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Tips
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Putting
together a website has never been easier....but beware!
What seems like a terrific bargain now may be a headache
for you further down the road. Here are some of the
problems we have encountered....
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Will your web designer be there
when you want to upgrade in the future?
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It
is very easy to set up business as a web designer because
there is a very low entry cost.
However, due to intense competition, margins can be
low and it is often difficult to make a reasonable living
from it. Often, the budding web designer that you commissioned
to build your website will be unavailable a year later,
having taken up a high paying job elsewhere in the IT
sector. He or she won't want to hear from you as they
concentrate on progressing their career.
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Will your domain name be registered
correctly?
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Your
web site designer may, inadvertently or otherwise,
register your domain name to the wrong owner
(i.e. not yourself). It can be difficult and expensive
to sort this out later on.
Also,
contact details for your domain name can
be set up incorrectly. This will make it difficult to
move to another hosting company if you need to
do so in the future.
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Will you be 'locked in' to a particular
web site designer?
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For
simple web sites, this should not be a problem as other
web design companies will assist you to move at no cost.
However
if your website contains software
programs or makes use of a database on the
server, there can be issues regarding portability
and ownership of the software.
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Who pays your annual Domain Registry
charge?
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Your
web designer should look after this for
you, but they may arrange it so that you pay
this annual charge. Doing so helps them to reduce
the price that they quote to you.
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Recurring Costs
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Quotations
should include these recurring costs:
Domain Registry annual charge.
Hosting charges.
Web Designer's Service & Support charge.
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Will your website be hosted on
a good webserver?
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are a number of issues:
Speed.
Some servers are host to too many websites and are overloaded.
Some have an inadequate connection (bandwidth) to the
Internet. Either way, at times of even moderate demand
you website will appear to perform very badly. Beware
of hosting companies that offer unlimited (or unmetered)
bandwidth. These attract users of high bandwidth, such
as
sites, and response times can be very bad.
Reliability.
Look for guaranteed uptimes, or at least a responsible
attitude to downtime. A Service Level Agreement (SLA)
promising 99% uptime is useless - it means you web site
can be unavailable for up to 3.65 days per year. You
need 99.9% at least.
Security.
Does the website hosting company have a security policy
that ensures that passwords cannot be stolen or guessed.
Passwords should not be sent to you by email because
email is insecure. They should not be given out by phone,
as a rule, in case the caller is not who she says she
is.
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Web Page Design
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All
web pages should be designed so that they download fully
in under thirty seconds. Any longer and the viewer will
hit Stop or backout of your website.
Do not punish viewers that are still using older browsers
(many are still using version 4 browsers).
Dynamic HTML adds interest to a website but the page
should be designed so that it also looks good on older
browsers that can't play DHTML.
Ask what browsers your website will be compatible with.
Expect Internet Explorer 4.0 and above and Netscape
Navigator 4.0 and above.
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Making changes to your website
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content will need to be changed to a greater or lesser
extent as time goes by. Changes can broadly be categorised
as follows:
Trivial
changes, such as a new contact person or a change of
postal address can usually be done free by your web
designer within the terms of your service agreement.
Frequent
changes, such as a News page or a product catalogue
can be implemented by yourself or via a third party.
Clearly the better solution is that you should be able
to control what appears on your website on demand and
not to be at the mercy of the third party.
You
may consider training a member of staff in HTML & Web
Design and giving him or her responsibility for the
website's content. However, this will not work unless
the person is devoting a significant amount of time
to the task.
Otherwise,
your website will suffer and look amateurish. The correct
solution is via software that allows you to control
certain content and pictures on your website in a safe
and easy manner.
At the end of the day, it is your website's content
that matters and you should look for a solution that
allows you to maintain it simply. Make sure that you
get a demonstration of any proposed solution before
proceeding.
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Website Visitor Reports
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reporting is vital to enable you to judge the success
of your marketing campaigns, the popularity of particular
webpages, what search engines and directories are referring
visitors to you, etc.
You may be offered:
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Nothing. |
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Server
'Log Files'
You will need to acquire log file analysis software
and generate the reports yourselves. |
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'Analog' reports
Most common but difficult to understand and not
very meaningful. |
Ideally you want reporting on how your website is doing
over a period of time (e.g. year to date) rather than
just the current week or month.
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