7 Basic Things You Need To Know Before Building A Website

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7 Things You Need To Know Before Building A Website



1. You Need Your Own Domain Name:

A domain name is an internet address that is controlled by you. It uniquely identifies your business on the internet. ( ie YOURNAME.COM )

A domain name about the cheapest investment you'll ever make for your business. The two main benefits are:

· It gives your business a professional image.

· You promote YOUR business every time you give out your email or website address.

(After all, why give free publicity to some other company (ie Yahoo, AOL, or Bigpond) if you use their name in your email address)

Domain Names are cheap. You can get an American .com domain from around $10 per year.
There are lots of domain name registrars and resellers to choose from. A search on Google, or a recommendation from a friend should help you find one. But beware- prices vary a lot, and some registrars will charge you a lot more than the prices that I have mentioned.
I recommend www.namecheap.com

2. How To Choose A Domain Name
Try to find a name that is associated with your business, and is short and easy to remember. The name should pass the "Radio Test" - If you heard it on the radio, you should be able to go to the website without any messy instructions about hyphens, underscores, or numbers.

Examples of good domain names:
abc.com.au, virginblue.com.au

Examples of poor domain names:
karz-4-u.com, village_beauty_shoppe.com.au
johnsmitharchitecturalandplanningconsultants.com

In the US, it's very difficult to get a good domain name unless you are creative and come up with a catchy word that does not exist, or string together 2 or 3 words.

3. What Type of Domain Name Is Best?
For Australian businesses, your first choice should be .com.au and then the American issued .com version (if it is available.) You can try .net, .org, .info, or others if your preferred .com name is not available.

Registration rules vary. Anyone can register an American .com domain name, but you need to be a registered Australian business to register an Australian .com.au name.


4. Your Website.
First, think about what you want your website to do. Start off simply - you can always expand. A site can have one - or thousands of pages. You should be able to have a basic 5 page site built for you by a web developer for well under a thousand dollars if you provide the content.

Or you can make your own website - but be prepared to spend many hours learning how to do it.
There are many programs you can use, including Dreamweaver, which is pretty well the industry standard.
Free Website builders are available from Kompozer and Coffee Cup - Free Version.
Please, please avoid using Microsoft products like Word, Publisher, or Frontpage to create your website.
These products insert an amazing amount of garbage code into their HTML code and makes them slow loading, and it's almost impossible to find an error if something is not working properly.

A great alternative to building your own website (or paying a designer) is to use Wordpress or Joomla. These are database driven, and are very popular.
I recommend Wordpress to just about everyone because it is so versatile.

These programs can be automatically installed using Fantastico, which is available on most web hosting accounts. Literally thousands of free templates and features are available with either of these programs, and you should be able to get them operational very quickly.

However, be aware that the Wordpress Fantastico install only installs the files and database, and leaves you with a very basic website that still needs a lot of work if you want to it to be useful for search engine use.

5. Web Hosting.
Before your website can be seen on the internet, you must copy its files onto a server: a special type of computer operated by a web host. Common web hosting options are:
Free Web Hosting - You get free webspace in exchange for displaying banners and pop up advertisements on your site.
(A very unprofessional look for a business!)

ISP Hosting - The company who supplies your internet connection often gives you some free web space. The facilities are quite limited, but option may be suitable when you first go on to the internet.

Paid Hosting - You'll find that your web host will become an important business partner. A good one will make your online activities a pleasure. A bad one will make them a nightmare. A bit of research will pay off handsomely.

* Contact some web hosts and ask them some questions.
* Talk to your friends - get their recommendations.
* Hostgator is the web host of choice for many satisfied website owners.

6. Email
Your web host will normally handle your email traffic as well as storing your website. The quality and costs of junk email (SPAM) and virus filtering services can vary greatly between web hosts.

7. Connecting Everything Together
Connecting all the bits of a website is like doing a jigsaw puzzle.
Before you can use your domain name, it has to be connected to your web host. Your web host will set up your hosting and email account on their systems, and give you access codes. They will also give you 2 or more special connection addresses (called nameservers).

These addresses have to be attached to your domain name at your domain registrar's website. (a process called "delegation" ). It can take up to 48 hours for everything to become operational.

You then have to load your website onto your web hosting account, and it will be visible when someone types your domain name into their browser.

Get these basics right, and you'll have a strong foundation for anything you want to do on the internet.

Regards,
Eric Graudins
#basic #building #things #website
  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Good post... although I must add my pet peeve: example.com
    example.com - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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    • Profile picture of the author knowing25
      Before everythings is done the first things if we want to get success with your website is finding the niche market than you can start build website.
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  • Profile picture of the author lorenfisher
    why not just link to your full squidoo article with the same content?
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    • Profile picture of the author Eric Graudins
      Originally Posted by lorenfisher

      you just plagarized someone elses squidoo article on website advice, editing it ever so slightly down from 9 things you must know down to 7
      Sorry, you're wrong.
      I wrote this article myself.
      Please provide the link to the Squidoo article that you claim I have plagiarized.

      Regards,
      Eric G.

      EDIT:
      I see that my accuser has modified their original post.

      Crikey. Being accused of plagiarising my own article. That's certainly a first!
      Yes, yer honor, after checking, I confess that this post is very similar to an article I published on Squidoo over 3 years ago.
      And in me defence I pleads that I haven't used Squidoo for probably a couple of years, and had forgotten all about the article there.
      I'm really, really old you see. And the brain cells aren't as sharp as they used to be.
      And even if I had remembered, I probably wouldn't have posted a link to it, because I wouldn't want to inflict all of those advertisements on the sensitive eyes of the Warriors.

      So humbly I submit myself to whatever punishment this forum deems appropriate for this sin.
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      The biggest benefit of the internet is that almost everything can be automated.
      The biggest curse of the internet is that almost everything can be automated.



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      • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
        Originally Posted by Eric Graudins View Post

        Sorry, you're wrong.
        I wrote this article myself.
        Please provide the link to the Squidoo article that you claim I have plagiarized.

        Regards,
        Eric G.
        My friend , I am positive you didn't steal anyone's article .

        Not so sure someone has not stolen yours .

        Would have been good policy not to assume the worst of a long time warrior until they had at least 10 post lol
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Nice primer for newbies, Eric. Good job.
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    Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

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  • Profile picture of the author Samuel12
    Nice thread. Thanks for sharing such a nice information with in such a simple way. SEO Hosting allows you to host multiple domains, all from one control panel (WHM) and assign unique c-class ip's to each domain for extra SEO benefits.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Eric, I once published an article here, a help article, that I'd also published on my own website. One person had a cow, claiming it was advertising even though I didn't link to my site in the article and didn't mention my site in the article. It was a stand alone piece that was getting a lot of thank you button clicks and nice comments until it devolved into an attack, at which point it was deleted.

    There was a thread yesterday where some guy with about 40 posts was telling Paul Myers to move on to another thread if he didn't like what was being posted! You just never know around here. I swear some folks check their brain at the door when they log in.
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    Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

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    • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
      What about someone running Paul off like that. They should have known how easy he scares :-)

      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      Eric, I once published an article here, a help article, that I'd also published on my own website. One person had a cow, claiming it was advertising even though I didn't link to my site in the article and didn't mention my site in the article. It was a stand alone piece that was getting a lot of thank you button clicks and nice comments until it devolved into an attack, at which point it was deleted.

      There was a thread yesterday where some guy with about 40 posts was telling Paul Myers to move on to another thread if he didn't like what was being posted! You just never know around here. I swear some folks check their brain at the door when they log in.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
        Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips View Post

        What about someone running Paul off like that. They should have known how easy he scares :-)
        Oh yeah, Paul is so easily intimidated.

        Actually Paul did give the guy a break, but not everyone else did.
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        Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

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  • Profile picture of the author Eric Graudins
    Thanks Dennis.
    I've heard that some pretty strange things happen here now.

    Anyway, I suppose that Paul would have just moved on and stopped annoying that guy ?

    cheers,
    Eric G.
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    The biggest benefit of the internet is that almost everything can be automated.
    The biggest curse of the internet is that almost everything can be automated.



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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Worner
    Hey Eric,

    I'd like to make an addition if I may regarding installing wordpress, you would be better off installing it manually for security reasons to prevent SQL injection attacks as fantastico uses the standard "wp_" table prefix and it is really annoying having to go through and fix this by backing everything and going into MyPhP and renaming everything.


    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author vetzkov
    Nice post with good ideas inside. Allow me to add :

    8. Have a Backlinks building strategy

    Tsvetan
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      nevermind....
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      "May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"

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  • Profile picture of the author simbat
    Great Post, Thank You , But in these days Dynamic Pages and Landing Pages are so popular and profitable , do you still prefer doing the classic webbing
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  • Profile picture of the author Don Schenk
    Originally Posted by Eric Graudins View Post


    7 Things You Need To Know Before Building A Website


    Try to find a name that is associated with your business, and is short and easy to remember. The name should pass the "Radio Test" - If you heard it on the radio, you should be able to go to the website without any messy instructions about hyphens, underscores, or numbers.
    Ahh, and easy to spell too. My name is not always easy for people here in the US. They keep trying to spell it the way it sounds: shank, then they can't find me. If I had a dollar for every customer who said, "I can't find you in the phone book," I would be wealthy.

    Another site I own has the name "Cincinnati" in it. The only people who can spell "Cincinnati" are ones who have lived here. Dummy me!

    Good post Eric.

    :-Don
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  • Profile picture of the author pyles
    Thanks for sharing Eric!
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  • Profile picture of the author jazbo
    Step one -research a niche, do NOT jump into a frenzy of choosing domains and building a site as step one!

    That should really be in there, even if its as a bit of advice at the end.
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