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Archive for August, 2010

Building a Website For Beginners

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

There are numerous things you need to think about before building a website for beginners.

  1. Do you know HTML?
  2. Can you FTP?
  3. Do you have a Domain Name?
  4. You will need Web Hosting.
  5. Do you have a plan?
  6. What will your online website do?

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. This language code is what enables all website surfers to actually see what it really looks like minus the code. HTML is actually easy to learn and is what most beginners learn. There is also XHTML and this is an XML application or just a higher version of HTML.

What is FTP? It stands for file transfer protocol. This is what enables a webmaster to transfer html files from your editing software to your web hosting account. All your files should reside on your hosting server. This means if you delete, destroy, or if someone steals your computer these files are still retrievable via your hosting plan. You hosting company also backup your files. Redundancy is a good thing. You will need an FTP client program and you can get a free one by searching for “Core FTP client program”.

Do you have a domain name that will attract your visitors? Choosing a domain name is very important. Be sure you have the.com extension and not some other b.s. extension. What is easier to remember…agoodwebsite(dot)com or agoodwebsite(dot)info?

One of the more important factors in building a website for beginners is choosing a very good web host. If your web site goes down, you are out of business. When searching for a web host company make sure they have secure server capabilities, fast servers, tons of space, unrestricted CGI access, SSH and FTP access, access to raw server logs, good email services, and daily server backups. Signing up for free or cheap web hosting can sometimes cost you more trouble. The last thing you want is cheesy advertisements and or slow connections. The most important factor in choosing a web host is support. This is what matters the most without good support you may lose lots of valuable time, money and most important customers.

Do you have a business website plan? You don’t really need one but it sure would be handy to read in case you start to wander off in a different direction. It is possible to pay someone to design, build and maintain your website. Most web design firms can charge up to 2 grand for fully functional website. You could do a local search such as “web design in your city”. This is the easy way to make the kind of website you might be looking for. However I like doing things myself.

What will you do with your website? Is it just to impress your friends and family? Or are will you really going to add good useful content so others will benefit from your content. Building a website for beginners with content that others can use is what all good Internet folks, search engines and Online Marketers want.

This article is by Paul Guzman…If you need information on building your website checkout goodcontentwebsites.com

Paul Guzman is the author of this article checkout more information about starting a website at: Build A Website

Author: Paul Guzman
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Online Marketing Strategies – Part One – Creating an Attractive Website

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

The first step to Internet marketing is the creation of your website. This will be your base of operations for all of your online marketing. From your website you will attain your name recognition, your database of customers for email marketing, and your advertisement revenue. Your website can be geared for e-commerce, a showcase for product, or an online service. These are the most successful internet ventures.

Initially, while your website is still in the idea stage, you must decide exactly what your website will do for you. While it is true that the first outline of most websites will be similar, the steps taken to customize your website must mirror the steps you took when designing your business plan. Better still, if you can create a plan for your website/online marketing concurrently with the plan for you business you are putting yourself in a prime position to succeed.

If you decide to gear your website for online purchases of your physical product then you will need to both showcase your product and provide a means to purchase directly from your website. Personally I suggest creating a separate bank account for any business transactions, regardless the size of your current enterprise. Once that is taken care of you must create your e-commerce system. Here are some easy steps to setting up your e-commerce system.

STEP 1: Identify Your Products

You will have to determine what you are going to sell online. The more products you have, the more your shopping cart will cost. You may only have one item, you may want to sell hundreds of items, or you may only wish to place your best selling items online.

STEP 2: Organize Your Products

If applicable, you should group your products into logical categories so customers can easily find what they are looking for. For example, if you were selling music you may wish to group titles in the following groups: country, rock, rap, pop, classical and jazz.

STEP 3: Photograph Your Products

The most effective way to share your products with clients is through pictures. If you want to sell, you’ll need a digital image (preferably .jpg, .gif or .tif) of each product. If your photographs are sharp and clear, your website will look professional and customers will want to buy from you.

STEP 4: Receive Payment

You will need to decide how you wish to accept payment from customers. I suggest using pay pal, as it is the easiest to set up, and it does not require a fancy shopping cart program (which is usually pricey).

STEP 5: Ship Your Product

Unless you have a special preference, the cheapest shipping is going to be the united states postal service. They just released a new “Flat-rate box” promotion, which allows you to ship anywhere in the US for one price, which is very useful for the online business. All the USPS information on Flat rate boxes (Or other methods) can be found here at USPS.com. Don’t forget to include the shipping price into the pricing of your products.

When creating a website solely to showcase your product (This is usually reserved for things difficult to ship. For example: Real estate, Vehicle sales, basically any large big ticket items are included) the aesthetics of your website are your main concern. The appearance of your website should always be on your mind, but it will come directly to the forefront if you are trying to publicize your product. In this type of website your advertisements are going to have to be extremely calculated. Trading banner ads (Which will be discussed at length later in this series) will become important to bring motivated potential customers to your website. Your main goal in this type of website is to get your customers to contact you, so it is a great idea to post a bold link that states “CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION” in big bright shiny letters. While I am generally against it, this type of website can and is often expected to be flashy. Now, I don’t suggest that you use cliché flashing pop-ups, but know what you’re good at and over emphasize that point. For example, if you sell homes have the text of your heading bulge angularly in the center to create the semblance of a roof. Don’t forget that flashy and busy are not the same thing. If your website is painful to look at or difficult to navigate you are going to drive away your customers in droves. While this is sage advice for any website it is doubly so for a showcase website. Making your product difficult to find will not do you any favors when trying to sell it!

An online service website can be many different things, from a blog to a multi-level marketing venture to a social networking website (Like Facebook). The creation of this style of website can be tricky. Your website will need suitable explanation, and more importantly publicity. Your online service can either be free or have a cover charge, but do not assume that because you offer your service for free that you will make less money. Just the word “Free” will increase your ‘traffic’ immensely, which will allow you to increase your ad revenue comparatively. Most commonly your advertisements will be your largest source of income for your online service website.

Your next step, now that you know what your website will be is going through the construction process. You have several choices when you are building your site. Typically business owners will contract both of the construction and maintenance to a web design company, but that is NOT the only option available to you. Taking a course and building your own website is a viable (and financially cheap) option. A third option is to hire a content management website company, and have them build your website. A content management website is a streamlined website with an easy to edit interface, which allows you to forgo the individual costs of each edit you may want to make to your spiffy new website. All of these methods are simple enough to put into motion, and if you follow these easy steps you will be well on your way.

Steps to Hiring a Web Design Company* :

  • Produce a written plan of your website ideas.
  • Get estimates from as many companies as you deem necessary (at least three).
  • Make sure the cost per hour for website changes/edits are included in the estimate.
  • Choose your company weighing both the quality of their previous work and cost.

Steps to Learning HTML & CSS to Create Your Own Website:

  • Check into any local colleges for web design classes that fit into your schedule and budget.

OR

  • Look online for free tutorials in the subjects your future website dictates you learn.
  • Learn Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for optimum website design.
  • Pay yourself. Keep track of your hours spent learning and working as if you were being paid whatever you believe you’re worth, and if it becomes more expensive to pay yourself than it would cost to hire either a content management website company or a standard web design company it may be time to re-think your strategy.
  • Remember to include the potential labor cost of future website edits.

FINAL STEP

  • Put your brand new website to good use and START BEING SUCCESSFUL!

*These steps are the same for a content management website or a website from a standard web design company, with the exception of a higher monthly hosting cost for a content management site due to the easy to edit interface usually driving up the monthly price.

Deena McMahon is an author and entrepreneur for Americas Media Specialist, a continuing education and business development company showing people how to build business success. Get No Obligation Free Tips and Training at http://www.americasmediaspecialist.com

Find out if you qualify to be trained in having your own business at 1-800-719-8268 extension 34978.

Author: Deena McMahon
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Get Your $499 Website Today!

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Website designing has become a booming business. Some online companies offer to build you a good, attention-drawing website for just $499.

Some web designing companies offer small businesses a chance to pick up a $499 Website. Websites serve as a great tool for online marketing. The way a website is presented gives the company its share of attention and importance. For this, you need to hire the services of a good web designer who can give you what you want.

A few websites offer business owners a chance to buy a $499 Website template. Others offer to build a custom website for the same amount, based on your individual specifications. You can get several features in this small package. This includes a domain name registration that is valid for a period of at least one year. You also get a well-structured and powerful web platform that is easy to maintain and easy to upgrade any time. They will provide you at least five web pages consisting of a home page, a contact page, and any two other pages of your choice. A $499 Website will have a custom header designed based on your company profile with your company logo at the centre. Other features offered in this package include archives, keywords, meta-tags, links, search engine submissions, and proprietary email accounts with your company domain in your email address.

You can thus have a completely customized website built, optimized, and programmed for only $499. You can alternatively get a decent priced website template for the same amount, and with the help of your web designer, tweak it a little to include your company logo, profile, images, contacts, and any other information. However, given the time and effort you will have to spend on the latter, it is better to simple buy a $499 Website.

Many sites and designing companies offer to build $499 Website for businesses. The small business owners usually choose these sites, since they cannot afford to hire the major designers. There are some things that you may want to look out for before settling on any one particular designer:
Are the designers experienced?
Does the website have good feedback and testimonials?
Do they offer services to maintain and upgrade your website as and when required?
Are you getting a custom website built or are you merely buying a template?

Once you get the right answers to these questions, you can go ahead and get your website built. A $499 Website Website is a cheap and an excellent way to get your company listed in the world of internet marketing.

Author: Ruth Caldon
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Why a Content Management System Can Save You Money

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Business Owners are constantly reminded that they need their own Business Web Site but, one of the key problems is maintaining the content. How many times have you had to ring your web designer to ask them to change a sentence or add an image and how many times have you been charged for this? Considering using a Content Management system is a great option for getting round this problem and one of the best on the market is Joomla.

What is this joomla?

Joomla is a web based software application that helps you to manage the content on your website. The content can be pictures, text, graphics, or just about anything media wise and one of the great benefits of using a system like this is that it doesn’t require a high level of technical skill or knowledge to use it. Oh, and by the way it is Free.

Getting Started:

Although there is a learning curve, once you have mastered the basics it can be pretty simple to login and upload or edit your content. What is more, as a business owner, this can also be a great cost saver as you are not constantly asking your web designer to do this for you. In fact by taking a little time to read and watch some of the Joomla tutorials that are on the net, you can handle the management of your web site completely in house. The only drawback is that you will need to dedicate some time to learn how to use it first, but this will save you a considerable amount time and money in the future.

What next?

If you decide to use this application spend a bit of time researching and choosing the right ISP (Internet Service Provider). As always, the cheapest are not always the best. I have received many emails from frustrated business owners who have been left without a web site because they have found out that their cheap ISP doesn’t offer any support, so I would recommend taking some time researching this.

For Joomla, choose an ISP who offers you hosting with Joomla pre-installed. This means you are ready to start adding your content almost immediately after your account has been created. There is no need to have to download and install the application yourself when you can have a professional do it.

“What about the design of the site though. How can I handle this” you are asking? There are many sites that offer Joomla templates. Some are free and some you have to pay for, but most of the templates will be less than if you paid a designer to create a design for you and your ISP might even have some they can offer you included in the price of hosting.

Another great benefit to using Joomla is that you can also add extra functionality to your web site as your experience grows. There are a multitude of applications to choose from such as Shopping systems, blogs, Social networking applications to name a few and many of these “add-ons” are also free.
Benefits

So you can see that there are a lot of really good things about using a system like this. It is free, there are templates you can use for the design and best of all it will save your business a small fortune. Joomla will also allow you to grow as your experience and confidence grows and I strongly recommend that you spend some time familiarizing yourself with how to use the application first.

Learn the secrets of joomla and create your own joomla web site at an affordable price by visiting http://www.joomlainformation.com

Author: Simon Champion
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How to Build a Business Website – 4 Easy Tips Before You Start

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

This is a question I here from people interested in building their own website for their business. Too many small business owners are having to over pay their web designers to build and update their site. The worst part is the designer is usually only interested in making the site look good to his standards and not their clients.

Are you or have you been one of these clients? It is not a good spot to be in, especially if you anticipate using this website to build your business. Well I have good news for you. You can do it yourself and it takes no time at all and it extremely cheap compared to what you use to pay your web designer.

How to build a Business Website Yourself – 4 Easy Tips

1. Start researching possible web addresses that would be right for company. A domain name is the actual web address your customers will be typing in to visit your site (YOURBUSINESS.com). Your best bet will probably be your company name or a service/product you provide. Make sure it is available and then buy it. Should only be about $10/year. Now you have your web address.
2. Now you need to figure out how many pages you want on your site. Most sites for local business have 3-4 pages. A HOME page, ABOUT US page, SERVICES page, CONTACT page. Odds are these are the only pages you need. Figure out what you want to call them and write them down on your notes page.
3. Okay so you have your pages, but what goes on each page? This is the hard part. You need to figure out what you want your visitors to see about your company. Usually this is where you add a picture or two to each page and say something about your company. It is recommended that you have at least 400-500 words for most of the pages (The CONTACT page can be an exception). I suggest you write out each pages’ content in a word document before you start the actual design process.
4. You have your website address, your pages, and the content for your pages, now you can begin the design. So it is time to fire your web designer and start saving $100’s and put it towards something useful.

These are some basic tips to get you brainstorming how to build a business website on your own. There are many free and inexpensive tools available to help you build a business website without having to know anything about website design. Do some research and you’ll be amazed at what you can do without a web designer.

[http://BAMWebsiteDesign.com] provides step by step instructions to build a business website without having to pay a web designer or learn anything about web design.

Author: Jonathon Tucker
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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