Your First Web Site What Small Businesses Need to Know Before They Spend a Ton of Money on a Web Site by Joseph Ortez Smashwords Edition Copyright 2010 Joseph Ortez Smashwords Edition, License Notes Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support. Table of Contents Introduction Key Terms with Owning a Web Site Hosting vs Domain Owning FTP & Uploading SEO & Keywords Getting It Done Do It Yourself Microsoft Doteasy GoDaddy Software to Create HTML Pages Posting to Search Engines Out-Sourcing the Building of Your Web Site Finding a Pro Find a College Kid Blog Conclusion Introduction This ebook is to help you learn key things about getting a web site for your small business. This book will be especially helpful if you don't already have a web site because it is intended to introduce important terms and practices when creating a site. But if you already have a site, this ebook can guide you to improving your situation. The sole purpose of a web site is to get you on the internet advertising your services, products and contact information. It is not to show your artistic taste or entertain visitors with spinning graphics and colored text. After you are finished with this ebook, you will have a better understanding of the parts and costs of owning a web site. It can be easy and inexpensive or it can be difficult and very pricy. This ebook will help you decide on what road to take. The steps to getting your first web site posted to the internet goes like this: Decide on your URL. Find a hosting provider. Decide to create the pages yourself or hire someone else. Key Terms with Owning a Web Site First, I want to go over are key terms when dealing with a web site. People often confuse these terms and most web site developer don't clarify them until a lot of money is spent. Hosting vs Domain Owning If you own a domain such as yourdomainname.com, can you just create your site and post it? No. When you buy a domain, you buy that address that people type into a browser. Domains are often referred to as URLs. For example, www.cnn.com is a URL of the popular news network. In another example, Yahoo will charge you $9.95 a year just to "own" a URL. That does not include hosting the URL. Yahoo is famous for offering “deals” on URLs with prices as low as $1.99. But a URL is worthless without a hosting site. Hosting is where the files sit and get accessed by the public. Files sit on a server and this is where hosting companies make their money. After you buy your URL with Yahoo, they will charge you $9.95 per month to host your web site. So after a year, you will have paid $119.40 for the hosting fee, and $9.95 for the URL for a total of $129.35 for the year. The one hosting company I use is called Doteasy. I like Doteasy because they have an introductory hosting plan for $25 a year. That covers both the URL and hosting. This is a superb deal and I will talk more about this in the section 3. The bottom line is this: URLs are very inexpensive and hosting companies use them to draw you in. The real money is spent and earned on the hosting fee. FTP & Uploading For now, let's say you bought a URL, purchased hosting, and created a five page web site. You are now ready to move your web site files to the hosting server. This process is called uploading, or FTP-ing (and that stands for File Transfer Protocol, which is transferring the files from your PC to the hosting server). Most web site creation tools (called HTML editors) have this ability. You simply put in specific addresses, given to you by your hosting provider, and click upload. SEO & Keywords Keywords are extremely important. They are one of the deciding factors in whether potential customers find your web site. You want your web site's copy to have as many pre-determined key words as possible. The industry standard is that each page on your site should have around 300 words, with as many legitimate key words as you can get inside the text. By legitimate, I mean key words that are logically and appropriately places and not just a random stuffing. To ward off against unscrupulous key word behavior, many search engines just look for the key word in special spots on the page. For example, the Title tag and the Headline/H1 tag are vital spots on your page where you should place your key word. It is also known that a web site that has 300 pages, each containing those golden keywords, will rise dramatically in search engine results. However, it is quite a challenge to build a web site with 300 pages! Google offers a free service called the Keyword Tool to help you determine what the key words are for your industry or business and I give that address in the Index. Below is a picture of what that keyword tool looks like after searching ‘sourdough starter.’ There are businesses that offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but beware. SEOs will charge you a lot of money to re-write your web site message to contain the key words that are central to your business. Some web experts say SEOs offer a valid business, others say anyone (with a little knowledge) can produce the same results as a SEO. One thing is for sure, if you use an SEO, it will cost you anywhere from $500 to over a $1000. Getting It Done After buying the URL, you now have to create the actual pages that will be called your web site. I'm going to cover three options: doing it yourself; finding a college kid to create the pages, or finding a pro. Do It Yourself It is entirely possible for someone with no tech knowledge to create a web site. As a matter of fact, it is because of the technology that you can easily create your own site. All of the hosting companies make this possible by providing free templates to use. This is just like creating the pages in a themed photo album you purchased at Walmart. You simply supply the content (the info about your business) and the photo album supplies the color and graphics. From a visual standpoint, don't expect too much from these templates. They are almost always on the plain side, but they will get the job done, which is to get you on the internet advertising your services, products and contact information. And more importantly to those on a budget, doing it yourself is the most economical way to get a web site posted to the net. I find the three most economical hosting sites are Microsoft Office Live Small Business, Doteasy, and GoDaddy. Microsoft Microsoft has an entry level web package that cost $0 and includes hosting and page creation. That is an amazing deal, but there is a catch. The domain name will not be unique – you will be stuck with your sign in name. Also, you can only use their templates, meaning you cannot upload any HTML files. This deal is done through the Office Live Small Business. The URL is attached to the email name you pick when siging up for the service. In the example below, the URL is http://bleedsomewords.web.officelive.com/default.aspx. Notice that the ‘officelive.com’ is central to the address. This is what the interface to build the pages looks like (the “back of the house” portion you will use to create each page): This is what the default page looks like (before you start to configure it with the Microsoft templates) and what your customers will encounter: I don't see this as a hindrance. If you want to get on the web fast and cheap - and still look professional - this is a great way to go. Not only that, but you get 500 MB of space and that's more than enough to get you started. You will have to display a Microsoft logo at the bottom, but again, that is no big deal for what is being provided to you. Of course, you can always upgrade your account to the entry level and that means spending more money ($14/year), getting your own URL, and having more uploading abilities. As you become more familiar with web sites and hosting, upgrading is a nice option to have. This should also be considered if you are going to outsource your web site to a development professional. Note: Why do hosting companies give such great offers such as $0 dollar hosting? It is because a new site will not get as much traffic as an established site, thus not “eat up a lot of bandwidth” on their servers. If a new site only gets 30 visitors a month, that is no strain on their system. But if your web site starts to see a lot of traffic, the hosting provider will ask you to upgrade to a new hosting plan because of the volume of traffic hitting your site. Believe it or not, that is a good problem to have because that means people are viewing your site and message. Doteasy Doteasy has a great package that they call their $0 Basic Hosting plan. It is not free because they charge you $25 to acquire a URL and that is for one year, but this also comes with the hosting. This is still a good deal and you can upload your own files (which is important if you have someone else create your web pages). You get 100 MB of space and that is plenty. One downside to Doteasy is that they like to up-sell you on other services and products, which I find un-necessary to a person just starting out. If you sign up with Doteasy, it is okay to reject the other offers that they attach to each page of the sign up process. The Doteasy email component is lacking because it only gives you 5 MB of space (that will fill up quickly). It is best to use Gmail for emailing when having Doteasy as your hosting provider because Gmail has a superb spam filter. Just forward all your Doteasy email account (which will have your URL in it such as info@yourwebsite.com) to your Gmail account. GoDaddy The last one I will talk about is GoDaddy. They have 3 month, 12, 24, and 36 month plans. Obviously, the most cost effective is the 36 month plan and that breaks down to about $51 a year. You can upload your own files and even get fancy with special code (like PHP, which should only be tried by code professionals). Godaddy gives you 10 GB of space, which is a massive amount. I need to point out GoDaddy's customer service: it is excellent. After you sign up, a representative will call you to ask if you have any questions. That amazed me the first time it happened because most hosting companies want you to buy the service and go away. Software to Create HTML Pages If you are going to create your own pages (and not use a template from the hosting provider), you will need software called an HTML editor. The most common HTML editor is Adobe Dreamweaver. This is a very powerful tool and it is very advanced software. This is the tool of choice by professionals because it can write advanced code. I'm going to recommend you not buy or use Dreamweaver for two reasons. One, it is expensive, costing $399. You will waste valuable time trying to learn this complex software and you may even end up frustrated with the whole process. If you go with Adobe Dreamweaver, I highly recommend you taking a class at the local community college and getting a book to help you navigate its complexity. The second reason is that Adobe is famous for having the worst customer support of any software business. Web forums are filled with the ugly abuses that Adobe has put their customers through, and I personally speak from first-hand experience on what a nightmare it is to deal with Adobe support. The HTML editor I recommend is CoffeeCup HTML Editor. This software is affordably priced at $49. It actually does have a lot of advanced code capabilities, but I find I don't really use them. CoffeeCup software has excellent customer service. The first level is done through email and I find I usually get my problem resolved in that way. Another great thing about CoffeeCup software is that you can put your HTML editor on three computers. They figure allow you to put it on your desktop pc, laptop, and work computer. That is different because most software companies only allow the desktop pc and laptop. Posting to Search Engines After your site is complete, you will need to post it to search engines to be listed. This will help the search engines “bots” go out and “crawl” your site. The bot will review the code on each page and then file that information back at the search engines database. Post it to Bing, Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Those are the giants and all you really need to be concerned about. You will not come up in the listings right away, so don't go looking for your site as soon as you post it. It will take some time (give it 30 days) for those search engines to send out their bots and crawl your site. This is the reason it is important to seed your site with specific key words. Note: you may want to consider using a copy writer to construct your message. They will do more than just “whip up” some complementary words. They will research your industry and craft a message designed to show why you and your service/product are the superior choice. How much will you spend? Probably between $500 and $2000 for the entire site. But weigh that against how much each client will net you because of the copy. Out-Sourcing the Building of Your Web Site If you are not going to do it yourself, you will need to find someone else to put your web site together and post it online. There is one major downside to going with outsourcing your web site: the maintenance of your site. It is best to try to plan in advance for the changes or edits that you will need done to your site. This can be difficult, but at least try to come up with a few ideas. You can end up having to pay a ton of money for the smallest change or edit to your site. I'm going to talk about two ways of out-sourcing your web site: get a professional web site developer or find a local college kid. Finding a Pro If you find a professional web developer to do the job, you will need to understand that you will be spending a lot of money. Finding a pro to create your web site is no longer an economical solution to getting your business information on the net. You are going to pay between $500 and $2000 dollars. Those are conservative numbers. But what are you paying for? A lot of fancy code. The pro will sling a lot of fancy code terms at you like CSS, Java, XHTML, and ASP. Your head will swoon and you'll be writing a big check. Ask if Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will be included in the price tag or if you will have to pay extra. More than likely, the pro will bring the subject up first to upsell his services. Beware if you have to pay extra, it might be expensive. There is going to be a lot more discussion on the design of the site because web developers like to get "artsy". They will try to sell you fancy graphics and fancy colors. Where should you find a web developer? Without a doubt, look for one on the local chamber of commerce web site. If things go bad, you will have a place to vent your frustration. Usually, the web pro will have previous work posted on their site. They might have the terms and conditions there also. You will probably have to pay 50% upfront. One major issue with hiring a web pro - and I can't stress this enough - is the cost of updates to your web site. Ask the pro how much edits and updates to the site will cost three or six months after the site is posted. Try to get specific: how much for a simple text change on a specific page; how much to add a new page; how much to add one graphic. The answers will be revealing. Don't be surprised if a simple text change costs between $50 and $150 dollars. Don't be surprised if adding a new page costs between $100 and $300 dollars. The web pro is charging you for his expertise and not his time. That small change may only take him 15 minutes or two hours, but that is not factored in to the fee. Lastly when dealing with a pro, the code is going to be advanced so you can't go in there and make the change. You are now held hostage to that web site developer. Find a College Kid You can post an ad in the local college newspaper that you are looking for someone to build and post your web site. It doesn't matter if you look at the community college or the university; you will still get a couple of youngsters answering your advertisement. Another option is searching on Craigslist. Here’s an example of a person trying to improve their portfolio. The offer on this site was “Complete Web Sites Starting at $150.” That’s not a bad deal. But if you are going to use a college kid, here is the best way to go about it: ask to see the kids previous work tell the kid your budget, which will be anywhere from $100 to $200 (you pick the number). don't let the kid up sell you with bells and whistles (also known as Flash). You only need straight html code on your site. give him the colors you want (don't get too fancy here - try to get as close to your business cards as possible) tell the kid the exact number of pages you want (Home, About Us, Contact, Services, Products, etc) tell the kid you want the navigation buttons running down the left side of the pages or across the top (you only have two choices) give the kid the exact copy you want on each page give the kid the images you want on each page (you can get away with clip-art or buy some off of iStock.com & should cost around $18 for a set) work out a timeline on when the kid will show you the first draft, final draft, and posting to the hosting servers; always get copies of the files at every stage. work out a payment plan: 50% for the first draft and 50% for the posting; or 33% for the first draft, 33% for the 2nd draft, and 33% for posting the site. get copies of the final files burned to a cd That list may sound hard core but the last thing you want to do is hand some college kid $200 and never hear from them again. Frankly, the kid is going to use an existing template so he should have the first draft to you in one week. It should be posted the following week (but he might have a big paper due so work out a schedule; no more than a month from start to finish). If the kid does everything right and does a good job, write him a testimonial letter. He can pass that around and get more gigs. Blog This next section is about getting your URL and business in front of as many potential customers and clients as possible. Blogging is one of the best ways to do that. It seems like everyone writes a blog nowadays so don’t just write them off as trendy. Look at blogs from a different angle – from the angle of a business owner. If your hosting provider doesn't attach a blog to your site, go out and get one from Wordpress or Blogger. Blogs can be a real pain to manage, but they can help your web site get traffic. If you blog on how to properly add water to paint or how many times it's safe to give your dog a bath, a person looking for that topic can find your post in their search. Not sure what to blog? Go to the tags page of Wordpress.com and see what others are blogging about in your field of expertise. Find your subject, read a few, and write about the topic on your blog. One little known thing about blogging is that your posts don’t have to be long – 200 words is fine – but they need to be helpful. If you blog at regular intervals (once a week, once a month, etc) about your business, service or topic, you can link your web site to your blog, allowing a person to check out your business and services. One way to do this is to put your URL in your signature. Only blog useful information related to your business. If the person finds the information helpful, they will want to return and they will tell others to check out your blog or web site. Give away as much useful information as possible because this shows your expertise in the field. This is the number one success factor with blogs. People will keep coming back to your blog because they are learning insightful information. For an example of this, check out Seth Godin’s blog (just type that name in Google). Here’s my last $0.02 on blogs. If you don’t write one, then respond to blog entries done by other people in your line of business. Again, 100 to 200 words is enough. This is another way to give your expert knowledge and get your name out on the internet. After you respond with useful information, make sure you sign your name so people can find you on the web if they want more information. The dividend of this tactic will amaze you! Conclusion This ebook is intended to clear the mystery about getting a web site on the internet. Furthermore, it is filled with economical solutions for just about anybody. If you need more information or have questions, contact me at bleedsomewords@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to help you out. I love this subject and love to talk about it. I think the best way to figure it out is to just get started, so go out and buy a domain and get hosted and start creating. Good luck. ### About the author: Joseph Ortez loves technology. Because many of his friends just didn’t care about the details of putting up a web page, this ebook was written to share his knowledge. If you have any questions or tips, contact him at bleedsomewords@gmail.com. . Your First Web Site What Small Businesses Need to Know Before They Spend a Ton of Money on a Web Site by Joseph Ortez Smashwords Edition Copyright. potential customers find your web site. You want your web site& apos;s copy to have as many pre-determined key words as possible. The industry standard is that each page on your site should have around. to pay a ton of money for the smallest change or edit to your site. I'm going to talk about two ways of out-sourcing your web site: get a professional web site developer or find a local