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Web Presence Tips

We recognize that taking your first step onto the Internet can be intimidating. While there are a number of guides and tutorials showing you how to surf the Net, there are precious few showing you how to safely and efficiently set up your business' online presence. That's why we would like to take the time to constantly expand on this page, to bring you more and more into the, "cyber-world," so that you may better understand what it is that we stand for, and who we are here for. (YOU)

We would like to help you to make the most of your Web Address, and become one of the thousands of highly successful Web Sites on the Internet today.



All About Domain Names Domain Names That Work
Setting Up An E-Business Tips To Having A Better Web Site
How The World Wide Web Works Internet "LINGO" Definitions



ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DOMAIN NAMES

A Web Address (Domain Name) is the Internet equivalent of your business address online. On the Internet, your Web Address acts as both your shopfront and an address, giving your customers a place to visit online whenever they want to contact you, find out more about your business, or purchase your products and services.

You've probably already been introduced to Web Addresses without your knowing it. For example, here are a few well-known Web Addresses with which you might be familiar: 

 www.microsoft.com (Microsoft)
 www.bbc.co.uk (The BBC)
 www.yahoo.com (Yahoo Search Engine)
 www.amazon.co.uk (Amazon Books)
DOMAIN NAMES THAT WILL WORK FOR YOU

As I have already said, a Web Address is the Internet equivalent of your business address online, so it's got to be right!

Location is a critical consideration when you decide to establish your business' Internet presence. You could spend countless hours creating a killer Web site filled with the latest products and lowest prices in the world, but if no one can get to your Web site - or, even worse, if no one knows that your Web site even exists - you probably won't be in business online for very long.

There are now over 2.5 million distinct .com and .co.uk addresses, .com and .co.uk is recognized around the globe as the top-level domains for business. But simply having an address in .com or .co.uk isn't going to guarantee you a flood of potential customers. You still need to choose a Web Address that your customers can remember and use to identify you.

Most people around the world have grown accustomed to, and even expect to see web addresses. Picking a good Web Address and registering it in .com or .co.uk can increase your site's "guess" traffic - visits from potential customers who don't specifically know your Web Address but who can still find your Internet site by guessing.

Making a name for yourself:
Even with over 2.5 million Web Addresses already registered in .com and .co.uk, finding an available Web Address to identify your business is relatively easy:

SETTING UP YOUR OWN E-BUSINESS


Some experts predict that the number of people with Internet access will exceed 300 million within the next 10 years. According to Forrester Research, over £9 billion in transactions was expected to take place on the Internet in 2000. That amount is expected to jump to over £14 billion by the year 2001.

The three most important steps in setting up shop on the Internet are:



TIPS TO HAVING A BETTER WEB SITE

Creating a basic Web site isn't difficult. You create some HTML files, add a few graphics and multimedia, place them in a directory somewhere on a Web server, and you've got a Web site. But creating a superior Web site, especially one for business, is more challenging. Remember, this is what millions of potential customers will use to find out about you, your products, and services. You want your customers to feel your Web site was worth the visit - and you want them to come back.

So here are some important tips and tricks to keep in mind when designing your new Web site.

Know your audience:
Your English teacher was right: before you write one word, figure out who your audience is. Once you have identified your audience, focus all of your effort on meeting the needs of that audience. The biggest mistake that a Web designer can make is forgetting who the audience is. With a regular Web site, losing sight of your audience means that you lose potential visitors. With a commercial Web site, losing sight of your audience means that you lose potential customers.

Focus on your site's content - words, graphics, etc.:
Pretend that you have to pay £1 for every word on your Web site. This will force you to be economical with your words and your customers will appreciate you for it. Besides, time is money - for both you and your customers. The shorter and sweeter your message the easier it will be for customers to read and understand, and the easier it will be for you to maintain.

Map out your site on paper:
Before you create it, map your site on paper and make sure that users can, on every page, easily understand and navigate their way throughout your entire site. You need to make sure that your users can always go back a page or return to the first page of your site from any point.

Impress with your content, not with your presentation:
Keep the bells and whistles (big graphics, sound files and plug-ins) to a minimum. Despite what you may have heard, on the Web content is king. Unnecessary frills on a Web site take a long time for some users to download and can be annoying and time-consuming for those with busy schedules.

Every visitor to your Web site is a potential customer:
To guarantee that your Web site is accessible to as many potential customers as possible, avoid using plug-ins or non-standard HTML tags. If you design your Web site so that it is best viewed with a particular Web browser, you are effectively telling the millions of people who don't use that particular browser that you don't want their business. Instead, design your Web site so that it is accessible with ALL Web browsers - or at least the most commonly used browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Put your contact information on every page:
Remember to put contact information, including your postal address and business telephone number (or a link to this information) on every page of your site.

Use the alt= attribute in your <image> tags:
There are still millions of people on the Web who don't have access to a graphical Web browser like Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Instead, these people have to browsers like Lynx that only display text. (This is especially true for the hundreds of thousands of blind people who browse the Web every day). You can make things a lot easier for them if you include a description of your graphics in all of your image tags. (Be aware that most HTML editors do not automatically do this for you). The following is an example of an alt=attribute in html: <image src="tree.gif" height="100" width="50" alt="Redwood tree from California">.

Define your images:
If you know the height and width of your images, include that in the <image> tags. This sounds odd, but it improves the speed at which your images are loaded. (Some HTML editors will do this for you automatically.)

Avoid using frames:
They are not accessible with all Web browsers and can make navigating your site impossible for some users.

Use a descriptive <title>:
This will help you get more hits from search engines.

Streamline download time:
The download time for any of your Web pages should be no longer than you can hold your breath. To figure out the download time for your Web pages, add 2 seconds for every graphic plus 1 second for every kilobyte in each of your Web page's graphics and HTML files. If a page takes more than thirty seconds to download, your prospective customers will start clicking away from your site.

Simplify:
Large graphics on a black background with yellow lettering may look great, but it is much harder to read than simple black lettering on a white background with small graphics. Keep you message direct, easy to read, and easy to remember.

HOW THE WORLD WIDE WEB WORKS

It seems that everywhere we turn, we hear people talking about the World Wide Web. The weatherman invites you to check out the weather forecast on the Internet; your competitors talk about how their online presence has revitalized their business; and almost every group or organization that you can think of - from the Queen ( http://www.royal.gov.uk/) to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (http://www.fbi.gov/) - now offers their own World Wide Web site. As a new medium of commerce, communication, and education, the World Wide Web is an unparalleled phenomenon. But what, exactly, is the World Wide Web?

The Power of Hypertext
Imagine that you have the ability to link one document to another, no matter where in the world those two documents are located. You could read one document, click a word and jump to a second document many miles away. This new document could even have links to other documents around the world, and so on.

Sound too good to be true? It isn't, thanks to something called "hypertext." If you have ever played with Apple's Hypercard program or the "help" menus in some of the latest Microsoft software packages, you have already experienced hypertext. In hypertext, you "select" a highlighted word -- usually by clicking on it with a mouse -- and are taken to an entirely new document or help screen.

The World Wide Web (or the "Web") is based on hypertext. You can roam around the Web, jumping from document to document, using nothing but the links in those documents.

To do this, you will need a special piece of software called a "Web browser." A Web browser (like Netscape's Navigator or Microsoft's Internet Explorer) can read, fetch or download documents from anywhere in the world; access files stored on remote computers using an Internet tool called file transfer protocol(ftp); read Usenet newsgroups; log-in to remote computers using an Internet tool called telnet; and even lets you travel around the text-based precursor to the Web called Gopherspace. In short, almost everything that you could ever want to do on the Internet can be done using a Web browser.

The Web presents information as a series of "documents," often referred to as Web pages, that are written using a special mark-up code called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Using HTML, Web page authors can specially code sections of the document to direct users to other documents around the world. These specially coded sections are referred to as hypertext links.

A world of information at your fingertips:
Users viewing the Web page can click on the hypertext link with their mouse and retrieve information, connect to other computer systems, view graphics, listen to speeches, and send messages. This is because hypertext "links" can lead to other documents, images, sounds, and email addresses. Because it can incorporate graphics and "understands" other Internet protocols, the Web can provide an easy-to-use interface for resources available via these protocols.

It is important to remember that the World Wide Web is not linear. There is no top and no bottom. You are free to jump from one link to another or go directly to a Web site or other resource if you know its Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

On the Web, a world of information is only a mouse click away.

INTERNET "LINGO" DEFINITIONS

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