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Step
3– The “Feeling”
of the website- Decide if you want
a corporate look, do you want a warm and fuzzy feeling website,
high tech? One consideration in deciding your look maybe
your niche market or maybe just personal preference.
Depending on your style you may want to include graphics that
keep to your style. Always keep in mind the size
of your files, the smaller the better.
Step 4 – Layout / Design - Take a look
at your outline, the elements you want on any page, what your
navigational bar may include, a concept of the graphics and
logo. Using a note pad start laying out your website.
Try several different layouts till you find the layout that
appeals to you. It is almost time to start actually constructing
the website.
Step 5 – Domain name You have your
company name but is the domain name available. Think about what
you want your url to look like. It will depend on if you
choose to host your site with a free service or with a web site
host.
Step
6 -Hosting your website - Time to make some
of the hard decisions in building your website, the financial
decisions. There are places you can create a quality website
for free. The down-side to those programs is they usually include
pop up ads, many times you can’t have a unique url and to upload
and update your website you have to may have to upload file
by file (each page, each graphic file, etc) and if you ever
upgrade it tends to become more expensive than other web hosting
packages currently advertised. The up-upside to the free services
is they are free, many have pre-made templates and you can get
a website up very fast.
It is all a matter of personal opinion and finances, but the
most professional looking sites are the ones where you have
your own domain name, www.yourname.com
and can set up your email to you@yourcompany.com. There
are many inexpensive plans out there that will include
a domain name for free for the first year and have options the
free programs charge extra for.As the competition
grows and the technology advances the cost of your own domain
and website is getting lower and lower. Here are some of the
plans offered as of the writing of this article:
Lunarpages
- Several different ways of customer support are offered. Toll
Free Support - Call 1-877-LUNARPAGES if you need a phone support.
If you stay outside of US, you can't dial the toll free number.
Luckily they provide another support line via 1-714-521-8150
(toll call). I have visited there offices several times and
was impressed by the amount of phone support given in a signal
day.
Globat
– For as low as $7.95 a month (when billed yearly) includes
registering your domain name, 300 MB Web Space, 30 GB
Data Transfer, YourName.Com, 24/7 FTP Access, Flash, PHP4,
PERL5, Frontpage 2002 Support, your own cgi-bin,
300 POP3 mail Accounts, Web-based email (You@yourdomain.com),
Real Time Tech Support, 24/7 Signature support, Web Control
Panel
Infinology
– This company offers an outstanding package for $6.95 a month
(when billed yearly). Voted #1 by Cnet, 9000 MB Disk Storage
Space, 50,000 MB Data Transfer, YourName.Com, 24/7 FTP Access,
Flash, PHP 3 & 4, PERL Support, Frontpage 1998 2000
& 2002 Support, Web Control Panel, Webalizer
and more.
Jumpline
– Costs a bit more per month. $11.95 for a 2 year commitment,
no set up fee, $20 for your domain name. 7,500 MB of bandwidth
per month 200 MB disk space 100 email accounts (POP3) Website
Manager, Microsoft FrontPage® 2000 support 24/7 technical
support, PERL 5.005_03, PHP 4, Cisco enterprise routers,
Dell PowerEdge Servers, 99.9% Server Uptime, Email forwarding
(Aliases), 50 autoresponders, Web-based email (NeoMail),
Email forwarding.
Now the basic design has been laid out, you have decided on
a service to host the website, decided on your url, it is time
to build the website.
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