Download Basic Web Design UVICELL

Basic Web Design
UVICELL
Week 5
Choosing a Domain Name, Hosting
and Marketing Your Web Site
Domain Names - Overview
 A domain name is a text name corresponding to
the numeric IP address of a computer on the
Internet
 A domain name must be unique
 Internet users access your website using your
domain name
 www.uvi.edu
 www.wave-creative.com
 www.yahoo.com
Selecting a Domain Name
 Select a domain name that matches your company
name as closely as possible or a description of the
product or service you sell
 Example - your company is “Smith, Inc.” and you
sell computers
 If www.smith.com is taken try:
 www.smithcomputers.com is taken try:
 www.smithcomputersales.com
 Names can be up to 67 characters, so be creative!
Checking the Availability of a
Domain Name
 Searching for a domain name is called a “whois”
search, as in “who is the owner of this domain”
 To search for a domain name go to
http://www.internic.net/whois.html
 InterNIC supervises the registration of domain
names and regulates the registrars (these are the
companies who actually register your domain
name)
 www.networksolutions.com
 www.omnis.com
 www.godaddy.com
Registering and Hosting Your
Domain
 Web hosting is the placement of your
HTML documents on an internet web server
that allows people to view them
 Most registrars now offer hosting services
Points to Consider When
Selecting a Web Host








Amount of file storage (in MB’s or GB’s)
Amount of file transfers per month (in MB’s or GB’s)
How many email addresses are included?
Are they compatible with your web development
tool? (i.e. Dreamweaver or FrontPage)
Will you need a database? If so which one?
Will you need a shopping cart? or an online product
catalog?
What usage statistics are available?
Cost per month + any overage fees
Marketing Your Site - Overview
 Preparing your web pages for search
engines and Search Engine Optimization
 Submitting your site to major search
engines
 Links to and from your site
 Use your web address in all advertising
Marketing Your Site
- Preparing Your Site for Indexing
 Be sure your page “Title” accurately reflects the
content on the page, along with your company (or
division), product or service name
 Use a "description" meta-tag and write your
description accurately and carefully
 Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the
web page
 Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to that
specific page on your site instead of using one broad set
of keywords for every page
Marketing Your Site
- Inserting Meta-Tags
 Open your web page in Dreamweaver
 On the INSERTS palette click on the HTML
tab
 Click on the HEAD tab and then the KEY
symbol for KEYWORDS and type in your
keywords for that page and a few general
keywords for your site
 Repeat for the DESCRIPTION meta-tag
Meta Tags - Example
 <title>Wave Creative Services - Audio Recording, Voice Over, IT
Consulting, Web Site Design and Web Development in St. Croix, US
Virgin Islands - Website Design</title>
 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO8859-1">
 <meta name="description" content="Wave Creative Services is a full
service marketing and communications company serving St. Croix the
Virgin Islands, US and beyond. We specialize in commercial and
narrative voice-overs, writing, editing, web site design and
maintenance. When others have let you down, try us.">
 <meta name="keywords" content="marketing communications, voice
overs, voice-overs, voiceovers, audio recording, web design, web
development, website design, website development, computer
consulting, computer repairs, macintosh, mac repairs, IT help, IT
consulting, original music, movie score, commercial music">
Submitting Your Site to Search
Engines
 The Big Three
 Google - 80% of all searches on the web!
 Yahoo
 MSN
 Each search engine uses a different approach to index
your web page
 Be sure to read about how each one works (available on the
class web site, see “Week 5”)
 All search sites use the Title tag, and the Keywords
and Description meta-tags so be sure to add them
before you submit your site
Search Engine Optimization
(S.E.O.)
The practice of guiding the development and
management of a website so that it will
naturally attract visitors by winning top
rankings on the major search engines for
selected keyword terms.
SEO Basics






Selecting & incorporating target terms
Web / S.E.O. copywriting
Page titles & meta tags
Link building
Site submission
Monitoring & refinement
What Are Target Search Terms?
 What are search terms?
 Keywords
 Keyword phrases
 Benefits of selecting the right terms
 Insure traffic to site is relevant
 Obtain high ranking for terms
 Increase direct traffic
Selecting Search Terms





Organization name
Business type
Product / services
Location
Related products /
services
 Synonym variations




Misspellings
Singulars / Plurals
Hyphenated words
See what your
competition is using
 See what the top
ranking companies are
using
Writing for the Web
 Be to the point - respect your visitor’s time
 Only 8 seconds to capture the visitor’s
attention
 Only 30 seconds to provide visitor’s with
the information they are looking for
Writing for the Web (continuted)
 Using headings / subheadings to guide the
readers eye (H1 and H2 tags are good for this purpose)
 Incorporate bulleted lists when appropriate
 Avoid using “fluff” copy
 Try to keep pages under 300 words
 Use keywords throughout the copy
Marketing Your Site With Links
 Partnering - Getting links to your site from:






Vendors
Customers
Partners
Professional associations
Government agencies
Other non-competitive companies
 Create a links page on your site and reciprocate
links from other sites
Self Advertising Your Site
 Print your web site address on everything!




Company letterhead
Business cards
Print advertising
Phone book ad
Professional Web Advertising
 Google - they are the leader for a reason
 AdSense
 AdWords
 Web hosting providers usually assist (for a
fee) with marketing and promotion of your
site