You may or may not be aware that the anchor text of a link (i.e. the text that is clickable in a link) is very important for search engine optimization. Search engines see the anchor text as being a description of the target of the link. For example, if you have a website about “green widgets”, then people are likely to link to you in the following manner:

Here is a link to Green Widgets

This tells the search engines that the phrase “green widgets” is connected to your website, and so when someone searches for that phrase, the search engines will consider your website a good match, and your website will likely rank well.

Anchor text is also important within your own domain. So if you were linking from one page on your website to another, you may choose to link using “small green widgets” if you wanted that page to rank well for that phrase.

And so we come to the tip! All you have to do is add an anchor-rich link from your sidebar or footer to the page on your website that you want to promote. Assuming your sidebar/footer is the same throughout your website, you will now have as many links with your targeted anchor text as you have pages!

And that’s it! With that small amount of work, you should see an improvement in your page’s search engine rank for the targeted text within days or weeks. As with any SEO technique, experiment, and don’t overdo it. If you are obviously trying to game the search engines, don’t be surprised if their alarm bells ring, and your website is penalized!

The two main methods of monitoring your website are log analysis and page tagging. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, though page tagging is increasingly popular due to easy set-up and more detailed monitoring capabilities.

Log Analysis

There is software that can read the records (log files) of your web server and extract statistics. This software has to be installed on your server and then analyzes the data that is produced as visitors request files and interact with your server.

There are four main free options available, one or more of which are often pre-installed by web hosts (including Real Free Websites!):

Screenshot of AWStats results page

AWStats

Powerful software that displays statistics in an attractive manner

Webalizer

Produces fast and simple reports, but is no longer in active development

Analog

Software that is aimed at a more technical audience

W3Perl

Another option offering powerful anaylsis

Page Tagging

Page tagging software relies on JavaScript code placed on your webpages that is run every time someone views a webpage. The following software options are touted as standalone solutions, and each produces a good range of statistics.

Screenshot of Google Analytics results page by veen

Google Analytics

The big player in the pack and a free offering from Google, this provides extensive statistics, in a user-friendly format

W3Counter

Also free for smaller websites and claims to offer more features than Google Analytics, including live search results. However, for the free version, you are required to put a small image on your website

Xiti

Another free option that requires an image on your website. It also offers paid versions with more features

Open Web Analytics

A mature open source alternative. It offers all the benefits of open source, including being free, and fully customizable, but setting it up requires some technical ability and MySQL database and PHP support

Piwik

Another open source solution with similar benefits and technical requirements.

Whereas the above software is general purpose, the following software is more specialized and does not offer comprehensive statistics, but they can complement or be used to verify other tracking methods:

Screenshot of HitTail results page

CrazyEgg

There is a limited free service that allows you to visually see which areas of your webpages are receiving the most clicks

HitTail

They offer a simple version that tracks searches in real time for free.

Be Aware

If you use a third-party tool that sends data to another server, you are sharing statistics about your visitors and your website, and, as a result, your business, with whoever is providing that service. This is why Google, for instance, has invested so much in Google Analytics - Google thrives off data, and as many have chosen to use this free tool, Google now has a rich flow of information flooding into their hands. “Knowledge is power”. If keeping your website usage data private is important to you, then you should choose software that is installed on your own server or software that clearly states that your data will be kept private.

Also worth noting is that in Google’s terms of service, Google reserves the right to charge for the service:

Google may change its fees and payment policies for the Service from time to time

Most, if not all, of the commercial software will have similar stipulations. This is something to consider before becoming dependent on any one tool, and is another argument in favor of installing multiple monitoring software.

One final point is that proprietary software also means that the provider will decide what information should be collected and how. Normally, this will be fine for most users, but you may want greater flexibility in using your data. If you want your information analyzed differently, you will have to switch provider or choose an open source model, which will allow you to write your own code.

Conclusion

Bear in mind that the accuracy of these monitoring tools is never 100%. For example, the JavaScript tracking scripts rely on visitors having JavaScript enabled. If it’s not enabled, they pass by without being registered. Some visitors may also have chosen to block selected JavaScript to protect their privacy, and again these visitors will not be logged. On the other hand, log analysis software cannot account for webpages that have been cached on other servers or by browsers, leading to inacurate reporting of total visitors.

The solution to this lack of accuracy? There is no bulletproof answer, but if you use multiple tools, you can take an average reading and be confident you are close.

Do you need help installing one of these tools? Real Free Websites can help.

Why monitor?

It has been said that “you cannot change what you do not measure”. For example, if you don’t know what your visitor numbers were before changing the design of your homepage, how will you know if your numbers have changed afterwards? In this case, has your design change succeeded? It’s impossible to say! In which case, you should have saved your time and money and not changed anything.

Monitoring allows you to access details about how your website is being used and by whom. By interpreting your statistics, you can change and improve your website to better meet the goal of your website. Another key reason to monitor is that it allows you to understand the source of your visitors, helping you to refine your strategies to increase visitor numbers and improve search engine optimization (SEO).

How to monitor

In the early days of the internet, one of the most common appearances on a website was a “web stat counter” - often a small graphic indicating the number of visitors that had visited the website. Monitoring tools have developed considerably since these early days, and there are now highly sophisticated solutions (see some recommended website analytic tools).

There are two main methods of collecting website analytic information:

Log Analysis

Software that analyzes the traffic details sent and received by your servers

Page Tagging

Code that is placed on a web page, and which sends visitor information to a server

While neither method is perfect, page tagging is used more commonly nowadays as it allows for greater information collection than log analysis. However, as with all monitoring, a combination of approaches is best.

What to monitor

Depending on what software you install, you will be surprised at how much information you can collect about your visitors.

There are three key areas to study:

• How people arrive at and leave your website
• Who your visitors are
• And what they do

How people arrive at and leave your website

Understanding this area is vital to increase targeted visitor numbers. Arguably, this is the most important area to monitor and act upon, as without visitors, your website may as well not exist.

You can use web analytic software to find out:

• Which websites your visitors are coming from
• Which search terms that brought them to your website

Visitors to your website will come from either:

1. Directly inputting your domain name
2. Through search engine results pages
3. Or from links to your website from other websites

Any popular source of visitors should be investigated: for example, where are people finding your domain name - perhaps from an offline advertisement or your business card? What search terms are leading to visitors to your website? Are these keyphrases you have targeted? Which websites are linking to yours and what is the context of that link - a positive review, an advertisement, etc.?

By understanding how people are finding your website, you can see where your marketing has been successful, or where it needs to be stepped up. You may also find that a marketing strategy you overlooked or rejected has potential to be very rewarding, e.g. perhaps there is an unlikely keyword combination that has led to a number of visitors to your website, and you may decide it is worth optimizing some webpages for this term. Or you may have found that a website design review has led to many visits, and you may decide to submit your website to other design competitions.

Who your visitors are

The amount of data you can find out about your visitors is fairly limited, but you can still collect some useful information, including:

• Country of origin
• Browser language setting
• Technical settings including browser type, screen resolution, connection speeds

Obviously, knowing how someone arrived at your website can allow you to guess what type of person they are, e.g. visitors from Digg.com are likely to be technically-minded, young and male. You may need to do some detective work to decide what kind of person is coming from a website you are not familiar with. Similarly, search terms may give you clues as to the type of person: e.g. a search for “hairdressers new york” is probably a female based in New York.

If you are attracting the “wrong” type of visitor you are wasting their time and using up your web server’s resources for no reason. The “wrong visitor” is any visitor who is not helping your website to achieve your website’s goals - in other words, not your target market. While it may be pleasing to see your traffic statistics soaring, if you cannot monetize or “convert” these people they are not relevant to your website’s success, and may be detrimental, by overburdening your server and slowing down your website’s response time.

What people do on your website

An screenshot of a Crazy Egg heatmap

This is of critical importance for your website’s success. If you are getting visitors, that’s a good start, but unless the visitors are behaving in ways that will lead to achieving your website’s goal, your website can still be a failure. By understanding what people are doing on your website, you are able to see what is or isn’t working, and to make improvements to your website - whether that is the design or content.

You should make sure you are able to answer the following questions:

• Which pages are most visited and least visited
• How long they are spending on which pages
• What they click on on each page
• Which path your visitors took before they bought your service/product (“converted”)
• Which pages they are leaving from

Being able to tell which pages are the most visited helps you to determine what parts of your content is most valued by your visitors: knowing what your visitors value allows you to provide a better service and helps guide your website’s growth. Knowing which pages are least popular either means these pages are not found or that the content is not valued by your visitors. In either case, you should take action!

The ability to tell what your visitors click on per page is very useful when you are fine-tuning your webpage. With this ability and using A/B split-testing, you can accurately assess the impacts of any changes you have made. For example, moving a button further up the page or altering the button’s colour may increase the numbers of clicks it receives substantially.

Some of the most useful information that website monitoring will provide you with is the route that visitors that have “converted” took. By studying how visitors that bought, sent a form, visited a page etc. travelled through your website, you can attempt to increase and improve the conversion process.

Equally important is knowing which pages people are leaving from and trying to understand why. Do all your visitors leave from page “X”? If so, is there an obvious reason? Maybe your visitors make it all the way to a payment form before exiting in disgust when they see the length of it! Whether or not there is an apparent reason, the message is clear that the page needs changing or increased promotion.

Conclusion

Don’t underestimate the importance of monitoring your website: making changes to improve your website has no meaning unless you can see the before and after effects. Similarly, ensure you are looking at the right data, otherwise you will not be able to tell the results of your changes.

• Is this the first time you’ve needed a website?
• Are you bewildered by the quantity of choices on the internet?
• Scared by huge prices?
• Drowning in jargon?

Arm yourself with the basic know-how to make a successful website. This no-nonsense guide is the ideal starting point for people who see computers as a tool and not much more. We will take you along from an initial vague website idea through to the ongoing promotion of a successful website.

Background knowledge

Visit the links in this section to brush up on your basic knowledge. Spending a bit of time learning the essentials will provide you with a frame of reference and make future learning much easier.

Listed in order of usefulness:

• An Introduction to the Internet
• An Introduction to Different Website Types
• An Introduction to Web Hosting

An overview of website development

This presentation summarizes the key steps that should be completed to create your website.

Or if you prefer you can read an article about website planning.

Now you understand what is involved in good website planning, you’re ready to tackle each step in greater detail.

How to Develop Your Website

STEP 1: How to set your website goal

A transcript is also available: How to set your website goal.

STEP 2: How to identify and target your market

A transcript is also available: How to identify and target your market.

STEP 3: How to write your content

A transcript is also available: How to write your content.

Do you need a web designer?

A transcript is also available: Do you need a web designer?.

STEP 4: How to choose your web designer

A transcript is also available: How to choose your web designer.

STEP 5: How to choose your domain name

A transcript is also available: How to choose your domain name.

STEP 6: How to choose a web host

A transcript is also available: How to choose your web host.

STEP 7: How to launch your website

A transcript is also available: How to launch your website.

You’re not finished yet: Why completing your website is not the end

A transcript is also available: Why completing your website is not the end.

STEP 8: How to promote your website

A transcript is also available: How to promote your website.

Ready?

Real Free Websites is ready to help you wherever you are in your planning: contact us.

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE

Because what good is your website without visitors

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

Start with the basics

Slide 4

You should already have done this:

• Submitted your website to search engines
• Submitted your website to web directories
• Sent out a press release
• Put your website address in your email footer, stationary, business cards, etc.

Slide 5

Continuously monitor your statistics

Slide 6

Collect and analyze data

• Which pages are visitors exiting/entering? Why?
• Which searches are leading to “conversions”? Why?
• Which pages do visitors spend most time on? Why?

Use this information to develop a marketing plan

Slide 7

Optimize your code for search engines

Slide 8

Target the right keywords and phrases based on:

• Your monitoring
• Research of your target market
• Research of the levels of competition for those keywords and phrases

Slide 9

Change your code if necessary

• Use keywords and phrases in page titles, meta tags, header tags, your content, and hyperlinks
• Provide the option of plain text links
• Keep it natural: write for humans

Slide 10

Build your domain authority for search engines

Slide 11

Build links

• Create quality content
• Create linkbait/viral marketing
• Provide free products or services
• Create widgets with a link back
• Design website templates with a link back
• Offer a reciprocal link exchange
• Write articles for other websites with a link back
• Target links from high quality/authority websites

Slide 12

Register your domain name for longer than 1 year

• Search engines are less likely to assume you are a spammer
• 5 years or even 10 year registrations are possible

Slide 13

Optimize your website for social media

Slide 14

What is social media?

• Online tools for sharing of content (often multimedia) in an interactive manner E.g. Facebook, Second Life, Twitter, YouTube, Digg

Slide 15

Use specific techniques for each social media website

• Become an active user on whichever social media website your target market uses
• Learn how the social media website works and how you can use it

Slide 16

General recommendations for attracting attention from social media websites

• Use multimedia on your website, e.g. audio or video
• Use widgets to encourage bookmarking
• Develop a community around your website:
  • Promote your RSS feed
  • Send out email newsletters
  • Comment on blogs
  • Be active on online forums

Slide 17

Consider online advertising

Slide 18

If you have an online marketing budget:

• Try pay per click advertising
• Pay for a banner advertisement
• Contact appropriate websites and arrange advertising directly

Slide 19

Don’t forget offline media

Slide 20

Offine media is important too

• Send out press releases
• Advertise in newspapers, magazines
• Encourage word of mouth

Slide 21

Promotion is an ongoing process Always get feedback from monitoring your visitors, and make necessary changes Providing quality content is the single best way to raise your website’s profile

Slide 22

You’ve now seen how to promote your website. This is final step in a series of presentations on the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 23

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: WHY COMPLETING YOUR WEBSITE IS NOT THE END

A successful website needs ongoing effort

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

Finish the website… …sit back… …and let the customers roll in?

Slide 4

[Picture of a decaying wreck]

Slide 5

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Here’s what happens if you don’t upkeep your website

Slide 6

If you don’t update your website:

• Your website will sit undiscovered for long periods
• You will get occasional visitors from search engines
• If your website offering is incredible, you may get customers from word of mouth
• Most likely, nothing will change after months and years

Slide 7

First, check whether you are achieving your GOAL

Slide 8

Continuously monitor your website

• Use your website statistics
• Is your website achieving its goals? And why?
• You may need to alter your business plan E.g. Target a different market, change your offering, alter the design

Slide 9

6 reasons why website updates are good

Slide 10

1. Updated content allows your website to focus on the ever-changing marketplace Marketplace change occurs due to shifting:

• Needs
• Fashion
• Technology
• Competitors

Slide 11

2. Updated content makes your website appear “alive” and so more genuine and trustworthy

Slide 12

3. Updated content gives a reason for visitors to return to your website

Slide 13

4. New content increases the chance that your website will be found in a search

Slide 14

5. New content allows you to reflect changes within your company or organization

Slide 15

6. Updated content allows you to stay current with changing search engine optimization best practice

Slide 16

Regularly adding quality content leads to

Slide 17

1. Increased authority of your domain for search engines
-Leads to increased visitors from search engines
-Leads to increased trust and conversion of visitors

Slide 18

2. Greater future appeal of your website to visitors
-Leads to increased repeat visitors
-Leads to increased chance of future conversions

Slide 19

3. More content for visitors to read
-Leads to increased time spent on website by visitors
-Leads to increased chance of conversion or future visits/conversions

Slide 20

4. Increased chances of creating a very popular webpage
-Leads to major traffic from social media websites
-Leads to increased chance of conversions

Slide 21

In summary, without monitoring, you won’t know what is working and what isn’t.
Regularly updated quality content is good for your website

Slide 22

You’ve now seen why completing your website is not the end. This is one of a series of presentations on the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 23

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO LAUNCH YOUR WEBSITE

Step 7: Don’t forget these crucial steps before going live!

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

You probably don’t want your website to be visible before official launch
If so, hide development of your website

• Use password protection
• Or redirect visitors to an explanation page

Slide 4

Upload your files:
You or your web designer should upload the website using File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Slide 5

Test

• Test the design works on multiple browsers, screen resolutions and operating systems
• Test the functionality
• Test the accessibility
• Proof read the content

Slide 6

More testing!
Get people from you target market to try out your website

Slide 7

Get feedback from testers

• Redesign if necessary
• Retest, get feedback etc.

Slide 8

Add visitor analysis and tracking

• Add code to your website to track visitor numbers and details E.g. Google Analytics
• This will allow future monitoring and improvement

Slide 9

Double check
Run through all your checks one last time

Slide 10

Decide when to go live
Choose a day and time when your website will be best received by your target market

Slide 11

LAUNCH! Remove any password protection and go live

Slide 12

Tell everyone
Tell everyone you know online and offline about your new website

Slide 13

Submit your website
Submit to

• Social media websites E.g. StumbleUpon.com, Digg.com
• Search engines and website directories E.g. Google.com, Dmoz.com

Slide 14

Make a press release
Write and distribute an online (and offline) press release announcing your website launch

Slide 15

Avoid the temptation to launch early.
Ensure you have created the environment for the start of a successful website.

Slide 16

You’ve now seen how to launch a website. This is the seventh step in the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 17

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WEB HOST

Step 6: You need a home on the Internet for your website

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose your web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

What is a web host?

1. Stores your website on a computer
2. Receives requests from visitors’ computers
3. Sends visitors to your website

Slide 4

First, decide what your hosting requirements are

Slide 5

Bandwidth (volume of data transfer)

• How much traffic are you expecting?
• Most websites will only need low bandwidth
• Websites with a lot of large files (e.g. videos) may need more

Slide 6

Disk space

• How much space do you need for your website files?
• Most websites will only need a small amount of space
• Websites with a lot of large files (e.g. videos) will need more

Slide 7

Server Side Language

• Your website may be written using a specific coding language
• What coding language are you/ your web developer going to use?

Slide 8

Functionality

• What specific features does your website require? E.g. mailing lists, databases, email forwarding, secure servers

Slide 9

Now you can choose one of 3 types of hosting

Slide 10

Shared server hosting

• Many clients using one shared server
• Suitable for small to medium-bandwidth websites
• Ideal for new websites

Slide 11

Virtual private hosting

• Partitioning a server into several virtual servers
• For higher bandwidth websites

Slide 12

Dedicated server hosting

• One server per website
• For large websites that require very high bandwidth

Slide 13

Now decide which hosting features are important to you

Slide 14

Support

• Are there guaranteed response times?
• 24 hours a day, 365 days a year?
• What is the process to get a human response? – Avoid web hosts with multiple layers of automated responses
• If you prefer speaking to someone, do they have a phone helpline?

Slide 15

Server uptime

• Do they guarantee a high percentage of uptime?

Slide 16

Price

• Are there monthly or yearly fees?
• Are there hidden fees?
• Cheaper not always best, but not always worst either

Slide 17

Geographic location

• Less important, but better if the server is close to your target market to maximize response times

Slide 18

What about free web hosting?

Slide 19

Free Hosting?

• Usually supported by advertisements
• May suffer from poor server uptime
• May have reduced bandwidth
• Non-existent customer support
• No grounds for complaints

Slide 20

How to make the final choice

Slide 21

Read testimonials and reviews
While not always reliable, these can give you an idea about quality

Slide 22

Visit websites hosted by the company

• Test the website response times (but bear in mind bad web design can also slow a website’s response time)
• Contact the website owner for their opinion

Slide 23

Take a trial

• Look for a money-back guarantee
• Try out the web host for a period

Slide 24

Without a good web host, your website will suffer. Choose carefully, and start with a basic plan – you can easily upgrade later.

Slide 25

You’ve now seen how to choose a web host. This is the sixth step in the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 26

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Update (21 July 2008): Domain names with .info extensions may be slightly deprecated now. As the cheapest domain names available and therefore a favorite with spammers, Google may start to be penalizing them and now ICANN has approved a new policy allowing the registry service, Afilias, to disable abused .info accounts.

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR DOMAIN NAME

Step 5: Your domain name is your identity

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose a web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose your web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

What is a domain name?

• Your unique internet address
• Can be registered for a minimum of one year
• Registered as yours through a domain registrar

Slide 4

IDEAL Scenario: www.ideal.com
Domain name is

• The same as your business or a keyword related to your field
• Short
• Memorable
• Easy to spell

Slide 5

REALITY: www.bestnamesalreadytakenimaginationrequiredtofindagoodname.com
Best names already taken Imagination required to find a good name

Slide 6

How to test domain name availability

• Test by typing directly into your browser address bar
• Only use a registrar’s search box when you are ready to buy
• This will prevent unscrupulous parties stealing your domain name ideas

Slide 7

Time to get imaginative

Slide 8

1. Come up with a domain name

Slide 9

Use a brand name?

• Easy to find an available domain
• Can be short and easy to remember But, without promotion no one will have heard of your brand and will not be searching for it

Slide 10

Use keyword filled name?

• Keywords in the domain name help people identify the purpose of your website
• Using keywords in your name will boost your ranking for searches of that word But very hard to find anything short that is available

Slide 11

Use a combination?

• Using keywords in your name will boost your ranking for searches of that word
• Allows people to identify the purpose of your website But lengthens the name, and may appear tacky

Slide 12

Use hyphens?
Originally: expertsexchange.com
Now: experts-exchange.com

• Use hyphens to divide up the letters differently
• No clear difference from search engine optimization point of view But hyphens are harder for people to remember

Slide 13

Use a clever subdomain? E.g. del.icio.us

• Del.ico.us has registered icio.us and then created a subdomain “del”
• Subdomains are provided by your web host and should be unlimited at no extra cost But knowing where to put the dot can be hard to remember

Slide 14

2. Choose a domain extension

Slide 15

Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD)

• Some extensions have prerequisites, e.g. .edu or .gov, but most are open to anyone
• Appears to be no difference in search engine ranking between extensions
• People’s reaction to extensions are different – may prefer local extension, and/or .com

Slide 16

Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)

• Some countries have strict prerequisites E.g. .ca (Canada), .fr (France)
• Use a ccTLD if your market geographically targeted ? You will benefit in local search engines E.g. Google.co.uk

Slide 17

3. Poll your target market

Slide 18

Get feedback from your market

• How do they react to the suggested domain name?
• Can they remember it?
• Do they misspell it?
• Which extension do they expect to use?
• Rethink if the reaction is not positive

Slide 19

4. Consider registering multiple domain names

Slide 20

Multiple domain names
Misspellings: www.mybusness.co.uk
Variations: www.mybusinesses.co.uk
Other extensions: www.mybusiness.com

• Can send additional direct traffic from misspellings of your domain
• Prevent competitors benefitting from misspellings
• Register .com if available – people will use .com if they’re guessing
• Don’t go overboard in buying all potential variations

Slide 21

5. Choose a domain registrar

Slide 22

A good domain registrar Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

• Is ICANN accredited
• Has a low price with no hidden fees (e.g. for transferring a domain name, changing contact details)
• Offers an easy-to-use administration interface
• Provides good customer service
• Allows easy transfer of a domain to another registrar

Slide 23

6. Register your domain!

Slide 24

Register Register your domain for more than 1 year, so

• You won’t lose it after forgetting to re-register
• Search engines will give greater authority to your domain

Slide 25

The domain you choose will be the first impression of your website. Make sure it’s a good one.

Slide 26

You’ve now seen how to choose a domain name. This is the fifth step in the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 27

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com

Transcript

Slide 1: HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WEB DESIGNER

Step 4: What to look for when you need help making your website

Slide 2

• Step 1: How to set your website goal
• Step 2: How to identify and target your market
• Step 3: How to write your content
• Do you need a web designer?
• Step 4: How to choose a web designer
• Step 5: How to choose your domain name
• Step 6: How to choose a web host
• Step 7: How to launch your website
• Why completing your website is not the end
• Step 8: How to promote your website

See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 3

There are an ENORMOUS number of web designers to choose from So how do you choose?

Slide 4

Web designers fall between two extremes….

Slide 5

Design-oriented- Looks great
Function-oriented- Looks bad

Slide 6

Design-oriented- Works badly
Function-oriented- Works great

Slide 7

Find a designer that combines both: Design and Function

Slide 8

To assess whether a designer is any good, you first need to be able to spot:
GOOD design

Slide 9

Good design achieves the goal of the website
Design is all about communication
Does the website’s design help to convey the message?

Slide 10

Good design works well in all browsers, on all operating systems and at all screen resolutions
Test the design on different computers with different settings. Does the design still look good?

Slide 11

Good design is visually appealing to the target market
Design is not totally subjective
Certain designs will appeal more than others to the target market.
Does the target market like the design?

Slide 12

Good design is easy to use
How easy is it to find what you are looking for?
Is the navigation user-friendly?

Slide 13

Good design is fast-loading
How quickly do the pages download? -It should not be more than a few seconds

Slide 14

Good design is search engine optimized
Are there effective page titles?
Does the code contain Meta tags?
Are the internal links keywords?
Is text (not pictures) used for the important content?

Slide 15

Good design is universally accessible Is the website accessible to disabled users?
-Ask someone disabled to test the website
-Use automated testers (e.g. Cinthya Says)

Slide 16

Good design pays attention to detail
There should be nothing that looks out of place
Do all the page elements work together? E.g. Complementary colors, similar icons
Does everything on the page line up perfectly?

Slide 17

Should you hire a design freelancer or a company?

Slide 18

Freelancer:
More personalized service?
More resources?
Company:
Less expensive?
Faster service?

Slide 19

No clear distinction
Increasing overlap between freelancers and companies E.g. freelancers working together

Slide 20

Making the choice

Slide 21

Website portfolio
This is the obvious place to go to see the quality of work
Study the websites and look for evidence of good website design

Slide 22

Testimonials
Take these with a grain of salt, but it’s always good to see what others say
Consider contacting website owners through the portfolio page

Slide 23

Free Quote
Most web designers will provide you with an approximate quote for free
Ask questions and see how helpful they are
Find out what they consider important in web design

Slide 24

It is worth taking your time in choosing. A good web designer will offer in-depth knowledge and experience that will help you throughout your website development

Slide 25

You’ve now seen how to choose a web designer. This is part of a series of presentations on the process of good website design. See the complete guide at www.realfreewebsites.com/website-plan

Slide 26

Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development: www.realfreewebsites.com