A New Day in St. Paul, MN for the RES
Our daily activities here at the RES usually consist of me emailing in the morning scheduling conference calls talking part in team meetings and planning out our week and month. Sometimes I find myself doing this consistantly like a robot stuck in a loop pattern and don't get brought out of it till something drastic happens.
We'll moving from the west coast back to the midwest in Aug of 07 was something drastic. I moved closer to my family and friends while bringing my family who had only known California. From the home front it's been a great change from a work standpoint it's been even greater. Most of my team still resides on the west coast but I look to establishing the rest of my team here in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area. We've been approached by the local chamber to give an advice column to assist small businesses with their information development. So look forward to everything from tech, econ dev to cultural insights. I will give insight from my team who have a combined experience of over 50 years between us which in internet time makes us dinosaurs.
We will start with web basics 101:
Web 101 – Your First Website
Introduction
In this day and age, if your business doesn’t have a website, your business doesn’t exist. Even having a very basic brochure site can be better than nothing. A website adds credibility to your business and allows you to reach not only your existing customers, but also potential new customers. A website allows you to spread your marketing message far and wide, create awareness of your product or service, and do so just the way you want.
What Is My Purpose?
If you don’t already have a website for your business and you’re thinking it’s about time to build one, you should first ask yourself a very important question:
What is the purpose of my website?
By answering this question as specifically as possible, you will make your life easier in the long run. Your answer will help narrow your focus, keep you on task, and allow you to better communicate your company’s message to whoever’s browsing. It will also help you to better communicate your wants and needs to your web designer.
Think about what you want your site to do for you. Think about what you want to offer your customers and visitors. Think about what you want your visitors to see, learn, feel, do, and experience when browsing and interacting with your site. You’ll need to determine what features will truly add value for your visitors versus what will merely bog your site, and marketing message, down with unnecessary fluff.
So what is the purpose of your website? Is it simply to provide general information about your company in a brochure format? Is it to sell products using e-commerce? Is it to foster a social network of like-minded customers with member log-ins, passwords, special access rights and posting permissions? Determine what kind of information and features your visitors need and make them available on your site.
Hello, My Name Is…
If you’re going to have a website, you’re going to need a domain name. The obvious choice for a domain name is your company’s name. If your company’s name is long, then go with a shorter version that still captures the essence of your name or is descriptive of what your company provides. It’s best to choose a domain name that’s easy to spell, easy to remember, easy to type, and is as short as possible.
Check availability of your chosen domain name and its top-level domain (TLD), aka extension (e.g. .com, .org, .gov, etc.). http://www.internic.net/whois.html
If it’s not available, check some of your alternate choices.
Once you find that your chosen domain name is available, you will need to register it.
You will need to register your domain name at a domain name registrar. Or you can choose a web hosting company that allows you to purchase a hosting account and domain name in one transaction. Here you can find a list of accredited domain name registars: http://www.internic.net/regist.html.
Domain names can run as low as $7 per year.
A word about TLDs. There are several out there nowadays but .com is the most recognized and popular if only because it was one of the first top-level domains to be established. Unless your company is a nonprofit, in which case you’d likely want to use .org for your TLD, it’s probably best to stick with .com if at all possible. It sticks in people’s minds. It’s familiar and easy to remember.
The Host with the Most
Now that you’ve decided on your domain name, you’re going to need a place to host your website files. In other words, your site files need to reside on a server.
There are several hosting companies available. You’ll want to choose one that has features you want or need. Going back to knowing the purpose of your site, it’s good to plan ahead and get features you anticipate you might use right now as well as in the near future. For example, if you need e-commerce capability, be sure the hosting company offers this feature and find out whether or not it costs an additional fee. Extra features such as this usually do.
Thoroughly review the offerings of any hosting provider that you consider. Make sure you find a host that can guarantee 99.9% uptime, great customer support, backup storage and protection of your data, some form of site statistics tracking, and security.
Business site hosting can run anywhere from $5 to $1200 per month depending on what hosting company you choose, what features you want, how much storage space you require, etc.
..part 1
We'll moving from the west coast back to the midwest in Aug of 07 was something drastic. I moved closer to my family and friends while bringing my family who had only known California. From the home front it's been a great change from a work standpoint it's been even greater. Most of my team still resides on the west coast but I look to establishing the rest of my team here in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area. We've been approached by the local chamber to give an advice column to assist small businesses with their information development. So look forward to everything from tech, econ dev to cultural insights. I will give insight from my team who have a combined experience of over 50 years between us which in internet time makes us dinosaurs.
We will start with web basics 101:
Web 101 – Your First Website
Introduction
In this day and age, if your business doesn’t have a website, your business doesn’t exist. Even having a very basic brochure site can be better than nothing. A website adds credibility to your business and allows you to reach not only your existing customers, but also potential new customers. A website allows you to spread your marketing message far and wide, create awareness of your product or service, and do so just the way you want.
What Is My Purpose?
If you don’t already have a website for your business and you’re thinking it’s about time to build one, you should first ask yourself a very important question:
What is the purpose of my website?
By answering this question as specifically as possible, you will make your life easier in the long run. Your answer will help narrow your focus, keep you on task, and allow you to better communicate your company’s message to whoever’s browsing. It will also help you to better communicate your wants and needs to your web designer.
Think about what you want your site to do for you. Think about what you want to offer your customers and visitors. Think about what you want your visitors to see, learn, feel, do, and experience when browsing and interacting with your site. You’ll need to determine what features will truly add value for your visitors versus what will merely bog your site, and marketing message, down with unnecessary fluff.
So what is the purpose of your website? Is it simply to provide general information about your company in a brochure format? Is it to sell products using e-commerce? Is it to foster a social network of like-minded customers with member log-ins, passwords, special access rights and posting permissions? Determine what kind of information and features your visitors need and make them available on your site.
Hello, My Name Is…
If you’re going to have a website, you’re going to need a domain name. The obvious choice for a domain name is your company’s name. If your company’s name is long, then go with a shorter version that still captures the essence of your name or is descriptive of what your company provides. It’s best to choose a domain name that’s easy to spell, easy to remember, easy to type, and is as short as possible.
Check availability of your chosen domain name and its top-level domain (TLD), aka extension (e.g. .com, .org, .gov, etc.). http://www.internic.net/whois.html
If it’s not available, check some of your alternate choices.
Once you find that your chosen domain name is available, you will need to register it.
You will need to register your domain name at a domain name registrar. Or you can choose a web hosting company that allows you to purchase a hosting account and domain name in one transaction. Here you can find a list of accredited domain name registars: http://www.internic.net/regist.html.
Domain names can run as low as $7 per year.
A word about TLDs. There are several out there nowadays but .com is the most recognized and popular if only because it was one of the first top-level domains to be established. Unless your company is a nonprofit, in which case you’d likely want to use .org for your TLD, it’s probably best to stick with .com if at all possible. It sticks in people’s minds. It’s familiar and easy to remember.
The Host with the Most
Now that you’ve decided on your domain name, you’re going to need a place to host your website files. In other words, your site files need to reside on a server.
There are several hosting companies available. You’ll want to choose one that has features you want or need. Going back to knowing the purpose of your site, it’s good to plan ahead and get features you anticipate you might use right now as well as in the near future. For example, if you need e-commerce capability, be sure the hosting company offers this feature and find out whether or not it costs an additional fee. Extra features such as this usually do.
Thoroughly review the offerings of any hosting provider that you consider. Make sure you find a host that can guarantee 99.9% uptime, great customer support, backup storage and protection of your data, some form of site statistics tracking, and security.
Business site hosting can run anywhere from $5 to $1200 per month depending on what hosting company you choose, what features you want, how much storage space you require, etc.
..part 1
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