web publishing: build a website |
|
|
| |
 |
| Published:
26 Jan 2010 |
|
| A website has become an essential part of
any business, there are plenty of solutions to be had, depending
on what you're planning to offer & what your budgetary
constraints are. Remember that publishing your website &
"going live" is only the start of things. You must
consider the need to promote your website as a necessary part
of the running costs, either through paid advertising or web
promotion & probably both. |
Website design demands a high standard of graphics creative &
excellent content to be credible for many visitors & to project
the right image, so be sure to use either professionally made templates,
or employ a web design agency. Choose template designs that keep
things clean & simple, concentrating on an interface that is
intuitive & easy to use. Some web design agencies offer web
promotion services too; if this is your choice then please be sure
to have read the rest of this site first!
If you're going to all this trouble then don't overlook the importance
of protecting your intellectual property. For website's with informative
& well written content copyright protection is recommended.
Plagiarism is unfortunately rife on the internet, so why let your
great keyword rich content help someone else's site get to number
one! Search engines are becoming smarter at detecting duplication
& often penalise the site they "perceive" as guilty;
you could end up having to fight your way out of jail even when
it's the other party that should be there!
Trade mark is another way of showing you're serious about your
web presence. A UK trade mark in a few relevant classes is affordable
& will provide you with rights to trade exclusively within your
defined subject area. Trade marks are very useful in helping you
to defend against "passing off", where other website's
rely on the strength of your brand to help their own. Trade marks
are also useful when defending against abusive domain registrations
(which are likely to be then used for "passing off") &
will significantly help you in any dispute resolution process.
build a website: content management systems, website builders
For a business website be sure to always build it on your own domain
name, do not rely on free hosting web space that may be offered
as a part of your broadband package. This web space will work for
you, but it is likely to penalise you as far as the search engines
are concerned, it may be slow to display pages & have very restricted
access or features available.
Self-publishing website builders are probably the basic entry level
for a small business, where through a login account you are able
to select from a library, choosing themes, colours, fonts, navigation
buttons etc. Many hosting companies offer these website builders
alongside their hosting packages. Others, like Moonfruit ,
offer this as their feature product, it allows you to assign a domain
name to your account, as well as to set up email addresses &
also an ecommerce option if required. We've listed some website
builders in our web services directory.
Working with a web design agency will be the easiest & most
reliable way of getting the right look & feel to your website,
but probably significantly more expensive. Choose a local agency,
as there's bound to be plenty of leg work involved before you get
things right. Be sure to check out other website's built by the
agency, but also see what understanding they have of web promotion
& advertising services too. These aspects all need to work together.
If you feel competent with any of the current PC based web building
software then you may want to consider building your own website
from templates. There are numerous templates available for download
online at very affordable prices, which, usually with some modification,
provide great looking sites. The so called WYSIWYG programs that
are used for building website's, such as Adobe Dreamweaver &
Microsoft FrontPage are tending to be superceded by Content Management
Systems such as Joomla
& Drupal
which are part of the open source movement making them freely available
to use.
Whatever method you choose for building your website be sure that
you have access to the meta tags that allow you to assign a title,
description & keywords to each individual page. This is essential
for web promotion purposes & helping your listings to display
correctly within the search results. Also clarify what the address
format is for your published pages (http://www....), long or encrypted
page addresses (URL's) may cause problems when search engine robots
try to index your site. Be sure to test viewing your site in both
the Internet Explorer & Firefox browsers, as they will frequently
throw up anomalies that have to be dealt with through web design.
These two browsers will currently account for a very large percentage
of your visitors. You should also view your pages at different screen
resolutions, on a laptop and a PC & preferably on an Apple Mac
computer too. Mobile devices are becoming increasingly regular visitors
to website's too.
There's an ongoing webmaster support requirement for your site
too, so be sure you've got your bases covered. Apart from updating
your web pages as required, you'll need support when things go wrong;
servers crash, email goes down, domain names must be renewed etc.
You also need to keep abreast over time of technology changes as
some will have adverse effects on a websites performance if overlooked,
or leave your with a security vunerability.
ecommerce: ecommerce stores, shopping cart solutions
It's great to be able to offer your products or services for sale
online, ecommerce solutions are generally becoming more affordable
but there are some real costs attached to going down this route,
plus the added complexities that it will add into your website operation.
At the entry level one of the best solutions is to work with is
PayPal & manually build a store using their links generator.
The next level up is to integrate a shopping cart software solution
into your website. Most design agencies offer viable third party
solutions, or may write their own, but be sure of what you're getting
in terms of features & store management. When you approach your
bank for a merchant bank account you may get another shock when
they declare their setup & account fees, plu transaction costs.
For small businesses the costs of running these accounts may feel
high & offerings such as PayPal allow entry into the market
whilst you test your store's viability. There are suitable web hosting
packages available from all of the recommended hosting
providers we list in our web services directory.
faq: web publishing questions
Q : Why do website's display so differently on different computers?
This can be both a challenge & a headache for a web designer.
With the Internet being such a young environment different computer
platforms, screen resolutions, browser types & browser versions
will all effect the way the final page is displayed. Your webmaster
or marketing person should be able to determine which browser &
platform your visitors are using & design for it accordingly.
Q : Why do some web sites display quicker than others?
The two main factors that will influence this are the speed with
which a server can send your browser the pages to display &
the size of the files required to produce the display. The type
of connection you have to the Internet (eg. dial-up modem or ISDN
connection) & the current loading on the server(s) in question
will effect the available speed at which you can receive files.
The content of the site you are visiting will determine file size:
text information produces small files; animation's, audio &
some pictures produce larger files. The key is to try & match
your content to your visitors.
Q : What is a dynamic website?
The page you're viewing to read this is a "static" page,
in that the file is displayed in exactly the same way as it was
designed. It's possible though to design a similar page to this
but with some parts of the content only added before they are sent
to your browser for display. The server processes the page &
fills the gaps by extracting the relevant data from a database held
on the same server. This is ideal for online catalogues, search
engines & many larger sites, as it allows the working data to
be more easily managed & updated.
Q : Do I need web space for my site?
Yes, every site has to be hosted on a server that is permanently
connected to the Internet. Web hosting solutions are available in
a number of different ways & at various prices. Basic packages
are very affordable for small business. Visit our Hosting
page for more information on choosing a suitable hosting company.
|
: 