Creating Your own Web Site
February 25, 2004
So you've heard about how the web can take your business to the next level; now it's time to take advantage of the web's massive space and convenience to maximize your potential. The following are the basic steps towards creating a web presence.
1. Consider the Purpose and Audience for your Web Site
If you're a business and you want to go online, you'll want visitors to know who you are, what you do, and how they can contact you. What images should be on your web page and what do they contribute? What information should be included on the site and how should it be arranged? These are a few questions you'll need to consider at the beginning.
2. Obtain storage space and domain name.
Microsoft.com. Ebay.com. McDonalds.com. All of these familiar web addresses have one thing in common — they all had to find a place for the web site to live. A web host provides the required server space to make your site available on the Internet. Once you have secured a web host, you'll need to register a domain name where visitors can access your page. This is typically the name of your organization, (i.e. www.mycompany.com), or any other name that is appropriate for your needs. Domain names can be registered at an online registrar, such as register.com, verisign.com, or godaddy.com.
3. Determine a Maintenance Plan
There's nothing worse than “stale websites“ that never update or change their content. All too often, web sites are created with no clear maintenance plan solidified. Be sure to have a plan for regular updates and find someone that is qualified to make those updates.
4. Create story boards and a site map
Although computers are great at creating graphics and manipulating text, the preliminary work is still best done by hand. After making a few rough sketches of how you want the site to look, create a site map (similar to a family tree) that will help you organize your site in an intuitive way.
5. Prepare a sample web site
Now that you have an idea of how your site will look, you can begin to transfer your ideas to the computer. At this point you're ready to create any graphics or other embellishments that will appear on the site. These images can be placed on the main page in addition to the underlying content pages. Referring to your site map, create links between the pages to make your website "live." As you continue with your design you'll be able to make changes that will improve the overall look and feel of the site.
6. Advertise your site.
Your site is online, but how does someone find it? Internet search engines such as Yahoo and Google have robots that regularly sort through all of the web sites on the internet. To make your web site more visible to these search engines, consult a web developer to help you optimize your site. Several companies offer a service that will submit your web address to dozens of search engines. Using ‘old-fashioned’ techniques such as radio or TV is also a great way to make your web site known to the masses.
To learn more about getting started with your own web site, or improving your existing one, please contact us for more information. Be sure to inquire about our “free usability analysis” of your current website.
