Before we start looking at the essential ingredients needed for developing a web site, let's focus a minute on your web site purpose, or mission. Successful web sites should fulfill some sort of web visitor need. So what kind of information do your targeted customer-base need and what are your goals for the web site? I like to breakdown web sites into four distinct categories:
- Informational web sites - these are web sites that invite web visitors to learn more about the company and the products and services offered by the company. Often this type of web site is called an online brochure. It's purpose is to increase customer awareness for the company's products or services and encourage potential customers to call or visit their brick-and-mortar store(s).
- Relationship web sites - many web sites try to build ongoing relationships with web visitors so they will frequently visit the web site. This may be through offering continuous and useful information, as well as offering expert advice, news and events. Generally people who continually visit these sites share the same interests and may be emotionally attached to the main subject matter.
- E-commerce web sites - obviously this one is about selling products or services on the Internet. Many web sites try to sell products and services to a targeted online audience. This includes web sites that are selling everything from CDs, books, clothes, cars to software.
- Entertainment web sites - web sites that are purely for entertainment and have little value other than possibly building awareness. Some kids game web sites are perfect examples of this.
Web Site Essentials
The following list is for those new to creating a web site for their business:
- Domain Name - you will need some sort of web site address. This
is usually your own domain name. You can registered a domain name at
numerous registrars, such as GoDaddy.com.
If the domain name is available to register you have to pay a small yearly
fee to register the name. Registration fees range from around $8.95/year to $35.00/year
depending which registrar you choose.
Note: Your domain name is actually just an alias for your real numeric address, called your IP address. Think of this as your "street address". - Web Site Host - every web site needs to store their web pages and all files associated with the web pages on a web server that is connected to the Internet. Between the host and your domain name your address can be looked up by other web servers around the World. (This is a very general overview). Hosting fees can cost a few dollars to several hundred dollars per month depending on your specific needs and traffic.
- Web Pages - are generally a combination of graphic images and text content. Either you have to create the web pages yourself or hire someone else do it for you. Web sites can consist of one web page or thousands of pages. The pages can also be dynamically generated from special server-side coding and database content.