Web site FAQ:
Building a Web site From the Ground Up

Q: What are the steps to building and launching a new Web site?

A: Getting a new Web site is easy! First, you need to decide on and purchase a domain name, which is the name people type into the address bar of their browser to reach your site. Next, you need to purchase Web hosting, which is space online to put your site. Finally, you need to have someone design and build your site. Back to questions

Q: How much should I expect to pay for all this?

A: Domain names cost less than $10, and hosting starts at about $3/month (although as your site gets more traffic, you'll have to pay for larger hosting packages). The largest cost is the Web site design and development. This depends entirely on how large you want your site to be, and how much functionality you want your site to have. For example, a one- or two-page site that gives a company bio and contact information should only cost about $100-$200; a large e-commerce site, however, could set you back thousands of dollars. Back to questions

Q: What is a domain name?

A: A domain name is your Web address. For example, our domain name is primadonnaproductions.com. Domain names are used to make the internet more user friendly, because each replaces an IP address, which is a twelve-digit number.

Domain names can use one of several "top level domains" (TLDs), including the traditional .com, .net, and .org, as well as the newer .biz, .info, .name, and .pro. There are also other TLDs such as .gov and .edu, but these are restricted for special use (government and education, respectively). You might also see .uk, .de, and .jp. These are country-specific domain names, and there are over 240 such TLDs.

You can find more information about domain names at InterNIC's Domain FAQ and ICANN. Back to questions

Q: How do I choose and purchase a domain name?

A: Domain names can be up to 67 characters long, start with a letter or a number, and contain letters, numbers, and the hyphen ("-"). Though you can use 67 characters, shorter domains are better because they are more easily remembered. If your name is something that could easily be misspelled, it's a good idea to purchase the common misspellings as well and have those names point to the properly spelled name.

Using hyphens is good because it makes your domain more readable and thus memorable and it helps search engines index you. However, people are used to seeing domain names without hyphens, and they may remember the words but forget the hyphens, and end up at a different (and possibly a competitor's) site!

The most popular TLD is ".com", followed by ".net". ".org" is generally used by non-profit organizations, but anyone can register and use any one of these three. Other TLDs are available, some of which are restricted for specific uses (such as .gov and .edu).

There are many domain registrars who will register your domain name. Note that you cannot "buy" a domain name. When you register it, you only "lease" it for a given amount of time (one to ten years), and if you forget to renew it, someone else could get it! Thankfully, most registrars offer an "auto-renew" feature so you don't have to worry about that.

Some companies offer domain names and Web hosting in a single package. This can sometimes be a good deal, and can make it more simple to manage your Web site.

As mentioned above, a domain name should cost less than $10. There was a time when they were all $35, but now prices have come down and I've seen names for as low as $5.95. Back to questions

Q: Someone already has the domain name I want.

A: Often, the domain name you want is already registered to someone else. There are a few ways you can deal with this:

• Use a different TLD
• Add hyphens
• Brainstorm different names
• Get on a waiting list
• Buy the name from the current registrant

Use a different TLD
If, for example, doctorcentral.com is already registered, doctorcentral.net may be available. Be aware, however, that you may accidentally send visitors to the .com version, since that is a more common TLD. This would be very bad if doctorcentral.com was a competitor of your company!

Add hyphens
A second change you could make would be to add hyphens, which would make your domain name doctor-central.com. This method has the same drawback as the first, which is that it can easily be mistyped without the hyphen, directing visitors to the wrong site.

Brainstorm different names
Try adding or subtracting a word or abbreviation. For example, try bestautoprices.com instead of thebestautoprices.com. Or change mariobros.com to mariobrothers.com.

Alternately, try to think of something that has to do with your Web site. For example, if your company, Widget Co., sells widgets, and widgetco.com is taken, try buywidgets.com, or widgets-for-sale.com.

Get on a waiting list
There are Web sites that monitor domain names and can notify you when a domain expires, so you can quickly grab the domain you want. However, there's no telling if the owner will renew for another year, so you may be waiting quite a while.

Buy the name from the current registrant
Some people buy domain names and never use them, or buy with the intention of selling them. You could contact the owner of a domain name and ask about this. Also, there are domain reseller Web sites that also offer this service. A few years ago, some domains were sold for several million dollars. Now-a-days, however, the value of names has come down, so make sure not to pay more than what you think is reasonable. Back to questions

Q: What is Web hosting?

A: A domain name gives you an address on the Web; hosting gives you space to put your site. Hosting plans vary in many ways, but the basic things to be concerned with are the following:

• Disk space - how much space you have for your Web site
• File Transfer (Bandwidth) - how much traffic your site is allowed to have per month
• Email accounts - how many email addresses (someone@yourdomain.com) do you get?
• Windows or Linux - see below
• Shared, dedicated, or managed - see below

First, disk space is important if you are going to have a lot of images, audio, or video. Text is very small compared to images. The old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" takes on a new meaning in this context. A small site may only use 5MB or 10MB of disk space.

Second, file transfer (also called bandwidth, although incorrectly) is a measure of how much data your site will transfer per month. Every time someone visits your site your pages are downloaded onto their computer. Like disk space, your file transfer requirements will be higher if your site has lots of images, audio, and video. Images are the smallest, and video is the largest (at about 10MB per minute, depending on the quality and format).

Third, some hosts offer only five email addresses with their most basic accounts, while others offer 20 or 50. Make sure you get as many email addresses as you need. Also, email forwarders are good because the "catch" any email sent to an invalid address at your domain. Back to questions

Q: Linux or Windows hosting?

A: One mistake people make is thinking that because their own computer is a Windows computer, their hosting needs to also be a Windows server. In fact, the two are unrelated. Linux is actually very popular for hosting. That is because, by many accounts, it is faster, more stable, and has fewer security risks. However, there are certain proprietary Microsoft features that cannot run on non-Windows servers (MS FrontPage extensions are supported on Linux servers, however). Linux is known to be better for shared hosting plans. Back to questions

Q: Shared, dedicated, and managed hosting?

A: Shared hosting is good for smaller Web sites, because you share the server with other Web sites who have purchased hosting from the same company. This is all taken care of behind the scenes, and the only real drawback is that you have less control over exactly how your server is configured. However, this is probably the best solution for most new sites.

Dedicated hosting means your Web site has its very own server. You can customize this server to act however you want, and run whatever software you wish. Support from the hosting company is minimal, however. Managed hosting is similar, but includes support from the hosting company (they can set things up for you). Back to questions

Q: What are all these options like PHP, ASP, CGI, and SSI?

A: When comparing hosting plans, you will see a lot of different features they may or may not support. Most of these features are programming languages used by your Web developers. Consult with your Web developer as to what they might feel are most useful for your site. Back to questions

Q: What is Web design and Web development?

A: Web design deals with the "look and feel" of your site. Web development, on the other hand, is what's "under the hood" of your site. There are many ways to achieve a certain design, and it is up to the developers to make sure the code is as efficient, accessible, and flexible as it can be. Ease of maintenance is very important, and having code that is strait-forward will save you a lot of time and money when you want to make a revision, especially if you use a different company to maintain your site.

It is also important that they test your design with many different browsers and operating systems to ensure that it looks the same for all visitors. Back to questions

Q: How do I get listed at Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines?

A: By many estimates, 80 to 85 percent of traffic to a given Web site is from a search engine listing. It is very important to have a high listing in the major search engines. Most of these engines are "crawler-based", which means as long as there is a link to your site from another site that they have already found, they will eventually find you. However, there are certain steps you can take to get listed more quickly and higher.

The first is to submit your Web site to all the directories you can find, the most important two being Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ. A directory is like a search engine, but the pages it lists are reviewed by humans for quality, so many fewer sites are listed. Most of the time submission is free (although Yahoo! will try to get to you to sign up for their $299 "Express" plan, which still doesn't guarantee that your site will be listed).

The second is to get other sites to link to you. How do you do this? Well, having a great site is one way. Filling your site with excellent content will make others want to link to your site. Another way to get inbound links is to ask others in your field to link to you, or to exchange links. Lastly, there are many link exchange programs where you can buy links from other sites. Inbound links are the best way to increase your Google Page Rank, which is a measure of how important your site is. Back to questions

Q: What is search engine optimization (SEO) and how do I do it?

A: Part art, part science, search engine optimization is an important part of a Web site. It allows a search engine (SE) to understand what your site is about, so it knows to show your site when people search for keywords that are relevant to it.

There are many ethical ways to optimize your Web site, but beware of any companies that guarantee a specific ranking. These companies will usually deliver on their promise (such as a top ten listing in Google), but your site will get this high ranking for uncommon search words. There are also many unethical SEO techniques used to trick search engines. These techniques may work for a short time, but could also get your site banned from the search engine listings. Back to questions

Q: How do I keep visitors coming to my site?

A: In case you haven't heard it before, "content is king." It's true, too. Having a great Web site with useful content will keep visitors coming back, especially if you update your site frequently with new content. There are also many free news feeds on a variety of topics that you could include on your site. News feeds are automatically updated with the latest news headlines.

Frequent updates also get the search engines to crawl your site more often. Back to questions

Q: Can I maintain my Web site myself? How much does it cost?

A: Maintaining a Web site can be very difficult or very easy, depending on how it is set up. Most of the time small text changes are relatively inexpensive. You could also do some of it yourself, if you learn some basic HTML, but you also have the risk of causing a problem that you cannot fix, and then having to pay a developer to fix it. Often it is best to leave it to the experts.

You may want a Content Management System (CMS) which is a program that allows you to edit your content without HTML knowledge and with safeguards in place to maintain the integrity of your site. However, make sure not to pay for something you don't need. Are you going to have time to update yourself? Do you really need control over the entire site? Very often there are only a few pages (such as a Recent News section) that will need to be changed, so don't pay for a huge CMS to change just one or two pages. Very often the money you pay for a CMS is more than the cost of having a developer maintain it for you. Back to questions