Proselyte-Graphics Web Design

Domain Names & Hosting:

Domain Names:

The first concrete action you should undertake is purchasing a Domain Name. Domain names are the www.yournamehere.com part of your site. A Domain Name typically costs around $10 a year, but may cost slightly more or less between different vendors and different suffixes. Domains can end in .net, .org, .us, .edu (reserved for educational use), .gov (reserved for government use), .info, .tv, and a host of other suffixes. However, most people will assume your site is something.com.

The problem is, there are millions of sites, many of which have already claimed good domain names. And there can't be more than one of each name. One example might be a Church called New Life. There are thousands of churches named New Life, and thus, newlife.com, new-life.com, newlife.net, newlife.org and most of the variations on that theme are already taken. One way to get around this is to use a location in the Domain Name, like NewLifeTopeka.com. Another way is to add an adjective like BrandNewLife.org. Just be careful that the name is memorable and doesn't accidentally spell something you didn't intend. We are glad to help you purchase your domain name, if you wish.

As a side note, www.yournamehere.com functions the same as yournamehere.com. It is advised that you only use one version or the other (with www or without) because it helps with Search Engines.

Hosting:

Hosting is a vital part of your site. A host is a server that does nothing but share your website (and others) when people type in your Domain Name. It must be on nearly constantly, and its speed partly determines how fast your website appears to people. It also is usually the determining factor for how large your website can be, how much traffic it can support and what kinds of extras your site can easily display.

Our typical hosting is $50 a year, offers up to 600 Megabytes of storage space, has excellent up times (the length of time between the server being restarted or incapacitated) and offers 10 Gigs of bandwidth a month. This is almost always enough for sites which are just getting started. Many hosts offer packages available for a monthly fee, but it usually ends up costing more a year. We can host you on our servers, or you may purchase your own hosting and give us FTP access (the most common way to send files to and from a remote server) to it so we can add the files that make up your site.

Design:

Design is the overall look and feel of your site. People quickly form opinions about your site, and a large amount is based on design. Design considers things like color choice, theme, logos and organization. Even if you don't consider yourself artistic, you should have an idea what you want the site to feel like. Try to answer at least a few of these questions:

• What is my site's theme?
• What colors would look good for the site? Try to pick at least two that go together.
• What type of font (type style) would look good?
• What should my logo be like?

Consider if the colors or theme you choose for your site will really be a good idea. Would you want to look at a site that consists almost completely of the color chartreuse? Does a cat theme really fit your furniture business? There aren't correct answers to these questions, but consider running them by others before you ask us to start designing. Also, note that nearly every site will contain the colors white and black, and you really only need to mention them if you want them to be a large part of the page's design.

Content:

Content is what your site says. This is what people go to your site to see, and it's what Search Engines will use to define your site. For most customers, we do not produce the content of their websites, but we often format it. We do offer services for copy writing, photography, video and graphics generation. But even with these services, you should still have a strong starting idea of what your site should contain. Some things to consider:

• What kind of contact information do you want to provide?
• Do you have business hours/service times you want to share?
• Do you need to list products or prices?
• Do you want to welcome users to your site, or get straight to business?
• Are there any warnings you need to make?
• Do you have good pictures you want to share?
• Is there any information you need to get from the visitor?

These and many other ideas come together to make your site what it is. We can help you get ideas for what your site should have and the kinds of things you may (or may not) want to share.

Propagation:

Once your website is finished and approved, it is put on our live servers where it can be accessed by anyone. While we offer SEO, advertising and promotions services, most people choose to promote their own website. Internet Search Engines will slowly and automatically find your site and begin to crawl it (search through it to determine what it is about). This process can begin after days, weeks or even months.

Depending on how unique and popular your content is, it may take several months to generate a stream of new visitors. You can supplement this by putting your web address on business cards, flyers and signs. You can also find reputable sites to share a link to your site. Be warned: a reputable site should have something in common with yours and not just accept any link from anyone. Sites that accept all comers may do more harm than good.

Give it a few months before you decide if your website is doing well or poorly. Many sites only begin to hit their prime after half a year or more. Still, if after a couple of months you're unhappy with your website's traffic, contact us and we can discuss ways to improve your site's traffic and effectiveness.