ADVICE_DESIGNING A WEB SITE

Develop a strategy to make sure that your web site is easy to find and looks good

Part 2: Design, hosting and the right name are just some of the issues you need to consider so that your site stands out from the crowd

Marc Holt

Surf around the Internet and you will see that no two web sites look the same _ at first glance. But if you look closer, you will see that many use the same basic layout. Some put a column of buttons down the left of the page and text and pictures on the right. Still others may put a beautiful graphic which includes their logo across the top of the page, and a menu running horizontally across the page. Or you may may see the column of buttons on the right side with the main data on the left.

Before deciding on a design for your web site, surf the Internet and look at a lot of web sites. Then choose the design you like best. A design includes:

1. The page layout: Plan where you want each element of your page to be. Menus on the left, top, bottom or right? Where do you want your text to be? How do you want the pictures aligned?

2. Colours are extremely important to the success of your web site. Make sure to use colours that project the "mood" of your web site. A music web site, for example, should use bright, exciting colours. A law firm needs to project a more sober image using muted colours such as black, gray, dark blue, etc. But even a law web site can use a splash of bright colour to give it contrast, but not too much.

3. Make it easy for the visitor to use your web site: Tell your webmaster to include not only graphic buttons but text links with them. Not everyone uses a web browser that can view graphics. And many surfers turn off graphics to speed up loading. If you don't have text links available, these people will not be able to navigate around your web site.

4. When you include a picture, put a description in the ALT tag so that people with their graphics turned off will know what the graphic is all about. The ALT tag can also be used to list key words that help to increase your ranking in search engine results.

5. Don't allow your webmaster to make what is called an "Entry Page". This is an opening page with a large graphic and no information about your web site. Usually an entry page only has a beautiful picture and a button or text link saying "Enter here".

This is probably one of the most ineffective ways to design a web site. But many webmasters use an entry page because they like to see that beautiful picture. The problem is, the picture takes a long time to load and many surfers will not wait. They will go to another site that loads quickly instead, and you will lose a potential client.

If you must have an entry page, perhaps because you are using frames, make sure to include text that introduces your web site. Make the opening page work for you.

6. A web page is similar to a magazine page. It should be designed to draw the eye to important parts of the page. Use headlines and coloured boxes to create elements that attract. DO NOT allow your webmaster to place the text down the page and center it. This is the mark of a real amateur.

7. Keep your opening page short. If it fills only one or two screens, it will load fast and impress your visitors. You can make longer pages inside the web site if necessary. But if your pages are very long, include page navigation links to allow your visitors to select the part of the page they want to view, or to allow them to return to the top of the page.

8. Keep animated pictures to a minimum. There is nothing more distracting than an animation that has nothing to do with the topic of your web site. Again, too many animations are the sign of an amateur.

9. Make sure your graphics are small so that they load faster. Ask your webmaster to optimise graphics to use the lowest possible number of colours to reduce file size.

10. Most important of all: Make sure your spelling and grammar are perfect. Visitors seeing a spelling or grammar error will think that you run your business badly too.

It is easy to have perfect spelling. Run your text through a spell checker before giving it to your webmaster. And then double check it before allowing them to put the finished page onto your virtual server where everyone will see it. If you are not a native English speaker, hire one to check your grammar. There is nothing more frustrating and annoying than trying to read a poorly written web page.

HOSTING YOUR WEB SITE

You have chosen a professional webmaster and together you have created a great looking site. So how is anyone going to see it?

You need to place your web site on a virtual server. A virtual server is a computer connected to the Internet that has a large hard disk where you can store your web site in its own directory. Each virtual server is shared by many other companies like yours to display their web sites. Don't worry, they won't interfere with yours and you will probably never even know who is sharing with you.

You should check to make sure that the server is connected by a high speed connection using "T1 & T3 technology". Your server service should give you a user name and password to access your directory. Many virtual server services have their own software to make it easy to do things like upload or delete files, create email accounts, password protect sub-directories, and so on.

There are plenty of virtual server services available. Shop around and find one that offers the features you need at a reasonable price. But price should not be your main consideration. Find services offering the features you need and then compare prices. Contact other clients if possible to find out what they think of the service.

If you want to set up an online store and offer shoppers an easy to use shopping cart, you need to choose a server company that offers this service. Make sure they also offer SSL secure servers, so that you can accept secure credit card payments online. Offering secure online shopping will dramatically increase your chances of selling.

Most professional hosting services have a variety of packages available, from a very basic entry level package to a dedicated server with a large hard disk your company can use exclusively. If you are not sure what you need, ask business colleagues who already have a web site. Search the Internet for words like "virtual servers" and "web hosting companies". Ask your webmaster for advice. Find out as much as you can, and then make an informed decision.

CHOOSING A DOMAIN NAME

Your company already has a name and you will probably want to use it to identify your web site too. For example, you may not know Hewlett Packard's web site domain name, but I bet you can guess it. That's right, it's "hp.com". IBM uses "ibm.com". But if your company name is not well known you might want to use a different name that will describe more clearly what your web site is all about. For example, one of my clients is a private investigation company. Their company name is not well known and consists of just three letters. Looking at it, you wouldn't be able to guess what the company does.

So they chose a domain name that makes it easy to identify what their company is about: AsiaPI.com. As they operate throughout Asia, and they are private investigators, this domain name works well for them.

As I mentioned, you can register your domain name with InterNIC in the US. Most virtual server services have a direct link from their order form to the InterNIC web site, where you can check if the domain name you want to use is available. If it is, you can register it using SSL secure credit card payment.

Beware of an Australian company that also call itself InterNic and purports to register domain names. It will register the domain name at a much higher fee than the real InterNIC and you can use it, but the company will retain ownership of your name and is very obstructive if you try to take over ownership.

I had a client who fell for their scam and lost the ".com" designation after his domain name. He had to use ".net" instead.

Remember, choose a domain name that is easy to remember and that uniquely identifies your business.

MARKETING AND ADVERTISING

A web site should be only a part of your overall marketing and advertising efforts. Don't rely on just a web site to promote your business, or rely only on registering your web site with the search engines to entice people to visit. The Internet doesn't work that way.

First, you need to tell people how to find your web site. Include your URL (Universal Resource Locator: a fancy way of saying web site address) on all your correspondence, name cards, advertising and so on. The URL looks like this: <http://www.company.com>.

Create a signature box to include at the bottom of each email you send from your company. It is easy to do. Start your word processor and type in something like this:

--

Regards,

Bill Smith, Managing Director

Widgets Co Ltd, Thailand

Phone: 66-2 234-2345

Fax: 66-2 234-5678

Web site: http://www.widgets.com

Save as a text file (make sure it has a .TXT extension) onto your hard disk. Call it "signatur.txt".

To set up a signature for all your emails in Netscape 4 mail, click Edit Preferences. Then click on the plus (+) sign next to Mail & Newsgroups, and then click on Identity. Click on the Choose button next to the field for Signature File and select the signature text file you just created. The next time you write an email, Netscape will automatically put your signature at the bottom of the page.

Read the manual for other email programs to see how to add a signature to the end of each email you send out.