Domain Names
Your domain name is the internet "address" that people use to find your
website. When thinking of a domain name for your business, try to make it
represent your business or product and also, make it easy for people to
remember. It's best to have a "one word", all lower case name, avoiding
the use of hyphens and other non-alphabetical characters that rolls off the
tongue easily. The full domain name will be the name you came
up with and an appropriate extension, like surfdiveskate.com.au.
I've heard of the term "URL", is it different than a Domain Name or
Web Address?
Your domain name is a unique identity that is only allowed to be used by
the person or entity to whom it is registered and is made up of a unique name
and an extension, like emjaytech.com.au. The acronym URL stands for
"Universal Resource Locator" and is the "www." followed by the domain name like
www.emjaytech.com.au . Just to make things a little more confusing, the
full address to a website includes a bit at the front to say what kind of
protocol the site is interpreted by such as "http://" (which in this case
stands for 'hypertext transfer protocol') So a full web address would look
like http://www.emjaytech.com.au
Do I need to have a particular extension like .com or .com.au or
anything else?
For business the .com is king of domain names and is a global domain that
anyone around the world can register. Domain names that apply to a
particular country have their own set of rules and are usually only available
to residents of that country. To apply for a .com.au you need to be
registered as a business in Australia and your domain names should be closely
related to your business name or product/service. Other extensions such
as .org and .org.au follow similar guidelines.
Can I register more than one domain name?
Yes. As a matter of fact, from a business perspective it would
probably be advantageous to have multiple domain names so that competing
businesses don't try to "copy cat" your site and distract visitors to
themselves rather than you. Most Australian businesses register the .com
and the .com.au of the same name for this reason. You can set each domain
name registered to you, to be pointing to the same website or have them
"parked" just so that no-one else can use it.
How do I go about getting a Domain Name registered?
Domain names need to be registered with approved registrars such as
Netregistry or Melbourne IT etc. ETS can help you decide on the right
domain name and get it registered for you so you don't have to worry about a
thing. Domain names are usually registered on a yearly or bi-yearly basis
and we usually set this up for you as part of the development process of a
website. Once your site is all up and running, we then set all subsequent
billing to come to you direct and you will receive notice from the registrar
direct when the domain name next comes up for renewal.
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Web Hosting
For people to be able to view your site it needs to be exposed on a computer
called a "web server" that is connected to the internet 24/7. When
someone enters your web address into their web browser address bar they are in
effect putting through a request for the web server that hosts your site to
"serve" up the files that make up your website. There are a number of
companies that provide web hosting services with varying levels of support and
features available. ETS does not provide web hosting directly however we
will arrange a suitable hosting package for your site and do what it takes to
get you uploaded and exposed to the world. As with Domain Names, once all
is up and running, we will set the billing address to your own and you then
receive any subsequent billing for your web hosting directly from the hosting
company. Some hosting providers give you access to all the site
statistics like how many visitors you have had, what key words they used to
find your site and more, and most provide a "control panel" that you can use to
make changes to your account details.
One advantage of having a dedicated hosting solution is the provision of email
boxes that are attached to your domain name. You can advertise these
email addresses and they will be unaffected even if you change ISPs or hosting
providers as the domain name is registered to you. This way printed
advertising never goes out of date when you change providers and you can have a
number of addresses to give a professional approach to contacting your
business.
Can I use the personal web space I have been given by my ISP?
Yes you can, however there are some considerations that you might need
to take into account as far as business is concerned. A domain name can't
be set to directly point to a web site hosted on a personal web space and
therefore you need a "redirector" which is a service usually provided by domain
name registrars that redirects a request for the domain name to the personal
web space. There are fees associated with redirection and these can be
quite considerable in comparison to a dedicated web hosting account, so
sometimes it just isn't worth it. The use of a redirector service also
makes it more difficult for search engines to read your site and this may
result in a poor ranking in search engine listings. When you use a
personal web space, you also miss out on dedicated email addresses that become
part of your website. Of course you can set up separate email hosting
only accounts but this all costs extra yet again.
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eCommerce
Providing online purchase facilities on your web site allows you to trade 24/7
all around the globe. Through the implementation of various methods
available you can open your business to a global market and make it easy for
clients to purchase your products or pay for your services online. The
easiest way to provide payment facilities to your customers is through the
use of a payment gateway like eWay or Paypal which have differing charges
depending on the type of account you open with them, usually a percentage
charge of each transaction. Customer payments can be processed by you
manually through an email invoicing solution, an online shoping cart with
credit card transactioning or other methods which provide automation of
payments so all you need to do is verify the transactions against your bank
records. Any level of automation is possible when it comes to processing
customers orders and payments including automatic inventory updates and product
dispatch. Talk to us about the best eCommerce solution for your
particular online business needs. Visit the
Downloads
page and download our Website eCommerce paper
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Web Development
A website is basically a set of computer files that are downloaded into your
web browser and put together to make up the web pages you see. Creating
this set of files involves four stages, design, development,
implementation and SEO.
Design
Designing a website inolves creating the visual layout of the site and the
graphical theme that flows throughout each page. Colours, designs, menu
style, logos and other graphics are created to make up the visual presentation
of the site and are put to the client for design approval. If the design
is approved then the project moves to the next stage of creating a working site
model.
Development
Once a web design is approved, the actual pages that make up a site are created
and the navigation between them made active. Content of each page is
added and a working model of the site is completed and placed in a temporary
web location for a test drive. Spelling is checked along with the
completness of the content and once this is all approved the project moves to
the implementation phase.
Implementation
A finalised site needs to be made visible to the entire world wide web and this
is done by setting up a web hosting account and configuring it to suit the
needs of the developed website. The site files are then transferred to
the web server and other settings such as email addresses are set up and
tested. After uploading the site files, the domain name is set to point
to the new website and it usually takes about 24 hours after that for the site
to become visible to the entire internet. Even though your site will
start working for you straight away, it needs to be submitted to search engines
so that it appears in the search engine results list.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
See below
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Search Engines and Site
Optimisation
For best results a website needs to have a good ranking in a search engines
results list. Most people won't look further than the first page of
results so if you can make it in the "Top 10" then you are doing well.
Most people are surprised to find that the way a site is put together, even
it's visual design can have a large bearing on search results
positioning. There are some common practices used to promote web sites
that can actually work against you and that suffer a lot of penalties when it
comes to search engines. Although the "keywords" concept still has some
effect there are a number of other factors that may have a greater influence on
your search engine result ranking.
Networking
The more active links you have on other sites that link back to yours the
better exposure you will get. Search engines will interpret a large link
network to your site as an indication that your site is popular and you will be
given preference over sites that have a lesser or no link network.
Approach your industry pears and associates who have websites and arrange for a
link to be placed on their site back to yours. All ETS web clients get a
link on our site back to theirs which helps begin the building of your network.
Site Freshness
There are 3 web idioms that apply to websites;
-
Content is King - the right information needs to be there regardless of how
well it's presented or people will look elsewhere.
-
Style is Queen - the right information presented in an uninspiring way will
turn people away from your site.
-
Change or Die! - websites need to kept "fresh" to keep visitor interest and
present the concept that you are a "happenning" business.
Keeping a website up to date is even more important when it comes to search
engines because they interpret a site that hasn't been updated for a while as a
possible inactive business and your ranking in the search results list
will suffer.
Uniqueness in Marketing
To rise above a sea of competitors you need to create a uniqueness that makes
you stand out among the crowd. This can be achieved by saturating
your site with key phrases and words that potential visitors use to search for
your site. These words have to be key industry identifiers that are used
by the market sector that you are targeting your website
to. Marketing a brand or business name rather than product usually
creates uniqueness by itself however some industries do not lend themselves to
this and then the use of "sponsored links" or paid advertising on search
engines may help in providing the necessary exposure.
Time and Patience
Due to the enormity of the World Wide Web it simply takes a long time for
search engines to "crawl" the entire network of websites around the
globe. It can take up to 6 weeks for an entire crawl of the web and this
means that changes made to your site might not be reflected in search engine
results for a few weeks or months. Sometimes search engines can penalise
you if you make changes too often and constantly submit your site address to
them. It's better to wait a little while and get a gauge of how effective
your last changes were, over a period of weeks and then make fine adjustments
over time. Getting the best search engine ranking is an
ongoing process that should be part of your regular business evaluations.
Download our SEO document
Website SEO (pdf
135kb)
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Site Administration and
Content Management
Now that you have your website up and running, how do you keep it up to
date? The administration of a website can be done in 2 basic ways;
-
When you want something changed, you simply contact your web developer and let
them know what needs to change, you send them the text or photos and you
get billed for the time it takes to make the changes. This would suit a
site that gets updated only every few months and involves little effort to
make changes.
-
If you need to make regular changes it can become cost prohibitive to pay a
developer to make the changes so why not do it yourself? Well that poses
the problem of needing to know what you are doing. If you are IT
literate, you have the appropriate software and you can train staff to do
the changes then this may be the solution for you. Alternatively you can
have an online content management interface created that will let you make
changes with little or no technical know how. This involves an initial up
front cost to develop but after that you are on your own. This type of
solution particularly suits retail businesses that are constantly updating
their online pricing and catalogue contents.
A Content Management System (CMS) can be created so you have control over every
facet of your site or just the relevant sections that need to be updated.
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The
information on this page is provided for your information only and there is no
guarantee as to it's correctness at the time. Use of the information
presented is used at your own risk and ETS will not be held liable for any
results or lack of results, of it's use or non-use. Results or lack
of results from the use of the information presented on this page are not
guaranteed. For more information visit our
Disclaimer
page.
