Create a Website – Avoid Business Overwhelm (Part 2)

[This is the second article in a series on the most commonly used tools to build the infrastructure of your online business.]

The cornerstone of most online businesses is their website. You’ll need a good domain name, and then we’ll talk about how to create a simple, effective website without a computer engineering degree, and without spending thousands of dollars.

DOMAIN NAME

First, you need a domain name.  Choosing a domain name can be quite complex and there are many things to think about, but for our purposes we’re sticking with the basics.  The marketers that I respect the most recommend that you either find a clear,  descriptive name such as billthebarber.com  or find something that is totally nondescript so you can use it for anything — like razoo.com.  But of course you can use anything you like, if it’s available.  Just don’t use any symbols or numbers like  me2you.com.  People get confused by that when they go to find you on the web.

Many web host providers now include a free domain name registration with a hosting account, so it’s not necessary to register your domain name with a separate company.  To search for a domain name, you can use GoDaddy.com, or any other domain name service.  Just don’t pay more than about $10/year for a .com name .  Search for coupons for GoDaddy, as they frequently have discounts available.  Don’t get carried away buying .net and .org and .tv domain names unless you understand what they’re for and how to use them.  Do yourself a big favor;  if the name you want isn’t available, don’t give up and buy a .net name — no one will remember that it’s yourcompany.net and you’ll be sending traffic to the person who owns yourcompany.com.   Oh!  And don’t forget to buy common misspellings of your domain name if you think people might accidentally use alternate names.  If your name is Gillian, register gillian.com and jillian.com if you can get them. It’s cheap insurance that will keep someone from putting up a porn site under jillian.com and embarrassing you to death.

WEBSITE HOST PROVIDER

Once you have your domain, it’s time to choose a home for your new website.  That would be the host provider. In a nutshell, that’s a big bank of computers with lots of computer geeks watching over them 24 hours a day.  This topic deserves a rant all by itself.  What you want is a large provider that has the people power and computer power to provide you with dependable computers to store your files, excellent free domestic customer service 24 hours a day.  (I love other cultures, but not at 2am when I just blew up my website — sorry, but I want to speak to a native English speaker.)  And the price for 90% of the people who are putting up their first website should NOT be more than $10/month.  But don’t use GoDaddy because it’s the same place you registered your domain name.  Use someone like Host Monster (this is an affiliate link because I am a big fan) where you should pay a fair price, get exceptionally good customer service, and always have your website functional.

how you will build your new website.  There are gazillions of solutions.  Some are free and  others cost thousands of dollars.  Trust me — you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars.  Unless you plan to become Amazon.com within a few months, a simple WordPress site will give you more capabilities than you will ever need.

WEBSITE PLATFORM – CUSTOM OR PREBUILT CODE

Why Wordpress?
Wordpress (Wordpress.org, not Wordpress.com) has evolved from a free blogging platform to a full-fledged, albeit relatively simple, Content Management System (CMS). What that means for you, as a business owner, is that if you have the time and are willing to roll up your sleeves, you can save significant money by setting up your own website. Yep, I said website. Wordpress has evolved to the point that you can use it to create a more traditional looking website, or you can use it for a blogsite. Even better, it’s free.

Why a blog platform instead of conventional HTML /  PHP, etc.?

Lots ‘o reasons.

1. Free.  Download Wordpress and install it as many times as you want — no charge.
2. Easy.  You can easily create or change pages in your site without having a webmaster.  No more waiting for someone else to have the time to help you. You feel like changing your website at 2am?  Go for it.
3. Search Engines LOVE blogs.  Search engines love content. Not pretty pictures, not how much money you throw at them — just content. So if you’re always updating your content, and you make the content relevant (if it’s a soccer site, are you talking about soccer?) then blogs have an instant advantage — IF you write regularly (don’t look at me, I’ve been busy).  This is the trickiest part for every business owner – write regularly and you’ll be well on your way.
4. No additional software needed.  By that I mean that you don’t have to buy tools like website building software like Dreamweaver, or use a free HTML tool, or an FTP program or anything like that.  But more importantly you don’t have to spend the time to learn them.
5. WordPress has a gargantuan (is that a word?) user community, so you may not have a telephone number for support, but you can usually find help online with almost anything WordPress related.
6. WordPress has a huge  (gargantuan?) developer community — which is a very big deal for those of us who want to try something different from time to time.  Want to put video on your site?  There’s a plugin for that. Want to have a membership site?  There’s a plugin for that.  For almost anything you can imagine, someone has built a tool that plugs right in to WordPress and you’re off to the races.  Most of those plugins are free or very low cost.
7. There are lots of “themes” available for WordPress so you can probably find a look that you like, upload your own photo (or a stock photo that you choose — try Fotolia or  iStock ) and you have a custom-looking site without having to hire a designer.  Think of a theme as a skin.  It’s an overlay that makes WordPress look pretty.  And if you’re really savvy you may even want to buy Thesis, which is a wildly popular theme that is highly customizable and has great built in editing tools that make your life really easy.
8. And if you don’t want to do it yourself, there are plenty of good WordPress developers out there.  Just don’t let them build a custom theme — that can be a sink hole of frustration when you want to upgrade or they no longer work with you.  Stick with the basics for now. You can get fancy when you’re a gazillionaire.

Stay Tuned for Installment 3….