Tipsheet - setting up and managing your website
Anyone setting up a website needs to understand why they are doing it. Without a good reason, the website is unlikely to make any impact at all. Whether that reason is "for family and friends to see my work", "to make money from customers" or "to keep customers informed about our business", you need to focus on the aim of the site, and design the site to achieve this.To download a PDF, printable version of this tipsheet, click here
First, get a domain name. The domain name is important, obviously. The shorter and more memorable the name, the more likely people will remember how to find you. Media Masters uses 123-Reg (www.123-reg.co.uk) for all its domain name registrations. They are cost effective and offer an excellent domain management console. When you register your domain, make sure you keep all the details of the registering site, so you can control and renew the domain easily. So many clients we talk to have no idea who manages their domain or, indeed, when it is due for subscription renewal. Fees for domains usually have to be paid every two years.
Hosting your website
If you are not using an all-in-one package (like Media Masters' SiteManager service) that includes hosting, you need to find a host. This is difficult because there are many providers offering a wide range of services at a wide range of prices. The key thing is to understand what you need from a host. Do you need email accounts so you can send and receive mails from Outlook using your domain name? Do you need webmail? Will your website be offering lots of high-bandwidth content like videos and photos? For most small businesses and individuals, a shared hosting account is enough. Media Masters uses Pipex shared hosting. Buy direct and you will pay around £200 per annum, but Media Masters can give you a better rate.
Software for your server and your PC
If you want to code your website from scratch, you could use something basic like Notepad or something more sophisticated like Homesite by Macromedia. If you prefer a design-led approach, the best-selling software is Dreamweaver, but there is also Web Fusion, Go Live and Microsoft’s FrontPage. For your server, we recommend PHP and MySQL in a Unix/Linux environment. These do not require payment of licences and there are many available free tools and cheap programmers who can help with the development of your website.
Updatability is the most important word you need to remember
Many companies pay good money to designers for a website that they then do not know how to change. A lovely looking brochure is one thing, but a dynamic, interactive website that you can add to and edit will bring a much better return on your investment. Design and layout is only one element of your website. The most important element is content management. Media Masters’ SiteManager houses all site pages, templates and content in a database, allowing you to log in and move things around without having to pay programmers or designers each time.
What is the one thing you want people to do?
Have a single most important aim in mind when building your website. Do you want customers to give you cash? Do you want them to sign up to an email newsletter? Do you want them just to be informed about the latest information about your company? Your home page should be designed to entice them towards this aim. If you are a shop, put products on the home page. If you want subscribers, make that obvious right up front. A website that does not force people to interact in some way, or that does not at least tell you people have been using it, is a waste of time.
Keep your site content fresh
The content on the site should stay up to date and be added to all the time. Add news and features and make sure the content and links on your home page change regularly – this will improve the hits from search engines like Google. It will also encourage people to come back more frequently. You should also consider sticky content – such as a game – to make people linger longer and encourage them to forward your site links on to their friends.
Gather data – but only data that is useful
Your website can be used to gather all kinds of data. Web logs can tell you how many people have visited and what parts of the sites they looked at. They can also tell you where they came from. For really useful data, though, you should try to capture email addresses and use these for marketing purposes. A regular newsletter, for example, could be sent to subscribers featuring highlights of updated site contents, linking back to the site. This builds traffic and loyalty. A prize draw is a good way of not only capturing data, but it is also a good way of getting traffic from other websites – who may promote the prize draw.
Look for interactive and free content
There is lots of free content you can put onto your website to give it a boost if needed. These include games, jokes, new s and even adverts from sites like Google that can earn you money. If appropriate, a discussion forum could be used to keep people on the site chatting, buying and selling or doing other things.