New Web Site Owners - What you need to know

Building a web site does not mean you will make money overnight or that your web site will be an instant success; "build it and they will come" does not apply here. Every web site owner/webmaster that wants success has to have traffic and an easy-to-use structure for everyone that visits. Designing for specific browsers, screen resolutions, and modem speeds will affect your web sites overall success and performance.

Getting traffic is hard enough. You do not want to make things more complicated by creating a web site that is confusing and difficult to use.

Too many web site owners and web designers go overboard with Flash animation, large slow loading images, browser specific scripts and coding, Java applets, splash pages, and music. Those elements of designing a web site do not make a web site popular or sell products. Using the latest beeps, bells, and whistles will not make your web site functional or useful to your visitors.

How easy your site is to navigate, how well it informs visitors about services or products offered, and it's search engine friendliness are the design elements you need to think of when designing a web site or having a web site designed.

Whomever you choose to build your web presence needs to have more than just web design knowledge; they will also need promotion and functionality knowledge. And have your interests in mind at all times. Creation of a successful web site is not about how much "leading edge technology" can be crammed into the web pages; it is about what your web needs to compete online to be successful. If a company or designer you hire cannot accomplish this, be prepared to hire others to make your web site successful, or give up. If you do not have the knowledge of Internet marketing, web design issues, usability, and your designer does not have the knowledge or experience either, it will be like the blind leading the blind.

You do not want to go through that; in the end, it will cost you more than just money.

Domain Names
If you are serious about your online presence, you need to purchase a domain name. Long URLs are too difficult for people to remember, they take up a lot of space on business cards and stationary, and can be a real pain to try to describe to someone, your own domain will also reflect your business or web site. A domain will also help your credibility; it is like you owning a particular piece of Internet property. People doing business with you will have some comfort knowing you are not going anywhere as soon as they pay you.

If you have a specific domain name in mind check for its availability and register it now! If you are serious about putting a web site online do not wait, because if you wait too long and you may lose your domain name.

Register your domain name yourself to ensure it is registered to you. If someone else does register your domain for you, do a domain check to make sure that it is registered to you; better safe than sorry.

Web Hosting
Stay away from free hosting services as well. There are many reasons why but the major reasons are dependability, speed, advertisements that are not your own, and annoying pop ups. Most free hosting services also do not offer in-depth traffic statistics, CGI, SSI, SSL, and many other functions your site will need.

You can find a dependable web hosting service that is also affordable, there are thousands of companies providing hosting services online. Most hosting services even have packages where your domain registration is packaged with your hosting account. Just remember to always do a domain check to make sure it is registered to you.

It never hurts to be safe.

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