Domain Hosting News and Questions

Robert Goodwin asked:




Define Your Website Goals

Whether your website is a corporate website, an ecommerce website, a niche social media site or a totally new online business concept, you should put your website goals on paper.

Website goals should clearly state the purpose of your website and what the website should accomplish when someone visits your website.

The goals of an ecommerce website is different from a corporate website. One is a self-service purchase of products or services while the other will be more informational based.

You will some very specific goals for your website and they should be written down.

Create a Site Map

A site map can be as simple as an outline of the main pages your website will have and sub-pages you will have.

A typical small business site map will look like something like this:

Home

About Us

History Mission Statement Our Founder

Our Services & Products



Frequently Asked Questions



What Our Clients Are Saying



Request a Quote



Contact Us



Special Website Features

Special website features are capabilities your website will have beyond a standard website page. Special features typically include:

Form Pages – Sending form information by email and database capture. Newsletter Subscription – Automatic signup by visitors for email newsletters. Autoresponders – Automatic sending out of one or more emails in response to a request for more information, series of tips, online course, etc. Photo Gallery -  Slide show or thumbnails of product images. Shopping Cart – Ability to allow users to purchase products or services online. Flash Presentation – Audio and Video presentation to be downloaded or viewed within a website page. Registration and Login – Ability for customers or prospective customers to register and receive access to website pages and information not available to the general public. CMS (Content Management System) – Ability for you and your staff to update website pages, delete and add pages to the website through an Administration page. Knowledge Base – Support for products using a database and content management to offer many topics with support information for each. Survey – Series of questions which captures survey responses into a database. Trouble Ticket – System for customers to contact your support team to resolve issues, track responses and issue resolution. Online Operator (Chat) – System for chatting with potential customers and customers who have questions in real time. Project or Job Status – System for allowing customers to check on the current status of their job or project.

Approaches to Building Your Website

Even if you have a small website project, you should look for an expert to help you build your website. A website designer can save you both time and money, and help you with the many technical issues that you will encounter along the way.

Rent or Own? – There are some online website building sites that let you “rent” space on their server and create your own website using their software. This approach should only be used to build a quick website presence or to create a “prototype” of your website. Renting “Gotchas” – While the low monthly fees of a do-it-yourself website building website vendor are tempting, keep in mind you never really own your website. Later, when you decide to move your website or add more complex features to your website, you will find a rented website to be a major headache. Content Management – You should have a content management system for several reasons. Google likes content rich websites, and having an easy-to-use CMS will encourage you to add more content your website frequently, and free you from having a webmaster make update for you. Branding – Your website should reflect your branding. Make sure your logo and corporate color scheme is used in your website so all your marketing materials look like they belong to the same design family. Website Requirements – Before you hire a website designer, put all your website requirements on paper so there are few if any assumptions made about your website. For more complicated websites, be sure to put together a RFP (Request For Proposal) and ask several website design companies to give you a proposal. RFP – A Request For Proposal, if properly detailed, can help ensure you will have a proper response by several different website design companies so you can choose between several approaches to creating your website. Website Proposals – Evaluate all proposals to make sure the proposal fits your RFP or website requirements. Be wary of proposals that are extremely low or extremely high. Talk to the different vendors who respond to your RFP so you can get an idea of how well they communicate and what it will be like to work with them.

Get It In Writing

Be sure to have a formal agreement with your website designer and make sure you understand the agreement before you sign on the dotted line.

Out Clause – Make sure you have a way out of the agreement in case there are problems or you find your vendor delaying the project or not delivering what the proposal calls for. Website Ownership – Ideally, you should own all the website project files, graphics, website code and files upon completion of the website, but sometimes this is not spelled out in agreements. Hosting – Be careful if the website vendor is providing hosting. In the event you part company with your website designer, you will need full access to the hosting account in case you want to move the website to another hosting company in the future. Additional Charges – Your agreement should spell out how additional project requests are to be handled so you do not have unexpected charges after the fact. Time Line – Your website proposal should include a project plan and at least a simple week by week time line so you will know how long the project will take. Project Management – Who will be responsible for managing the project? Your website design company should do this, but if you hire a freelance resource you may be assuming some project management.

Building your website can be very challenging when you consider all the small pieces of the puzzle that have to fit together to make the project complete.

Working with a website design professional will make the process go faster and more smoothly, so you can focus on what you do best—running your company.

Lastly, if you have a large website project or one with many website features and custom programming, consider creating your website in phases. Focus on getting a basic website up and running in the first phase, then use one or more future phases to add additional features.



Web Hosting and Domain Registration

Robert Riles asked:




Loads and loads of material can be found both online and off line about how to start a clothing store. While a small article this size can hardly detail all the steps involved in starting a clothing or any other store, we can always discuss the basics involved in setting up a clothing company of your own. Given below are some of the main points that you need to consider when starting your own clothing store.

Start with a master plan: A good plan is the basic building block of any kind of business. The best companies in the world work with business plans and so do the worst. The only difference lies in the kind of planning that goes into each project. Make sure you plan everything in detail when you think of starting your on business. When you think of your own clothing store, then detail the basics involved as clearly as possible. Once you have everything planned out, it is definitely easier to implement.

Go Step By Step: The first step to starting a clothing store is to think about what you will sell. When it comes to clothing, then you can be selling anything ranging from underwear to bridal gowns. If you are planning to open on a small scale, which you should in the beginning, then choosing a niche where you think you can specialize is a better idea than trying to stock something of everything. Once you have decided on your product, the other decisions that you need to make are about the kind of customer that you want to target and the price range that you want to operate within. Basically you have to decide whether yours is going to be a mass market or a high end store.

The next issue that you need to address will be the amount of inventory you plan to carry. Think about how many styles, how many pieces and how many colors you want to carry and in what sizes. The largest portion of your monthly as well as initial budget will be spent on stock, so this is one area where no amount of thinking and planning can ever be enough.

Once you have decided on these two things, it is time to find out and fix at least a couple or more suppliers who will be supplying you with all your products. Do your research well when deciding on suppliers; because the lower the costs that these people give you, the higher will be the profits that you will be able to make.

Pay Attention To Location: The one thing that makes or breaks a retail store is location. Think of a location which your target customer already frequents instead of opening a destination store. Taking a high street shop is a good idea if you are planning to sell bridal or party wear, while a shop selling mid range casuals can be located in a normal multi store mall.

Mentioned above are just a few points about how to start a clothing store. While these are necessary basics that you need to consider, the list is by no means complete. So go ahead and educate yourself on how to open a clothing store through perusing as much study material as you can. For more on this topic, keep watching this space.



3D Domain Registration