. While an attractive web page is important, LOOKS AREN'T EVERYTHING! In fact many attractive web pages use techniques that can be a downright obstacle when it comes to publishing your site.
Domain Name
Your domain name is your unique name on the internet. Domain names are made up of two or three segments which function not unlike peoples names in medieval times. My name is Andrew Hunter, so in medieval days I would have been Andrew the Hunter, where my surname tells you what I did for a living
In the WWW domains there are a limited number of surnames or extensions available these are COM, ORG,EDU,GOV,NET and the latest BIZ, NAME and INF0. The COM, NET and BIZ extensions are intended for business use. ORG is intended for non profits while EDU is education and no prizes for guessing what GOV stands for.
My wife does all she can to ensure that I am an non profit so on the WWW my URL (Uniform Resource Locator or web address) should be www.andrew.org - However there are andrews in Britain, USA and Australia so we use an additional extension to identify in which country my domain is registered and in Australia I would be www.andrew.org.au Just to confuse matters, I can if I wish, register my name in the USA and they don't have any country extension (as in the first example) whereas if I registered in Britain, my URL would be simply www.andrew.org.uk
The actual rules and conditions that apply to domain names vary depending on the country you wish to register in. The USA controls all COM, NET and ORG domain extensions. There are also new .BIZ and .INFO extensions now being released under new rules. But at the moment anyone can register any name with any extension in the USA. This situation led to
'cybersquatting' where unscrupulous or enterprising people, depending on your point of view, registered every name they could think of. They then sell these names to the people who really want them, at a profit. This situation has reduced somewhat by new rules that allow applicants to show that they have a more legitimate claim to a domain name and thus have the name transferred to them. You must realise this when you apply for USA based domain names. You can register USA based .com, .net or .org names through KeyChange, for as little as $35AUS per year with a normal two year minimum (subject to currency rate).
Australian domain names are much more stringently controlled. To register AndrewHunter.com.au you would have to be named Andrew Hunter or have a registered business named Andrew Hunter & Associates or something similar. Australian domains also cost a bit more to register, but then again they are probably more secure and definitely an advantage if you want to sell into the Australian market. It currently costs $80 to $140AUD for two years registration.
Web Site or Domain Hosting
If you don't want to go the expense of registering your own domain, you can normally set up your web site as part of your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) package. Normally when you sign up with Optus or BigPond for your monthly internet access, they also allow you a small web hosting facility as part of the package. The first problem with this is, your web site address will look something like "http://www.optusnet.com.au/~robinloxley" the second problem is that when you decide to take up a special internet access offer from say
AustarMetro, you have to change your web address (and all your stationery) to
'http://www.webstarmetro.net.au/~robinloxley' what's more your email address changes from
'robinloxley@optusnet.com.au' to 'robinoxley@austarmetro.net.au', a real pain! But, it is included in your ISP charge so in effect costs nothing.
If you have your own domain, it doesn't have to be hosted by your ISP. It is normally hosted by specialist domain hosting service - such as KeyChange. Under this situation, your web address can be as simple as http://robinloxley.com and your email can be
me@robinloxley.com no matter how many times you change your ISP your domain and email address remain the same. Domain hosting costs vary depending on your needs;
- space ie: how many web pages and other components. A small host package would be 20 megabytes
- secure socket layer (SSL) facilities for such things as credit card information
- e-commerce facilities such as shopping carts
- traffic, your site may be small but very popular
- types of design and update access eg: FrontPage services
- database services ie: SQL or active server pages
- streaming audio or video
- chat facilities, forums etc
KeyChange can offer hosting packages from as little as $11UAD per month (inc GST) or less than $5US per month.
Publishing - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
You can have a million dollar site but nobody will find it unless you have published it correctly. This basically involves three main processes.
- Traditional media promotion such as advertising or editorial. Also make sure that your URL is on all of your stationery.
- Try to get your sites URL linked on as many other web sites as possible - genuine links only.
- List your site with the major directories
and search engines.
There is no easy answer to this, so anyone who tells you there is, is either lying or very poorly informed. You may see emails or adverts offering to list your site on thousands of search engines for next to nothing, well there really aren't thousands of 'search engines'. Most of the so-called speciality search engines actually get their information from one of the dozen or so major engines. Even the major engines share or swap data with others. Then there are the directories such as Yahoo, who are not search engines at all. And finally there are the pay to list engines that once again are not really search engines.
Keeping up with all of this is a specialist field and publishing your site can cost as much or even more than it does to create it. Your site may need doorway pages, metatag tuning or a complete behind the scenes overhaul to ensure maximum search engine optimisation. There are no free lunches when it comes to publishing your site. If you are in a competitive market and you want to be and stay at in the top ten, then it will cost and we are not talking about hundreds of dollars. But remember one large advert in a major newspaper can cost $5000 or more, so it is all relative.
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