Putting Your Web Site on the Internet

You need a web server to put your web site on the internet. Sometimes, owning and maintaining a web server can cost money and it requires someone who knows what they are doing to maintain the server and the web-site.

A web host can do this for you. They provide equipment and other technical programs that are required to build a customer a web-site. These hosting companies charge a monthly fee for the service of storing your web site and allowing your web site to be seen on the internet. Within that fee, it allows web-site visitor traffic to flow through their servers so people can view your site on the internet.

The physical web server does not reside at the consumers home or business which means that the web host services are designated as outsourced services. This means that the hosting organization that you choose has the responsibility to maintain your site structure, files and web pages.

Many web hosts provide excellent services that really assist individuals and business owners. All the weight of maintaining the host servers and application fall on the hosting company and not the individual and as a business owner, this is great because there are so many technical routines that you have to do daily to maintain a server.

When you pick a web host to handle your internet server needs, you achieve the following:

You streamline your internet costs getting the maximum from your hosting provider;

Work with knowledgeable technicians;

and pass IT control functions to the host so you won’t have to worry about maintaining servers and other equipment.

You can self publish your site and use the web host to handle the technical aspects of server management. The host that you choose will give you the capability to load your own site to the server for updates and revisions to your web page. Web hosting doesn’t include developing your site (unless they have a special development program) or the development of certain customized programs. You can develop the programs (web-site or server side code) or have someone do it for you.

Web hosting is offered in multiple formats based on cost and infrastructure.

Optimizing Your Site with SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a way to get directories and search engines to give your web-site a better indexing position so that customers or anyone who is looking for your web-site can see it. The higher you are in the search engines and directories, the better chance you’ll have doing business on the internet.

Here are simple steps to optimize your web-site:

Step 1: Modify your web-site – This step includes adding optimized content to all pages in the website.

Step 2: Add tags – Add or make changes to Meta tags, Title tags, H1 tags, H2 tags and alt tags for images, after keywords research.

Step 3: Link building A,
Website statistics monitoring and conversion tracking
There are offline tools that you can use to optimize your web site and it all involves your URL or your Web Domain name. I would put my web domain name on business cards, stationery, have a sign on my car, use bumper stickers or have tee shirts and coffee mugs made with the URL. I would do everything to advertise my web-site offline. This is called offline optimization of your web-site.

So web site optimization is both and online and offline deal. Online, you must use keywords to attract customers and get good search engine rankings and offline, you can advertise your URL to the public to get the to visit your web site.

Identify With Your Domain Name

Use common sense when choosing a domain name because your domain name, or URL, can have an impact in both the online and offline marketing of your web-site. Long or difficult to spell domain names can make people ignore your web site and it has to be pretty good for them to stick with it (for an example, go to www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com website. Short domain names register better with people’s memory and are easy to remember.

Obtain a domain name that will help you in your marketing niche and strategy. Like I stated before, you can use your business name as your URL. If your business name is already taken by someone else then get a URL name close to what you are doing. Purchasing a business name domain name isn’t the only way to go, and when a keyword domain name could do just fine.

If you plan on using the .net extension, you may want to wait on deciding your name until after you have found an available domain name that is suitable to your type of business. If you follow the steps below, you should be okay in identifying your name brand to the internet community.

Structure Your Brand Name – Put your domain name on your letterhead, business card, printed materials; put it on your phone recording, the side of your car; don’t forget to include it with your email.

Keep it Short & Memorable – Don’t get a URL that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Secure a .com URL – I strongly recommend purchasing a .com domain name as opposed to a .net, .info, .biz or anything else. If your chosen domain name is not available in a .com, keep looking until you find one that isn’t taken. There is nothing wrong with the other extensions but when you have a .com extension, it sounds like you’ve been on the net a long time.

Remember, your domain name is an extension of your business and your brand of product or service.

Get the Best Web Hosting Plan

If and when you’re interested in starting an online business, there are a lot of things that you have to study first before you can rightfully expect a high return on investment.

First, make sure that your company website has a user friendly interface which basically means links are visible, easily located and properly labeled and that the content provided in the website is complete, interesting, effective and grammatically correct.

There’s the matter of search engine optimization or SEO which requires you to employ a number of strategies that your company website is heard and seen by the right people. Common search engine optimization strategies would be keyword listing, site code optimization and top search engine placement.

Optimize your plan by understanding web hosting. No matter how great your website looks or how effective your SEO strategies are, if you don’t have the right web hosting plan, none of those would see the light of the day because your web hosting plan simply prevents them from being properly uploaded and viewed.

Web hosting is important to your plans if you want your website to have its own niche in the Internet so do read carefully what we’re about to teach you.

You have a couple of choices when it comes to web hosting – you can get it for free or you can spend for it. Naturally, it would be lovely if web hosting would be free for all of us but understand that all the needs of your company website must be met by the free web hosting plan if you want your future to look rosy.
These are key issues to address.

Are you willing to deal with advertisements that may take too much space or would have an irritable effect on your readers? These ads are often required by free web hosting plans because it’s the only reason they can continue letting people enjoy free web hosting.

Are you “cool” with low bandwidth access and minimal web space?

If you’re not okay with the following facts I presented, then I suggest you go with a web consultant and let them handle all of your work.

Free and Cheap—Web Space Options for the Thrifty At Heart

There are some good deals on the internet concerning web space and hosting but you have to look to find the best deals. You should also consider how long a provider has been in business.

Finding free web space on the Internet is simple. All you have to do is use a simple Web search (Google, AltaVista or Yahoo) and the results should bring back options for free web space. There are many individuals and businesses looking for a place to put their website without having to pay for the service. These free services can provide anywhere from 5MB to 100Mb of online web space for hosting your web site.

Free sites also come with some cool stuff, such as counters, guest books, virtual domain names, tracking logs, blogs, copy and past scripts that are usually Java code scripts and more. These additions are good for people that have little or no knowledge into building a web site.

A free service provides benefits to all people and may sound like a good idea but the goal is to do your research to see if the deals are viable or not. Free services can also bring other unwanted things that you have to deal with when you sign up for the service. Usually, you have to submit to advertising and surveys by filling out a form before you can get your free service. Be sure that you read the user agreements that come with the free services.

You can go on the cheap and don’t want advertisements running on your site, you can get a service similar to free hosting but you would have to pay a small fee to keep your web page ad-free. Some of these providers will offer you a service for $2.95 a month with 100MB of web space if that’s all that you need, and you can always upgrade your packages.

There’s a lot of competition for your Web site hosting dollars, and you can find some pretty good deals if you look hard enough.

Beware of the Cyber Squatters

Your domain name could be stolen or given up to the evil entity known as the Cyber squatters whose main mission is to steal your web identity and this is how they do it. They could register YourDomainName.org, and do the same thing with YourDomainName.biz, therefore contacting you and try to sell you those names at advanced prices. If that doesn’t work, then the following events could happen.

They will allow your competitor to get a domain that sounds like yours, and allow him to cause confusion or try to steal your hard-earned traffic, business and clients.

Take these steps right now to halt the cyber squatters.

Have people go through you for authorization: Go through your domain name registrar and fill in a form that locks in authorized entities of your claim of other domain names. You can buy these names and keep them under your roof. It will provide you information to include, such as contact information, who should be contacted if someone wants to register your domain, the character string you are claiming (this must be an EXACT match), description of your current products/services, when you began using that domain name. 

You have a small window to accomplish filling out an authorized entry form. Check with your domain registrar for time frame windows in filling out an authorized entry form Failure to enter a claim during a certain time frame means the registering entities will not check to see if there is an equivalent .com, .net or .org name. They will not check the IP Claim Service database. Meaning, you could lose your .info or net-version of your domain name.

Don’t let cyber squatters shake you down and ruin what you have built up on the net. Get the rights and the authorization to similar or like names to your main domain name!