Questions & Answers
1- What are the components to getting a website up and running?
Design & Development: The architecture of the site needs to be built. An appropriate look and feel must be designed. The copy needs to be written and any additional tools such as online forms, shopping carts and audio clips need to be added.
Hosting: Just as you might rent office space, your Web site needs to be hosted somewhere readily available.
Upkeep: Once live, a good site continues to post fresh material, giving people a reason to return.
2- How do I attract more traffic to my site?
Search engines, links, advertising and more. A good developer will make your site search engine friendly and submit your site to search engines and directories on your behalf. You should create reciprocal links with complementary sites. Consider advertising on specific search engines, email newsletters, and traditional media. Put your url (Web site address) on your business cards, stationery, voice mail, and so on. Send out free email newsletters. Add a Recommend This Site to a Friend form on your Web site. Continually update and improve on your site. Reviewing your site's traffic reports can alert you to what visitors are finding interesting and what they're ignoring.
3- What are the steps to creating a web site?
In its simplest form, there are 4 basic steps.
It is first necessary to have a web site address, also known as a URL (universal resource locator) or domain. Typically, the www.yourwebsitename.com format is used. Other extensions are used for different types organizations: .org, .edu, .gov, .info & .biz are a few of the more common ones. It is not difficult to register a URL, but often many names are already in use and you may not be able to get your first choice.
The next step is to find a web hosting service. Basically, the web host is a computer (server) that holds your website information. When another person attempts to access your site by entering your domain name (URL) into their web browser, your web site information is transferred to them from the serve. Compare our hosting packages.
The third step is to design and program your web site in a way that web browsers can interpret. Browsers read a computer language known as HTML (hypertext markup language), others such as DHTML, XML, javascript, php, asp and more. Not all browsers interpret computer languages in the same way. Netscape Navigator®, Internet Explorer®, Mozilla Firefox and other browsers all understand different dialects of the same language. Therefore, the same web page looks differently depending upon which browser is used. Creating web sites that are compatible with multiple browsers is important, so visitors see what you have intended for them.
Finally, the web site must be published or uploaded. This is the process of transferring the website from a local computer to the web host computer.
4- How do I get more people to find and visit my web site?
Firstly and most important, know your audience and consider their needs. Determine which other web sites they may already be visiting. Contact those web administrators and set up a reciprocal link exchange. This is mutually beneficial, inexpensive and easy.
5- What are some possible web sites that I might use as models?
6- What are you going to do to make visitors linger at your site?
The average website visit is 68 seconds.
7- How are you going to get people to come back to your site?
On average, four out of five website visitors will never come to a website. To get people to come back you need to do several things:
Have sufficient quantity and quality of content, that the visitor will bookmark your site to come back for more, continually add to and change the content to make visitors want to come back, and provide special offers to your subscribers that will encourage them to revisit your website.
***What to avoid: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html
Peace :)