It appears that everyone is online these days with most businesses having some sort of web presence. So what does it involve? How easy is it to design a website? What about hosting? How do I advertise my site online? The answer is very easy if you know what you are doing!

This rough guide should help you avoid the pitfalls and help you steer clear of the cowboys. As this is only a rough guide, I have skipped the basics assuming that everybody knows what processes are involved. That is, buy a domain, design a website, find a hosting company and attract people to the site.

Click Here		Domain registration
Click Here		Web Design
Click Here		Hosting
Click Here		Traffic/Hits

Domain registration:

Every business should have a domain name. It gives the site a professional polish and makes www.mycompany.co.uk easier to find than www.myISP.co.uk/~mycompany. Domain registration is relatively cheap. Prices range from £5 for a .co.uk to £18 for a .com. My advice is to shop around and register the domain yourself. However, make sure you can transfer the domain without penalty. Quite a few web designers are still charging between £50 to £100 to register a domain.

Sites like www.freeparking.co.uk, www.directnic.com, www.godaddy.com and www.easily.co.uk are your best bet. They provide free administration tools and there is no charge if you need to change servers (transfer to another host).

Beware of sites that offer domains at ridiculously low prices – they provide you with very little control and will charge £25 - £50 to transfer the domain. Transferability is important but this can only be done if you have full control. If your hosting company provides a poor, below average service you should be able to cancel your contract, transfer your domain and be up and running between 48 to 72 hours.

Here you have two options, do it yourself or enlist the services of web designer. If you are competent at using Word for Windows then you will probably be able to design a basic site. Windows 98 comes with a cut-down version of FrontPage called FrontPage Express. The learning curve is low and the program is extremely user friendly.

If you decide to use a professional web designer make sure to shop around – good web designers are ten a penny. Some charge per page, others for the whole project. A basic site (around three to four pages) shouldn’t cost more than £150. Avoid paying upfront (bar a small deposit), so if the designer does a bad job you are not left with a shoddy web site. If you have a bit more to spend, £500 should get you a professional looking site.

Yet again this is another competitive sector but many business are still paying over the odds. With regards to hosting you need to ask yourself the following questions:

How much space do you need? Most websites are less than a megabyte. What’s the point of having 200MB if you will never use it?

What kind of technical support will you need? Will the hosting company be accessible, helpful and understanding? Some hosting companies don’t even supply a telephone number!

Does your site use e-mail forms, shopping carts or other web activities? If so, you need a company that can provide support to run scripts.

From our experience most small to medium businesses only require basic hosting, which I have detailed below:

• At least 10MB of webspace – most companies give more knowing that it will never be used!
• 24 HR FTP Access – enabling you to update your site by using a “drag ‘n’ drop" program like WS FTP
• CGI Bin – The Common Gateway Interface enables you or your web designer to run scripts such as counters, e-mail forms and shopping carts.
• POP3 e-mail accounts and e-mail forwarding so you can read your e-mail in a application like Outlook
• Autoresponders – basically automated replies
• Database support
• Frontpage extensions
• Regular backups

Price? Expect to pay between £40 - £80 per annum for this sort of setup. There are more expensive hosting facilities for 24hr technical support and guaranteed site up time but you will get the best deals from small business like ourselves who act as resellers. However, note that technical support at 2am in the morning won’t be available!

This is where most webmasters fail. They set up a website and expect instant traffic. I made the same mistake myself! If people aren’t aware of your site no one will ever visit it.

However there are various methods of drawing traffic to your site. The most cost effective being search engine registration, as it is the leading means for a web site to be accessed. However, this depends on your target market. Search engine placement may be a waste of time for some businesses.

If you decide to submit to the search engines, you need to decide how you are going to go about it.

1. The first is to submit to the search engine and directories manually, one by one; typing in the information they require. This can be an arduous task, but manual submissions do yield the best results.

2. The second is to use some sort of automated software, typing in all your details once and then letting the software feed that to the search engines and directories. Although this is less time consuming, it does give the effect of bombarding the search engines and directories, making it a hit and miss affair. They may also consider the use of such software as spamming, banning your website altogether. As automated software can do more harm that good, it is best to avoid it.

3. The third option could be considered the best of both worlds. Instead of tying up your web designers’ time and resources, why not outsource the whole operation? Search engine specialists will optimise your website, make sure your site is “search engine friendly” and will manually submit your web site for you but the more you may want them to do, the more it will cost. In-house manual submissions may be cheaper (depending on the rate of pay), but will you get the result you need? Do a search for “search engine placements”, the companies that can get themselves at the top can also get you at the top. Check out the value for money and any hidden extras such as set-up fees.

There are other forms of Internet marketing that can be used to promote your site:

Banner placements are another way of promoting your site. First of all you’ll need to design and create a banner. Try to keep the file size below 10KB but include the relevant information about your site such as the web address. Briefly explain what you are about and why the reader should go there by using bullet points. There are websites that can create banners for you using one of their templates such as www.animations.com.

Once you’ve got your banner made, you’ll need some sites to put it on. Why not ask your contacts for a link exchange? For wider coverage you could try UK Banners for banner exchanges.

If you don’t want create a banner, you can still exchange links. Why not subscribe to a reciprocal links service that way it will complement any search engine marketing that you are also doing.

Newsgroups are fantastic at improving your reputation on the Internet and getting a higher rate of sales from your web site. Newsgroups work like a chat room but with open letters posted via e-mail to a newsgroup server. An advantage of using newsgroups to market your wares is that these people have already expressed an interest by subscribing to that particular area. A disadvantage is that you cannot advertise your site directly as it will be viewed very dimly by the other members. Instead you will have to spend a lot of time and effort to become accepted as part of the group. To expedite this, you should make daily contributions to the group by either submitting new messages or replying to existing messages. Leave a signature at the end of each message with your name and website address. By being a regular participant to the group you will little by little gain the others respect as an expert in that area. You can then add to your signature “There’s a new line of products available visit my site for more details.” and expect a positive response.

And that’s it! Once you’ve set up shop, all you’ll need to do is keep your site maintained. However you decide to set up and advertise your site, I wish you all the best in your venture. - Mark Esho

For further advice and information call 0700 590 5145 – all advice is free and there is no obligation to use our services. Article by Mark Esho of Easy Internet Service (also trading as Rank4U – The search engine specialists) © Mark Esho