Organising / Implementing your first Internet Presence
Author: Emmanouil Filippou
Date: 16/7/2008
You may or may not be experienced in the internet and websites, but you are interested in creating a presence in the Internet. The procedure I suggest is this:
- Think realistically of what you expect to get out of this, think also the worst case scenario.
- Think of what this is worth, and decide how much money you can spend in general figures…
- Search through the internet for companies like yours, look at your competitors and see the features and character they have, so that you know what is your competition. You need to build something at least better than the average work you see (depending on your budget)
- Design roughly what you want to present to your visitors
- Look for website design / development companies, contact at least 3 of them
- Decide which one suits your need balancing the experience of the company, their references (samples of work), and price.
- Make sure you agree to approve a design shown to you before the work starts, to make sure this is what you want and that it represents your company properly.
You need to know a few computer / website related terms that you may encounter on your search:
- Analysis: This is the procedure required to give directions for the Design of the application. This procedure will decide what are the requirements for the desired result.
- Design: Is the master plan of the application / website. It shows all functionality and all procedures, menu items and information that will be displayed.
- Graphics: Are the images / drawings that define the look and character of the website. This process may be done by a specialist or by the developers depending on the requirements. Preferably you need a specialist but it costs more in general.
- Development: Is the actual implementation of the Design using computer language. This brings all together, Graphics / Text / Functionality to create the final product (website)
- Content: This is the actual information material you will provide to your visitors. This may be text, photos, graphics, music, video etc… You need to ensure that all the content represent your company, and it is updated regularly as your company changes, especially prices or calendars or news… You will need to provide the original content to the developers of your website. If it is text, it should be provided in an electronic form, usually typing is charged extra especially if its more than a page in size, or if it is in non native languages… You need also to ensure your text is original and not copied because there are copyrights for all types of text either printed or published on another website, and its relatively easy for the copyright owner to find this out. The same applies to the Photos, explained in detail next.
- Dynamic Content: This is the content controlled by the operator or the visitor, such as calendars, news, dynamic photo albums, guest-books etc… Usually this costs a bit more, but it gives you full and direct control to the website, without the need of the developers.
- Website Photos: You need to ensure you own the rights to reproduce / show photos on your website. If you buy the photos with proof of purchase from a professional photographer or take the photos yourself you are covered. But if you use photos that are owned by someone else without having a written approval, you may get into legal problems… Ask for the rights for any photo used in your website by the company who will develop it.
- Hosting: The websites need to physically be on a computer that will be connected to the Internet 24h / day, 365 days per year. These companies are called Hosting Companies, and provide this service for a fee. The Hosting fee is usually paid once every year in advance (for small websites). The hosting fee can be anything from 50 to 300 euro for a normal website depending on the services it provides. Some companies charge a once a year hosting fee that includes basic website support (for problems and small changes), the cost of the domain name and the hosting.
- Domain Name: Is the address of the computer that hosts your website. This is the way that your visitors will find you. For example a domain name is: www.brainsoft.gr . The average cost for a domain name to be managed by your hosting company is 15-20 euro per year (.gr registrations are given only for 2 years)
- Online Payments: You can have online credit card payments from your clients directly to your account. To do this you would need to make an agreement with a bank that provides this service. Then the development company will incorporate the bank system to your website. This procedure costs, from about 150 euro depending on the level of the complexity.
- PHP Website: The website is built using PHP language either for a windows or linux server. Preferably you want to use a Linux server for technology because it is faster and more reliable and scalable than on a Windows server. This type of website guarantees large traffic of visitors without problems, many concurrent users, fast responses and load times, and less expensive development. Linux servers cost much less than Windows Servers.
- ASP Website: This website is built using ASP language and works ONLY on Windows servers (hosting), and is more flexible in communication between other windows applications and technologies. It also has many advantages in large applications with the ASP .NET technologies (new version of the language). The drawback though is that the Windows Servers cost more (hosting) at least 1.5X than the Linux servers, and the website cannot service as many concurrent users as the Linux and PHP website.
- Database: This is the data storage system. If the content of the website is dynamic, a database is needed to provide this content to the website. Having a database, your website / application will be able to keep track of things, store information by users or visitors and allow your system to grow without any limits and without regular costs for adding content by the developers.
- Promotion: This is the procedure followed to promote and expose your website to the internet. Ask for search engine submissions, other website inclusions, paid advertisements etc…
- Search Engine Friendly: A website needs to follow some standards to be able to be found from search engines. Much work is required to take top result positions on specific keywords depending on the competition. This is a very competitive field that requires the whole website to be designed from the beginning to be built for this purpose. Very experienced and specialized professionals are needed for this to be able to work. This one of the most important parts of the website development, as it decides the visibility of your business to the world.
- Support: If your website requires regular attention you may need to think about buying a support package. This can be usually done only by the company who built your website. This will ensure that you will have your problems solved without any costs, that you can make certain changes on your website regularly without extra costs (depending on the agreement), or have regular backups of your data (depending on the agreement), or have a regular update for promotions to keep up with the competition. Prices range anywhere from 50 euro per year to over 1000 euro per year… depending on the amount of work required. Note that the second year you should be able to re-negotiate the support fee if the work required was much less than projected.
- GuestBook: Is a feature where your visitors may leave a message readable by the rest of the visitors. Note that if you have a guestbook, you should request anti-spam measures, and that the guestbook entry entered by the visitor is NOT displayed on your website automatically, because you may have even legal issues!! You need a system that you will read the guestbook entry and approve it before it goes online on your website. The guestbook requires a Database in your package.
- Google Maps: This is the online interactive map system that may show the visitor where exactly your business is located, and also other areas around. This is a very nice feature if your business requires it. It usually costs extra, depending on the number of points of interest you add. It can also be used with a database backend for dynamic content and large data.
- Flash: Flash is the technology that allows moving graphics / photos / text / animation on your website. It also usually allows user interaction for online photo albums for example, or menus with effects. The use of this technology usually costs more and has small disadvantages like large file sizes and difficulty to submit their text in search engines. But it can make a big difference in the looks and functionality of your website.
- Bandwith: Some hosting companies limit the bandwith of your connection, and charge extra if you overcome it. Bandwith (or traffic) is the amount of data that is transferred between your website and the visitor. It is measured by Mega Bytes and it depends on the design of your website and its graphics in combination with the number of visitors you have and the number of pages they view. Usually the limit is per month. For a small guesthouse website with light graphics for example, the average bandwith required is 300-500 mbytes / month. An online shop with about 100 products in average requires over 3.000 mbytes / month depending on the popularity of course! Ask what are the bandwith limits of your hosting package.
- Website Statistics: This is usually part of the hosting package and does not cost extra, unless other statistics software is required (different from the hosting software). Usually the free software that is included in the hosting package does not provide very accurate statistics. If you need reliable and accurate statistics, you need to upgrade.
Usually offers / agreements for the same website have different features that may confuse you, or require more knowledge. Above you found some definitions of the terms you will meet, I hope they will help you bring all the offers to a comparable state, where you can decide on value-for-money criteria.
You need to take more than one offer before you decide, and you need to take your time to make a final decision, this will be the window of your business to the world, it should reflect your ideas, style and products as accurately, responsibly and reliably as possible.
Trust companies that have a good presence, it is relatively easy even for you to build a website which allow for many amateurs to offer their work to you. But it is a Science to build something that will compete in the endless world of Internet…
© Copyright 2008 Filippou Emmanouil:
No part or the whole of the above article may be quoted or reproduced or copied or re-distributed or printed without the written authorisation of Filippou Emmanouil
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