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Three essential elements of a web site

Here at AceOfSpace.com, we get a call about once a month from someone who wants to put their business, product, service, church, or community group on the web. They’re hoping people will find their site and will be interested in what they’re offering. This article is a non-technical tutorial on the most basic elements of a web site, what you need and about how much it will cost. In addition, it will help you find some free resources on the internet that will help you get your web site up and running.

A web site consists of three basic essential elements and a few optional items. Each of these items has a cost associated with it. The three essential items are:

1. A Domain Name (www.mybusinesswebsite.com)

2. A Hosting Company (we recommend http://AceOfSpace.com)

3. A web site Design (we recommend http://ourwebpage.net)

The three optional items are:

1. Marketing

2. E-commerce

3. Special Functionality

The Three Essential Items That Every Website Must Have

Essential #1: The domain name

Most people understand what a domain name is but here’s a little bit of info you may not know; A web site doesn’t actually need a domain name to be seen on the internet.

Actually, all web sites consist of a numeric address called an IP number that looks like this (67.227.151.15). Without getting too technical, when a domain name is registered it is associated with this number. When you enter a domain name in your browser, the name is cross referenced with the IP number to find where it is actually located on the internet. The only thing registering a domain name does is create this cross reference. Without it, you would have to type in http://67.227.151.15.

Budget for domain name: $0 - $35 per year: The typical domain name costs about $20 per year. AceOfSpace.com offers them for free when you sign up for any of our accounts and pay annually. To our existing members, we provide additional domain names for $14.95.

Essential #2: The Hosting Company

Your web site needs a home and a hosting company is the place to put it. A web hosting company is like an electronic condominium, we provide the space on the internet for your web site and you furnish it. Hosting companies connect your site to the internet. Technically, they have some very sophisticated equipment and technology that makes this possible (that’s about as technical as I will get in this article so your eyes don’t glaze over). They also provide you with e-mail, special tools to manage your web site and quite possibly some tools to make your web site more functional such as a counter or a simple web site design tool that even novices can use. One of the most important features a hosting company can offer is technical support. AceOfSpace.com offers 24 hour e-mail support and a toll free phone number to existing clients or you can call 866-855-5445.

Budget for hosting: $0 - $50 per month: There are some services on the internet that will give you a place on the web for free (well, sort of). One such place is www.geocities.com. The drawback is that you’re going to end up with advertisements on your site. Some people hate these things popping up over their web site. To avoid this type of nuisance, if that is your desire, you may need to spend a little money. At AceOfSpace.com, our most basic package starts at $9.95 per month when paid annually and includes price of the domain name. This is a savings of about $80 per year.

Essential #3: Web Site Design

The design of your web site depends who designs it.

If you have a professional designer create your site, prices will typically start at $250 to $500 for a no frills web site. Often, after the first page is designed the rest of the pages don’t require very much more design. Therefore, the biggest expense is the first page. So, if you pay $500 for a web site, it’s likely that the first page might cost $400 and the rest are more likely to be $25 each. It is important to know what you want in the web site (and a designer can help you with this) and to know how much it will all cost. Preferably in writing. web site prices can escalate very quickly when you start adding more functionality such as guest books, mailing lists, statistics packages, animation, sound etc.

One thing I always suggest is that you start out small. You can have huge dreams for the most spectacular web site in the world. Set aside a budget over time to develop and craft the site. Trust me, your first site will seldom be your final design and changing it midstream is a lot less expensive than changing it after the fact.

I would suggest that if you want professional results, that you will need to hire a pro or purchase some professional web design software which will run you anywhere form $150 to $400 for the web site design software. Our top pick is Adobe Dreamweaver. You may also need a scanner, digital camera, and some software used to edit pictures. We recommend Adobe Photoshop followed closely by Corel Paint.

There are many tools that you can use to design a website. If you're a beginner with a small budget and you want to learn web site design, then Kompozer is a great WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) tool for designing web sites. You can download Kompozer from http://kompozer.net

If your web site requires more complexity, you should probably use a professional level website design tool such as Adobe Dreamweaver from http://Adobe.com . Dreamweaver is the industry standard for web site design. It's what we use and what we recommend for professional level web sites.

The easiest alternative to learning web site design is to hire a designer. If you're looking for a referral of a designer, we'd be more than happy to help. Many of our clients are web designers and we'd be happy to make some recommendations if you need help.

Design by Throwing a rock. On thing I often tell my clients who are looking for a designer is to go out and throw a rock. It’s very likely that if you hit someone, they’ll be a web designer or at least know one. Web design is being taught in high schools and colleges across the country. Finding one should not be hard. If you want help, contact the support department and they’ll be happy to help.

Optional Items That Every Website Can Have

1.) Marketing:

There is nothing more important to the survival of most web sites than getting found. Marketing your web site involves a lot of things but the basics include putting your domain name on your business card, letterhead, fliers and advertisements as well as announcing it on the internet. The most likely way for people to find your web site on the internet is going to be through search engines. In short, registering your site with search engines enables them to add your site to their database. You can spend a lot of time registering your site with search engines and there’s a lot to learn about this area.

2.) E-commerce

The process of selling a product of service on the net often times involves e-commerce. Most e-commerce sites take credit cards. Due to security reasons there is a lot of technical expertise required to keep your clients information safe. In an effort to shorten the learning curve, we’ve put together an e-commerce add-on that enables our clients to get their own merchant account (the ability to take credit cards) and have connected that with a prebuilt storefront. Just add products. If you’re really on a budget, you might consider a service like Paypal which will take the credit card info from your clients, charge the card and deposit the money into your checking account (minus some rather hefty fees).

3.) Special Functions

Special functions are the goodies that make web sites more robust and interesting. Your web site will be perfectly fine without such things as calendars, forms, forums, guest books, animation, databases and other magic. Still, some people have a real need for such tools. The software for many of these items are available on the web for free. “So, why doesn’t everyone have them?” you ask. Because free doesn’t always mean easy. The barrier to entry on special functions is often the price of hiring someone to install the software or learning how to install the software yourself.

Conclusion

That raps up my web site essentials 101 tutorial. There is obviously some technical issues that need to get ironed out before you can jump on the highway. A good designer or hosting company will be happy to smooth out the potholes for your.

If you have questions and want a better understanding of how to proceed or are looking for help in design, hosting, marketing or whatever, we’d be happy to help. Feel free to write to us or call 866-855-5445.

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