Transcript 170303

Creating, Managing and
Marketing Your Own Web Site
by Andy Crowther
BCS Belgium Section
WebMaster
Contents
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Introduction
Creating
Marketing
Managing
Lessons Learned
Increased Use of Web
• More and more people are using the
WWW each day whether it be for
– Business or pleasure
– Hobbies
– Online banking
95% of Web Sites Fail
Some Reasons are:
1. It is generally a lot cheaper to start
an online business than an offline
one
2. It takes time and effort to make a
successful online business
3. No or inadequate marketing
How much will it Cost?
1. As much as you want to spend
2. With the tools available on the web
today it can all be done for free
3. A Consultant can do it all for you at
a price
4. A route some where in between
My History
• Working in IT for over 15 years
• Started as a Programmer and
occupied numerous roles including
Team Leader positions
• Working at HP in Belgium for last 3
years as an Independent
My Web Site
• With my technical background I
decided to try my hand at developing
my own web site in early 2002
• I launched my first site
CoursesForFree.co.uk in August
2002
Aim of Presentation
• Not to promote my CFF website,
although if you want to explore it you
can!
• The aim is to share my real life
experience gained along the way
• Help anyone thinking ‘I want to
develop my own web site’ but does
not know where to start
Aim of Presentation
• There is no definitive wrong or right
way to produce a web site
• I will provide a lot of information to
help you Create, Manage and Market
your own web site
Creating Your Web Site
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Planning
Idea
Purpose
Demand
Site Structure
Web Site Name
Web Host
Development
Testing
Implementation
Planning
• As with any project this is essential
• Will save you time & money in the
long term
Idea
• When you have an idea for a web site
you should first start by doing some
general investigation and research
• Stimulate ideas
Stages
• Find similar sites using search
engine
• For each site found answer the
following:
– What is its aim? (selling, informing)
– What are its good and bad points?
– What do you like and don’t like?
– Where could you do it better?
Idea
• If it does not feel right then leave it
alone as it is more likely to fail
• Use your own area of expertise we all
have one in either work or leisure
• Start thinking about keywords for
your idea and make a list
Idea Keywords
CoursesForFree examples:
• Course
• Education
• Information Technology
• Computing
• Free
Purpose
• Hobby
• Information
• For Profit
• Promote/Support off line business
Demand
• Look at search engines and see how
many searches are made for your
keywords
• Establish if demand exists
• Niche market or offline customers
may not be as critical
Defining a Structure
• Will there be a dbase?
• Will the screens be fixed or
dynamic?
• What screens are required?
Web Site Name
• Usually tells people what the site is
about
• CoursesForFree.co.uk
• CoursesForFree.com
• .co.uk - registered in the UK
• .com - registered in USA
• .be
- registered in Belgium
Purchasing Web Site Name
• Shop around as price differs
considerably for same extension
• For .co.uk I use
– https://www.123-reg.co.uk/
– 2.59GBP approx $4.14 (minimum 2 years)
• For .Com I use
– https://registrar.godaddy.com/
– $8.95 per year or $6.95 if buy 10 years
Be Warned
• They sell the web site names at
minimum profit and make money out
of other things they offer
– Web hosting packages
– Submission to search engines
– Email accounts
– Web building tools
• You do NOT need to purchase these
from the same source
Existing Web Site Names
• As more and more names are
registered less choice available
• Alternative buy an existing name
– Via Auctions
– Expired not renewed
– Direct approach to owner
Web Host
• You can get free or relatively
inexpensive web hosting on the
internet and in a lot of cases you get
what you pay for
• After developing a web site you do
not want to find it is unavailable all
the time as the server is down
Web Host Requirements
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Uptime Guarantee
Disc space
Bandwidth
Dedicated IP Address
POP 3 email
Windows, Unix or Linux
Dbases
Scripting languages
Web Host Requirements
• Forum to buy direct
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http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
Shared WebHosting Special Offers
Dedicated Servers Special Offers
Web Hosting Requests - place own web request
Web Host Pricing
• Work out the price per year so can
compare like with like
• Some price monthly some annual
• Some offer substantial discounts for
annual payments in advance as less
administration
Web Host Pricing
• Things to add to the cost
– Initial set up cost for account
– Extra disc space charge
– Extra bandwidth charges
– Procedure if exceed bandwidth
Web Host I Use
• Very reliable and stable company state of
the art equipment
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50 MB disc space
Unlimited bandwidth
Free trial
$10 setup fee
$14.95 per month
– Refer 6 people get hosting for free
• http://www.cashculture.com/?ref=andychess
Development Common Pages
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Introduction
FAQ
Feedback
Newsletter Sign Up
Development Platform
• Own PC or server
• On web
Development
• There are thousands of packages on the
market that allow you to develop your site
faster
• They are designed to build your site
without having to learn the languages
• They are very helpful but not necessary
Development Products
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Instant site maker
FAQ factory
Pop up Creators
Deadline Generators
Payment acceptor & protector
Instant meta makers
Development Tools
• These can all be bought on the web
• I have bought a partnership in a
software company that allows me to
use and resell over 60 software
products and 100’s of ebooks
• You can have 1 for $39
– http://www.free-software-forever.com/sales/sale-00162002.htm
Testing
• This is very important
• Need detail testing plan
• Someone else to test on another PC
if possible
Testing Plan
• Tick list to detail every screen and all the
– Buttons
– Links
• Proof Reading – spelling
• Feedback form sends email
• Registration form
– Adds user to list
– Sends appropriate email to user
– Displays correct thank you screen
Implementation
• Move all code to production server
• Go through all items on the testing
plan to ensure they still work
Marketing
• ‘If you build it they will come’
• Does not apply to the WWW
• People have to know your site exists
Traffic Required
• Indicated that only 1% of visitors to a
web site will want what is on offer
• Others say it is as low as 0.1%
• This means you need 1000 visitors to
reach 1 person who is interested
Traffic Utilisation
• To best utilise traffic to your site
• It is suggested that you create a
newsletter and capture email addresses of
all those interested
• People who do not want what is on offer
today may be interested in the future
Traffic Generation
• There are hundreds of methods for
promoting your web site
• You can do it all for free or you can
employ a marketing consultancy to
do all the work for you
Traffic Generation Online
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Search engine
Pay per click
Pop up Window
Pop under Window
Classified Ads
Banners
Exit Exchange
Link Exchange
Free For all
Safe lists
Traffic Blasting tools
• To increase your coverage you can
now buy tools which blast your 1
web site advertisement to many
places at the same time
– Classified ad blaster
– Safe list blaster
Traffic Auctions
• Numerous sites auction
advertisement specials on the WWW
• These can provide cheap access to a
diversified market
• You could sell advertising on your
site to generate profit
Traffic Co-ops
• If you do not have time to spend
marketing your business then you
can pay a traffic co-op to generate
the leads for you
• This is now big business on the
WWW with businesses dedicated to
it
Traffic Generation
• Do not forget, just because your site
is on the WWW does not mean that
you can not use traditional offline
methods of advertising
• In fact combining both offline and
online marketing can be the best
combination
Traffic Generation Offline
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Newspaper Ads
Trade Magazine Ads
Posters
Flyers
Direct mailing
Business Cards
Managing
• Once your web site is up and running
and you have started marketing your
web site you have to consider the
ongoing management
• A web site should be a living entity,
constantly evolving
Management Tasks
• Responding to email queries in a timely
manner
• Production of newsletters
• Updating site content
• Updating advertisements
• Checking site for dead links
• Backup
– Dbase
– Website
– Mailing List
Lessons Learned
• Took longer to develop than
expected due to the number of new
skills required, but these new skills
should enhance my future job
prospects
– HTML
– PHP
– MYSQL
Lessons Learned
• Need to shop around for the best
deals on web site hosting and
domain names
• Marketing of the site is a bigger task
than I expected
Need a Web Site Building
• I will be available after April 2003
when my current contract ends!!
• If you have any further queries I can
be contacted via email at:
[email protected]