Webs For You

As you cruise the WEB trying to get ideas for your website there are a couple of things that you might want to consider before jumping into the Internet pool.  First of all you have visited a few websites in your time and know which ones looked good, professional and appealed to you.  As you are viewing each website you might want to get a piece of paper and pen out to note down some of the things that appeal to you and those things that don’t about each of the ones you have visited.  Mostly, I look for an appealing color scheme.  The colors chosen by the web creators is an important factor because you have to appeal to the widest possible audience.  Yes, you want to choose the colors that you like the most but you also want to make sure that they are readable, appealing but not too loud or dark that they take away from your message, and have a nice contrast between your borders, pictures, columns and your words.

The second thing I notice when I visit a website is the layout.  By that I mean are there columns, is the information blocked out nicely, are the pages easily accessible and is it uniformed in appearance?  I have visited some websites that looked pretty jumbled and hard to read.  The words are not blocked or just centered on the page.  Centering can be a nice feature and allows each web browser to interpret the information as best it can.  You need to code the pages so that the information you want to convey is centered and if you have widgets or add-ons they should be grouped to the side.  In today’s world you need a website that flows as freely as possible and has the coding to allow the same look on any browser.  Everyone is familiar with the Internet Explorer offered by Microsoft but there are other browsers out there such as Mozilla’s Firefox (my personal favorite), Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome.  Each of these browsers interprets websites in slightly different ways and may crunch up your information or be unable to display some nice little feature that looked fine in Microsoft’s Explorer.  I recommend that you download each of these browsers and begin using them so that you become familiar with their layout and how different websites are displayed.  Downloading them is FREE and each sponsor regularly updates them to try and cut down on the security threats that hackers try to take advantage of to get into your computer and make your day a misery.

Finally, a good website is fast.  In our fast-paced existence and with our computers being able to display information almost instantaneously it is important that your website load quickly so that your readers do not get bored with waiting and move onto another website.  A lot of websites are beginning to be deluged with heavy graphics, videos and flash programs.  These all will slow down your website when it loads onto a person’s browser.  Yes, there are some very nifty little things out there that you would like to have on your website but in the beginning you want your readers to get onto your website and be able to access your information quickly.  Once, you have established a following then you might consider upgrading your website to include Flash Programs and host your own podcast or video blog.  A good example of a Flash website is the writer Sue Grafton at  www.suegrafton.com or J.K. Rowling’s website in which she offers both a text version and a graphic intensive website at:  www.jkrowling.com both are pretty great but they do cost quite a lot to create and host.

We always encourage our clients to try something before they buy it.  There are some free resources out there for you to try out to get feel for how your website might look like and some of the things you will need to decide before you ask us to create one for you.  There are limitations to all free services so we really wouldn’t recommend them for a business website as you will need your own domain to be considered a professional in any field.  We suggest you try some of them for personal websites for your friends and family.  Most of these have built in templates for you to choose from, helpful tutorials and other services depending on which one you choose.

The easiest website creation services has to be www.webs.com.  It use to be named Freewebs.  They offer free websites for personal use with 300 templates, easy to use page editor, you can upload pictures and videos however there are limited space so you cannot upload a lot of pictures and you will not have your own domain.  You should choose your user name carefully as this will be part of your domain that you are given.  The free sites have advertising to offset their costs.  If you want more space, shopping carts, your own domain and to stop the advertising you will have to pay a yearly free.  But try out the free stuff first to see if this is really what you want to do.

The other things you might want to consider doing is joining FACEBOOK and/or TWITTER. These are community or social media websites that allow you to collect friends, update those who have joined you and much more.  These are both addictive and may even detract you from other things so read their FAQ section and speak to friends and relatives to see if they have found these services to be helpful.  These are communities of people from all over the world and more and more businesses are using them to keep their customers informed.

The last thing you might want to try is getting a blog started.  Yes, we can add a blog page to your website but if you try one of these free services you can get some practice in before you have one professionally created.  There are two free blog services that I use for my family and friends.  The first is Blogger. com and the other is Posterous.com.  The Blogger website offers a free blog and is owned by Google now.  They require that you sign-up for a google account and/or a gmail email account.  You get a domain based on your user id to send a link to your friends.  They do have a limited amount of templates to choose from and you can add up to 10 stand-alone pages.   Posterous is a new service for us.  A friend recommended it to me and so far it seems to be working fine.  There are limits as to the color schemes or templates but they do offer the ability to post to your facebook account as well as a few other social websites.  You can even post to your blog using some email accounts such as gmail, yahoo, hotmail and aol.

We create websites for our customers as well as offer advice on what to do with your computers to keep them healthy.  Not only do you need to keep your website updated but you should keep your computer updated as well.   Maintaining your computer will keep you sane and save some money on repair bills in the future.  We are not saying that this is the only things you will need to do but they will help.

Here are at least 5 things you need to do each and every month:  (These tips are assuming you own a Windows Personal Computer or Laptop and not an Apple or Linux Operating System)

1.  Perform a Disk Clean-Up Each Month

2.  Perform a Disk Defrag afterwards (This function is automatically done on Windows Vista and Windows 7 Machines)

3.  Update Your Virus Program and then run a FULL SYSTEM SCAN each month (this will take some time so be patient)

4.  Update Your Windows.  This should be set to receive Updates Automatically but you will still need to go to Windows Updates and choose the Custom option to get the hardware and Optional Windows Updates that are not included with the Critical Updates

5.  Get an external Hard Drive and Copy your data files, music and pictures each month.  The external hard drive should be about the same size as your computer hard drive or bigger and the USB ones are the easiest to operate and maintain.  DO NOT USE WINDOWS BACK-UP/RECOVERY PROGRAM.  Those types of programs usually encrypt your data files and require them to decrypt them afterward.  If you have to copy your files to a new computer there could be a problem.

You next step is for you to decide on which website hosting service provider.  There are a great many companies out there that can host your website.  It is economically infeasible for you to host your own website through a home provider.  It takes an internet connection that is always on, the bandwidth on your service to allow multiple users at the same time as well as your computer being on all the time.  And, of course, you will need a very good firewall software and virus protection software program.    You will have to do all the coding and computer maintenance and contact the domain registry service and give them the website coding information to point to your webpages.

A hosting provider will do all of that for you.  Then all you have to do is chose one that is within your price range, have a lot of free services included, register the domain for you and renew it each year, gives you enough space to allow your web to grow and have 99% up-time.   You do not realize how much space you will need for a website until you run out.  Before deciding on a hosting provider you should read articles about hosting providers on the internet, ask friends and coworkers and articles in magazines.  You can be charged by the month, quarter or year.  You will sometimes be asked if you want a windows server or a linux server.  Either of these will have their own advantages but if you are looking for more free services or software products then try Linux servers.  I use two different hosting providers but find that www.godaddy.com fits my needs the best.

There are as many reasons to have a website as there are websites.  That is millions of websites around the world and it is hard to actually decide why you need one.  For some it is for business, for others it is for a hobby or even to keep family members up to date on what their family is doing these days.  You can even run a business entirely online depending on the type of business.   Getting your own website is the first step for a lot of people who want to be able to communicate with the world.  Websites must be easy to read, easy to find and updated on a regular basis.

What you want to do with your website is up to you.  So take a few minutes to decide why you want one and then think about what you want it to be called.  A domain name is probably one of the hardest things to come up with.  Once you have decided on what to call your website you will need to check if someone else owns that name.  Go to this website here: http://www.whois.net/

The next thing you might want to do is go to your favorite search engine such as google, yahoo or ask and put in the search phrase you would use to find your website.  Some of those words should include what your website is about.  You will then get a picture of how many other websites out there might have information similar to your own.  Then you can start putting down words to use as tags or words and phrases that will help search engines find you.  There are a variety of different tools out there to help you come up with those words but that is for another article.

Our Update page is coded for Blog like entries. On this page will be posting interesting and helpful information for our subscribers, clients and guests. We will be gathering information on resources for advertising your website, interesting information to add to your website, news feeds, and much more. We will also be asking for our subscribers and/or clients make comments and suggestions to these paragraphs as you have questions, comments, or suggestions. So stay tuned!