How to put up a company website

About 15 per cent of the world population is connected to the Internet.  That translates to about 970 million Internet users.  For this reason alone, companies – regardless of size – are making their presence felt in the Internet in various ways, foremost of which is having a company website.  With a website,  you overcome country and regional boundaries.  The whole world virtually becomes a potential customer of your business.

Here are steps to building a website for your company.

1. Set goals – You begin, of course, with objectives.  Be clear as to what you want the website to accomplish.  It would help if you list down as many sentences as you can beginning with the words “I want my website to ….”  Example:  “I want this website to give information customers/potential customers  usually need to do business with my company, such as contact numbers, product range, prices, location of outlets/branches, etc.” Then identify the most urgent and important ones and make them your goals for your website.

2. Hire a website designer – Show your list of requirements and objectives to a website designer.  Judge his capability depending on how he maps a plan on how he will achieve the goals you have set.    Look for someone who understands how businesses operates.  Check out other sites he has done for other clients.  Be sure the web site he puts up for you is more content-rich than flashy.  Flash or website animation may look attractive but they also usually load slower and may tend to turn off visitors who are looking for content rather than special effects.

3. Buy a domain name.  – Choose a domain name that is easy to remember and at the same time as close as possible to your business name.

Should it be marikitcreations.com or marikitcreations.org?    A domain name with a .com suffix is the most favorable (priced as low as US 4 to 7 a year).  However, if you’re out of luck and your preferred domain is already taken, you can opt for .net, .org, .com.ph, .net.ph or .org.ph.  (priced at approximately  P3,500 a year).

Popular domain registrars are godaddy.com and yahoo.com/smallbiz, where you can check if your preferred domain name is still available.

Registering is easy:  Fill up a form that asks for your name and all contact information that will be needed just in case someone decides to challenge your ownership of the domain.  Try to do this process yourself, although the web designer can help you.

4. Find a host. – Your website designer can also help you find a host or suggest the most suitable one for you or possibly be a web host himself.  What are web hosts?  These are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients and from there provide Internet connectivity, typically in a data center.  In other words, web hosts make sure your website is accessible in the internet at all times.  Small businesses, expecting website visitors under 100 a day, usually opt for hosts under the category of “resellers” —   usually home-based or small enterprises offering hosting as a complementary service to related services such as website or software development.  The other category of web hosts are full-blown hosting companies with data centers or rows and rows of servers.  When your website has started to hit 1000 visitors a day, you may start thinking of shifting from resellers to these more dedicated hosts.

5. Appoint a competent person to take charge – The best person to work with a website designer in designing the company website is the business owner himself.  He is the one most concerned about how the company relates to its customers, clients, and suppliers.   Surprisingly, though, the task is usually assigned to a manager or even a lower-level staff.  If an owner has to delegate this responsibility, it should be to someone who is internet savvy,  has great interest in publishing and can write good copy.  Give the person blanket authority on design and content and a firm grasp of the website’s goals.

 

Photo: &ldquo;<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/18065598@N00/4224413805″>Dot Com Made Of Bricks</a>&rdquo; by <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/18065598@N00/”>Gilberto Stankiewicz</a>, c/o Flickr. <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>Some Rights Reserved</a>