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The Cost Of A Web Site
Just starting out, you can start with a simple informational site, which is all most need initially, and build up to a fuller site (e-commerce and/or interactive) when you can afford it.
Your goal should be to get an online presence. Remember, most surfers are looking for information. Dancing cartoons, streaming video and other interactive features are, in the great majority of cases, unnecessary.
Naming Your Site: Selecting and Registering a Domain Name
The first step in getting a web site is to select and register your domain name. Even if you can't afford a web site right now, it is a good idea to register your name. This can be done for under $10.00 a year (eg, namecheap.com).
Choosing a Web Designer / Web Design Company
Choosing a web designer will depend greatly onthe type of site you are having built. Prices are all over the place. Many designers/firms have a dollar minimum that you must spend in order to work with them.
Ball park figure: If you are having a simple informational site built, I suggest spending no more than $500. Learn how to update it yourself to save ongoing maintenance charges.
An even cheaper option is to do it yourself. There is plenty of easy-to-learn software (eg, FrontPage) that make it easy to build a site. Also, many companies (Yahoo, Microsoft BCentral, AOL, etc.) have templates that make it simple to drag and drop text and create a site. Rates begin at around $19.95/month.
Web Hosting Costs
Fees range from free to hundreds of dollars per month. As a guideline, the average cost for hosting a personal web site is $10-$25/month. Business sites with higher traffic are in the $45-$75/month range.
There are excellent deals to be found on web hosting (eg, peoplehost.com), so shop around. Usually, if you prepay for a year or more, you will be given a discount. I recommend this because once you get a site, it is highly unlikely that you will ever discontinue it, unless you change careers altogether.
About Free Web Hosting Companies
I do not advise the use of free web hosting companies. This is your professional online presence and you get what you pay for. More often than not, free host companies have limitations such as space, email specifications, domain name use, et cetera, that won't allow you to operate as a professional site.
How Much Should You Pay A Content Developer
This depends so heavily on the type of content your site requires that it's almost impossible to answer. Freelance writer and editor rates range from a low of $25 an hour up to $250 an hour, or more. Most are in the $50 to $100 per hour range. Shop around.
As an editorial professional, I'm assuming that you will provide your own content. However if you have neither the time, desire, or skill, you will definitely want to spend the money for a professional.
Finally Tally
If you choose to go with a web designer and are simply having a 2-3 page informational site built, pay no more than $500. This is assuming that you write your own content and do not have custom work done, such as logo/graphic design.
Cheapest Option: Do it yourself. A template site, or buying a software (eg, FrontPage) and doing it yourself, with hosting fees should top out at about $300/year.
The beauty of buying software and doing it yourself is that after you purchase the software, you only have to incur the hosting and domain name fees on a yearly basis. These can be under $50/year - making your site really economical as time passes.
See you online!
Parts of this article were excerpted from How to Get Your Small Biz on the Web Quickly & Affordably, available for immediate download.
About The Author
May be reprinted with inclusion of the following: Yuwanda Black is an entrepreneur, author, speaker and syndicated small business columnist whose focus is controlling your destiny through small business ownership. Her most recent e-books, How to Really Make a Living as an Editorial Freelancer and Advice from Successful Freelancers: How They Built Their Careers & How You Can Too! are available for immediate download at http://www.InkwellEditorial.com/bizguides.html Visit her on the web at http://www.EntrepreDoer.biz for a complete list of how-to, small business books and articles.
Build a Strong Foundation for Creating Your First Online Identity ? Notes for Beginners
If you are looking for creating your online presence you should follow some of the basic requirements so that your new website will have a strong foundation. Today internet is a growing media which can provide you maximum results, which no other media can do for you. If you think on right direction and take your action step by step, it is almost certain that your site will have a strong online presence and reach to the maximum of you potential clients.
Be Creative Before You Purchase Or Create A Website
Before you jump into spending coutnless hours on designing and publishing your website, or spending hundreds on having it done by anyone else you should plan out your full design (or structure). This is very important so that when it comes time to do this long-lasting project you will be well prepared.
Seven Daft Things Not To Do To Your Website
1. Splash pages
Email Addresses in Web Pages
You want to give your site's visitors a way to contact you by email but don't want your emali address to be abused. Here are a few ways to protect your email address when building your website.
7 Questions to Understand Your Customer Better
Customer service questionnaires can help your clients better understand their requirements. Your clients can benefit by:
Get to Know People through Websites
Web sites are not just places to sell things; they are a medium where people can get insight into other people's lives. Take the musician Xavier Rudd for example. I recently saw this guy play at a concert and had never previously heard his music. He was really cool, literally blowing me away with his many skills, beautiful music, positive energy, and humble attitude. So being thus affected, I decided to check out if he had a website on the Internet. After finding his site (http://www.xavierrudd.com/) I automatically got to become more acquainted with the man, not as a fan looking up to a so-called 'star', but as a human being receiving real insight into the workings of another individual in our global human community.
What is SQL?
What is SQL? SQL stands for Structured Query Language and is the lingua franca in the database world. SQL is a standard that is used by all database vendors and programmers to define, extract and access the information that is stored in databases. SQL began life as an IBM creation but was standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as ANSI/ISO SQL in 1988. Since then ANSI/ISO SQL standard continued to evolve. The ANSI-SQL group has since published three standards over the years:
Writing Effective ALT Text For Images
Anyone who knows anything about web accessibility knows that images need alternative, or ALT, text assigned to them. This is because screen readers can't understand images, but rather read aloud the alternative text assigned to them. In Internet Explorer we can see this ALT text, simply by mousing over the image and looking at the yellow tooltip that appears. Other browsers (correctly) don't do this. The HTML for inserting ALT text is:
The Topic Of Your Website
The first thing you will have to deal building your website has nothing to do with the web design itself, it's me related to content writing but it must be defined and will effect the rest of your actions. So first of all you need to decide what the topic of your future website is. Topic is very closely connected to another web design issue: keywords. The keywords you select will depend upon the topic you have chosen. When thinking about website topic ask yourself a few questions: What is the goal of the site you are making? What are you trying to achieve with your site. Specify a goal, preferably in one short sentence.
Build or Buy a CMS?
However, careful analyses often reveals dangerous pitfalls and serious short comings with many custom built content management systems.
7 Tips to Make Your Order Page Work Harder
So your prospect, Mary, is sitting at the computer reading your compelling sales letter. She's convinced she needs your product. So she clicks on the order link, with her credit card next to the mouse. She's taken to the order page. What she sees next makes her change her mind and click away. Can you prevent bail out at the crucial moment of ordering? You betcha!
What YOU Should Know Before Getting A Web Site!
Everyday thousands of new businesses make the leap and take their business on line, what about yours? If you haven't already, I'll bet you have thought about it and wondered how much more business you could be doing if you just went on line?and right about then, you wonder what it would take to get your business on line?
Is Your Website Doomed for Failure Before Youve Built It?
One of the things that many people overlook when building a new website is keywords. I have to admit, I did exactly the same thing myself when I started out. You can build the flashiest, most professional looking website, with lots of great content, but if you don't think about keywords first your website is most likely to be doomed for failure - at least as far as search engines are concerned.
How To Get Your Customers To Trust Your Website
Research reveals three important facts:
How To Evaluate Your Web Sites Performance
Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your web site goals.
Now You Have a Web Site - Have You Ever Heard of Accessibility?
An accessible Web site is easily approached, easily understood, and useable for all. There are accessibility standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium, which all sites should adhere to as much as possible.
Beware the Software Siren
I've heard several prominent web marketers mention in their classes and public forums how easy it is to create your own software. Why, all you have to do is run over to Elance.com or RentACoder.com and have some poor shmoe from Outer Slobvia whip out what you want. And all for the price of a few trips to Starbucks.
5 Tips For A Better Website
Having an eye catching website is great, but are you optimizing your website to allow the best performance possible? I receive several emails a day from clients asking how they can get more hits to their websites, what can be done to increase sales, and how to prepare their sites for search engines. There are very simple things that can be done to help your website perform its best.
Beyond Web Usability: Web Credibility
If you've been developing websites on Mars for the past few years then you'll be forgiven for not knowing about web usability. You'll still be creating splash intro pages, having pages with massive download times and using more images than you can shake a stick at. Well, back in Earth these days have long gone and today web usability rules the web development world. For those of you who have been on Mars please read some of the things that Jakob Nielson has to say at http://www.useit.com/alertbox and try to catch up.
Why You Need a Website
You hear a great deal about the Internet these days -- that it's revolutionised communication ... commerce ... education ... Life-As-We-Know-It ...