You’ve seen the benefits and you’ve heard the drawbacks, assuming you have a product to sell and solid business plan, you’re ready for the next step!! So here it is— getting your online business, well, online!First and foremost, you have to know what you want to accomplish with your site. Think about how you want to present your products, the information you’ll need to include, and how to organize your site. Looking around at other similar websites is a great way to gather ideas. Peggy McCollan internationally recognized expert in the field of Internet marketing, wrote an article about web design for the Huffington Post, a news website run by AOL. In the article, McColl suggests making a list of website names, what you like about them, and what you don’t like about them, then using your list to create an outline of your ideal website. Once you know how you want your site to be, it’s time to find the best option for creating it.
To begin with, you have to decide if you’re willing to pay money for this website to become a reality or if you want to go the free route. There are many perfectly satisfactory web design services that you can take advantage of for free, such as Intuit’s Homestead or BabyGigs. These sites are template based, which means that while you add your own content, it makes use of ready-made layouts and designs. If you’re beginner, this may be helpful to you. But if you want your site to look a very specific way, you may have to pay a bit more to hire an actual web developer, whether locally or online on sites like Core Interactive. A web developer can take care of all the logistics of creating a website and you can work with them to get exactly the site you imagined!
Using Intuit's Homestead to create a website
There is, of course, the do-it-yourself option as well—instead of piggy backing on other websites, you can manage the whole process from the beginning. This includes going out and finding an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that suits your needs and registering for a domain name and URL. According to an archived entry on Reuters, world's largest international multimedia news agency, your ISP will charge a monthly fee, but will provide you with the necessary server space for your Web site. After securing server space, you will need to register for a domain name. Network Solutions, Inc. is one website that offers registration services and instructions on how to do this.
It’s important to note that with any of the above options you can do as little or as much as you would like to do on your own. For example, you could pay someone to secure a good ISP and domain name for you, and then do the web designing yourself. Or, you could do the domain name yourself, and hire a professional for the designing. The choices you make will need to depend on your level of expertise and the amount of time and money you are willing to invest.
Beyond the creation of your site, the previously mentioned Reuters article also suggests registering your site with search engines, informing others about your site, and of course, maintaining your site so that it’s always up to date.
In a "March 19 Huffington Post article called "Your 10 Point Website Checkup," Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., offers more great advice on fine-tuning websites including content, design, and marketing.
Starting a website can be a complicated process. The purpose of this entry has been to provide online entrepreneurs with only a very brief overview of the available methods of starting a website.
Really liked this entry, it was both informative and interesting. Makes me want to create my own website/business online :D
ReplyDeleteI did notice a few grammar errors and sentence structure issues however, be sure to proof read :D I always find it helpful to have someone else read over my entry before I post because sometimes we tend not to catch those little errors within our own work.
The links were nicely placed and added to the entry as did the photo and video. I also liked how you placed your multimedia in your blog, makes the entry look balanced.
Another site that might be helpful to include in future entrepreneur blogs is www.webs.com, a website that helps users create their own free website.
I would be interested to learn about what is going on in the news with online entrepreneurs…
You’re doing a great job, keep up the good work!
I love that your blog had the feel of a Do-It-Yourself program. With each posting followers can grow in a chronological way. They can go through each post and, more or less, keep a checklist of things you have states and how they can help the overall picture!
ReplyDeleteThe video you included was very interesting. I fear the complexities of how people can piece together a website, so the video quelled those thoughts straight out. It might have been good to have maybe found a screen shot of what the programs that help build the websites look like. It sure sounds easy to piece together a website for what the Gadget Girl said, but seeing it for myself would have served as a good security blanket. “This doesn’t look that overwhelming!”
Maybe as a follow-up post you can delve into how people set up things like pay pal or other payment systems online. That seems like it would be quite the hurdle in the business website building process.