• Getting online
• Selecting providers
• Website architecture

SELECTING your WEB SITE SERVICE PROVIDERS

Let's review the terminology. Understanding the meanings (and differences) between terms like ISP, remote host site, URL, email, and domain will help you decide which service provider to select, and to have a meaningful conversation with them about your needs.

First of all, there's you - the Merchant User. You have products and services you want to sell on the internet. On the other side of the equation is the Public User, or those people who are seeking for products and services like yours. In between are all the Vendors who provide the services and technology to connect the two of you - the merchant and the public - with each other.

ISP, a lso known as the Internet Service Provider, is a company that sells Internet connection service. This connection takes place through the phone lines, through cable, via wireless connection, or satellite. Faster, more expensive Internet connectivity is available via broadband and cable, DSL, or ISDN. This Vendor provides the direct connection between you and the Internet. Your ISP can provide you with a variety of services, such as domain registration and hosting, but their primary purpose is to provide internet connectivity, and email services. Keep in mind that while many ISPs also provide Web Hosting services (for an additional fee), not all Web Hosts are an ISP. You have to have an ISP in order to connect to the internet, as does your customer. Examples of local ISPs are: Gorge Networks, SawNet, NetConnect, Charter Communications, Qnect and Embarq. Some national ISPs include: AOL, Juno, and MSN. Free web-based email services like Hotmail are not considered an ISP because they do not provide the initial connection to the Internet.

While the person seeking to find your business will need to have an ISP and a connection to the Internet, you - the Merchant - do not. However, having a computer and email will allow you to check your website and email will facilitate your contact with customers and potential customers.

What is the URL web address?

URL is the abbreviation for "Uniform Resource Locator" - the official term that means basically the same thing is "web address". The URL, or web address, is the common name of a website, file, or resource on the Internet. Think of it like a mailing address that goes from the general to the specific as it is broken down into state, city, street, and PO Box number.

As an example, the URL for this site is: http://www.thunderboltpublishing.com. Typing that address will take you to the home page for this site, but not to this specific page. To get to this page, this is what you type into the address box, or location/Go To box on your browser:

http://www.thunderboltpublishing/web/selecting_providers.htm

This is how the URL address breaks down:

Your customers are not going to want to remember a long string of characters to access certain pages on your ste. This is why your web designer's skills will be crucial. You want to select a designer who can create an easy-to-navigate site, so that users will easily find the pages relevant to their needs.

Selecting A Web Host

A Host computer is a computer running that runs specialized software, is assigned an IP address, and is continually connected to the Internet so that it can provide documents via the World Wide Web. The Web Host provides the physical hard-disk storage space for your HTML (web page) electronic files. It is the purpose of the Web Host to be connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Because this computer never sleeps and is never turned off, it is constantly able to allow internet users access to your website at any time of the day or night. Think of the Web Host like a warehouse that stores and publishes all the pictures and information you wish to share with the Public.

Some things to consider when selecting a web host:

• Reliability - Your Web Host should be a reputable company with several backup computer systems in place. After all, a computer that is going 24/7 is eventually going to wear out. You will want some assurance that they have backup systems in place so that your website is never down due to your host computer's mechanical failures.
• Cost - Prices can vary dramatically, from $100+ a month for business accounts on secure servers that process a large volume of traffic and/or credit card transactions, to free. Be a pro-active consumer and do your homework. Shop around and do some price comparisons. Make sure you understand the contract and length of time you are agreeing to. An average cost for web hosting is generally somewhere around $40 per month. There are reputable providers, like GoDaddy, that provide inexpensive web hosting for less than $10 a month. Web Hosting services are an additional charge if you sign up for it with your ISP.
• Control - As in most things, with the free sites you generally get what you paid for, meaning that you are not allowed a lot of space or control over your site, and in some cases - GeoCities/Yahoo comes to mind - the Web Host tells you flat out that all images and copy that are displayed on their server becomes their property. While those rules may be fine for a family blog, businesses shouldn't give away that level of control.

Most of your local ISPs (Internet Service Providers), will provide hosting services. For hosting, I personally use and recommend GoDaddy.com, a company based out of Phoenix, Arizona. My reasons for using GoDaddy are reasonable cost, 24/7 technical support, knowledgeable staff, and excellent customer service. My experience has been that they answer the phone within two rings with a live human being who knows the answers.

Selecting a Web Designer

The web designer's job is to create a visual interface for your web site. This person needs to have not only an artistic flair and a strong ability to present a visual representation of your business, but an underlying technical knowledge about how the internet functions, and how to set up the interfaces that allow customers to order products and services over the internet. The Merchant User will provide images and copy to the Web Designer, who will then in turn translate them into HTML code for display on the Internet. Thunderbolt Designs is an example of a Web Designer.

Some things to consider when selecting a web designer:

When selecting a web designer, keep in mind that costs will vary a great deal based on a combination of your needs and the designer's skill level. You can expect to pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars to have a website built. Features such as shopping carts, large inventory catalogs, animation, interactivity (adding blogs and forums), all drive up the cost and require a higher skill level on the part of your designer. The initial design fees do not necessarily include regular updates, or maintenance, which needs to be a discussion you have with your designer.

You could theoretically learn to do web design by yourself... there are certainly lots of free HTML tutorials available on the internet, and several cheap or even free HTML programs (see "Do-It-Yourselfer", below). However, you have to ask yourself if this is the best use of your time. Your business is to be selling widgets, gizmos and thingie-bobs, isn't it? If you spend hours trying to learn web design, you might miss out on those seasonal widget sales. For some people, the learning curve is pretty steep.

A good web designer should provide you with several things: a website that is easy (and intuitive) to navigate, professional in appearance (spelling matters here - especially when it comes to the text displayed on your site!), functional (everything works properly as it should), and is a good representation of your business. If your business sells widgets to 13 year olds, then the site should be attractive to adolescents. If your widget market is the 50-something professional lawyer, then your site should reflect that in color, tone, language, and design.

Your web designer should be knowledgeable about search engine optimization (SEO). This involves designing some crucial "invisible" features into your site. Proper use of title tags, headline tags, establishing links, building content relevancy and setting the meta-tags... all of these things help the search engine spiders (or robots) that index websites find YOUR site when someone types in the keywords when they do an internet query search.

Finding a local Web Designer in the Mid Columbia River Gorge area

Local web designers include: Thunderbolt Designs, Base Graphics, and Cordell Communications, based in The Dalles, Oregon, Web Rock Design, based in Hood River, Oregon, Butterfly Multimedia, based in Mosier, Oregon. Selecting a local designer offers you the option of meeting a real human being face to face; a person who understands our local Mid Columbia River Gorge community and economy, and someone with an interest in the success of our local business economy because they live here, too.

Web Design for the "Do-it-yourselfer"

If you have the guts and the time to learn web design yourself, you can tackle it through using Joomla or a hosting service like GoDaddy.com. Joomla provides open-source code software (meaning it's free software). GoDaddy provides an online interface that allows you to build your own website. If you plan to hire or assign a staff person to manage your internet site, you should consider purchasing web design software such as Microsoft Expression Web (formerly known as Front Page), or Adobe Dreamweaver. I personally use Dreamweaver, which is relatively easy to use, and in my opinion has more flexibility, features, and capabilities than its competitor. It also creates cleaner documents (making web pages faster to load in browsers), and does not manufacture piles of what I call "garbage code" like some other software does. Online classes in using Dreamweaver are available through Columbia Gorge Community College.

Selecting a Domain Name

Do you want to see if a domain name is available? Check with GoDaddy.com or WHOIS.net and they will check the name against ICANN's database.

All domain names must be registered with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's Domain Name System (DSN). Without careful management of this data, the internet would be chaos. ICANN explains it this way: "Every computer on the Internet has a unique address - just like a telephone number - which is a rather complicated string of numbers. It is called its "IP address" (IP stands for "Internet Protocol"). IP Addresses are hard to remember. The DNS makes using the Internet easier by allowing a familiar string of letters (the "domain name") to be used instead of the arcane IP address. So instead of typing 207.151.159.3, you can type www.internic.net. It is a "mnemonic" device that makes addresses easier to remember." If you put your own domain name into WHOIS, and the information that comes back is not accurate or current, you need to update ICANN's database. This can generally be done through your hosting service.

When choosing a domain name, think about how you will use it. You'll be displaying this name on your business cards, printed literature, and in newspaper, radio and possibly TV advertising. By selecting a domain name that is easy to spell, and easy for your customers to remember, you will increase the chances of someone finding your domain without having to hunt. Consider, equally, how the domain name sounds when it is spoken aloud. While www.A2Zgorge.info (my own site) conveys, in print, what I wanted to communicate to the public about its content, it's a challenge when I say the name aloud. I have to tell people: A2Z, that's a numeral "Two", not the word "to"... It's not a domain name that translates cleanly for audio advertising, such as radio. It's also a little difficult when I write the domain name down for someone, as my hand-written "2" and "Z" look an awful lot alike.

 

Registering a Domain Name

I strongly recommend to my clients that you register your chosen domain name yourself, instead of allowing your host or designer to register it for you. Let me repeat:

Register your chosen domain name yourself.

Why is this important? Because if your webmaster registers your domain name, he or she technically owns the domain name. This is because he/she has to use his own credit card and account passwords to purchase your domain. For the protection of his own business, he cannot give this information out to you.

That's not a huge problem... UNLESS your webmaster becomes a complete jerk or gets hit by a truck. This means that if, for whatever reason, you are unsatisfied with what your webmaster or web host has been doing (or NOT doing) on your site, you are... to put it delicately... screwed. Without that password you can't access the account and you can't transfer your domain to a new webmaster or web host.

Think of it in the terms of buying a warehouse, then leaving the only set of keys to the warehouse with a hired contractor. So, while there may be viewing cameras to see INSIDE the warehouse (via your internet browser), the only way to physically get INTO the warehouse to rearrange, add, or remove the contents would be to call your warehouse contractor and hope he's got the time - and inclination - to let you in.

If your webmaster is also your web host (a common practice for ISPs), you are doubly locked in. Let me share with you a couple of TRUE STORY worse-case scenarios: Let's say your webmaster (who has her own hosting service) has done a great job. In fact, she's so great, everyone wants to use her services. Now she's designing sites for big national companies who take up all her time. She doesn't have time anymore for a mere widget manufacturer. After repeated email requests for her to change and update your site, you have about had it. So you decide it's time to pull the plug on her and get a new web host and a new webmaster. The problem is, she's still got the keys to your site, and won't answer your emails. You wonder if she died? Or maybe she's been on vacation in the Antarctic for the past few months. At any rate, your site is gathering cobwebs and dust, your prices are out of date, and the email address to you no longer works because you changed ISPs. Or maybe your webmaster is simply just a jerk. He won't make the changes you ask for. He ignores your requests for corrections. He's a teribl spellur. And your site looks like doo-doo. It's gathering cobwebs, the information never was right, and only half of the links work. If you've let your WEBMASTER or WEB HOST set up your domain name, you could be locked out and out of luck.

What recourse do you have? Well, at that point, when you can't get any help from your web host/webmaster, you could try begging, or threaten a lawsuit... but it might be easier for you to simply establish a new domain name yourself, and then YOU will have the control over your site.

THUNDERBOLT DESIGNS can help you with this step by providing instructions and tips. It's actually no harder than ordering a book online or anything else. It may seem like a scary step, but the only thing you need to know is what you want to call your site and what credit card you plan to use. We can walk you through the steps to register your domain in your own name, with your own account. You will be glad you did. I recommend avoiding signing up for the plethora of other "add-ons" you will be encouraged to buy at that time. You may not need them. If you decide to add the services, do it later, after you fully understand what they do and whether you can find them for free elsewhere. Ask your web designer for advice.

And because YOU will have the passwords, you will have total control over who you use for a web host, and if you decide you would like to use another host or web designer at a later date, you can take care of all the changes without having to change your domain name.

A WORD OF WARNING: because YOU will be in charge of the user name and passwords, then you are also responsible for remembering them. Do not lose this information! Write it down and keep it in a safe place. It is easy to forget which user name and password is used for which internet account. There is nothing worse than typing in what you THOUGHT was the access information only to be told "account not found." Treat your user name and password with the same concern you would have for the keys to your warehouse.

ANOTHER WORD OF WARNING: This information is NOT the same user name and password your web designer will need to save your files to a web host server. Your web host will provide another set of access codes to access their server. You should not have to give your domain registration user name and password to a vendor.. even your web designer... any more than you should give out your savings account number to them. (Remember, your primary account is attached to your credit card information. Your hosting account, hopefully, is not.)

Setting up Financial transactions

Keep in mind that you can always do things the old fashioned way. If you take credit cards, your customers could:

• Call you on the phone with the order.
• Fax you an order (they could download a form online).
• Email you an order (we can set an email form up for you.)
• Mail you a check or money order for payment.

Is this too slow for you? It's probably too slow for your customer, too. The problem is people want to complete a transaction in the moment. You will want to make it easy to order and pay for merchandise in a way that is most convenient for them at the time that is most convenient for them.

Establishing E-Commerce

Another way you can take payment online is to register for the services of an online payment procurement service, or E-Commerce provider. These businesses set up an account in your name, and handle the electronic transfer of data on their own secure servers. They then deposit the payment into your bank account. It's a really nifty service, and one you will probably wish to use.

Proceed with caution

A WORD OF WARNING - I'm sure you already know what I'm about to say - this is the place where you have to really safeguard against the worst-case scenerio. Identity Theft, fraudulent use of your bank information, shutting down of your bank account... you have to take a good, hard look at the risks involved.

Wikipedia has information on E-commerce systems and E-commerce providers. Educate yourself before signing up with anyone, and do your "due diligence", which means checking out the provider's legitimacy and track record with the Better Business Bureau, and by searching the internet by using their business name and the word "complaint" in your keyword search. You'll be amazed at what you learn.

Some examples of e-commerce providers are: Pay Pal, Google Check-out, and Velocity Payment Services.

You will generally need to provide :

• A Federal Tax ID# or Social Security Number.
• Your U.S. Business checking account.
• Trade references, including phone number.
• A declaration that you are at least 18 years of age.
• Authorization from the Principal Owner of the business.

To find an internet payment provider, type the keyords "online payment provider" or "e-commerce services" into a search engine. Be aware that if you GOOGLE this information, the top listings displayed will be listed paid advertising, and not necessarily the best fit for your business.

You have to keep in mind that not only are you worried about being at risk, so is your customer. Your customer may not know you, and your assurances that you are using a secure payment system could be the deal maker or breaker with their business. You will want to do business with a legitimate payment procurement service in order to minimize the risks to both you and your customer.