DONT Laugh

[Laurie L]

Ok I need some help.

I need to know what steps does one take when setting up a website. Do you design it first, or pick your domaine name first, or get hosting first.

My other question is what size of a page should you use and what size of pictures works the best.

Any other tips/ tricks that would be usefull are very welcomed :)

Thanks and Happy beading !
Laurie

[born2snooze]

Buy the domain name first, cause it will take a while for it to crawl in the search engine, so get it first.

When you are ready to built it, buy the hosting account, its like a rented house for your files, pictures, etc.

I recommend Godaddy.com for domain and hosting, cause its cheap and I never had troubles with it.
And you can get a website building thing from them too, I heard its easy to follow, even if you never built a site before. Yahoo have a good price for hosting and website building too.

After you have the domain name and the hosting, you are ready to built the site. Its your choice to hire a designer, and leave it up to them to do everything for you, or you can try those easy website builder that I mention above.

here's a list of designer that I would recommend, I have lots, but these are the ones I think good for people who are starting out:

Pappashop (http://www.pappashop.com/)
Just2Girls (http://www.justtwogirls.com/)
Cherry Tree Graphic (http://www.cherrytreegraphics.com/)
JustSpiffy (http://www.justspiffy.com/)
DesignbyJackie (http://stores.ebay.com/Designed-By-Jackie)

I hope this help! :waving:

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[Laurie L]

Thanks Adeline....I should have sent you a PM but I know your busy and didnt want to make your life even more swamped. LOL.

[born2snooze]

Hi Laurie, post again anytime if you have questions. And I can read PM, darling! Send me PM if you need to. Okay? :D

.

[born2snooze]

Hi Laurie, additional info about the web building program, you will be provided with templates, they will have different kind of styles to choose from and when you choose one, you will be able to fill it with information, change the background colors, etc. You dont have to have HTML knowledge for this.

I always recommend this, if anybody want to learn HTML knowledge, START WITH EBAY AUCTION TEMPLATE! There are many many of this for sale on Ebay, from $ 1.00 and up. You will get the files sent to you, and the seller will give you tutorial file on how to use it, edit it and how to upload pictures on your auction. When you are comfortable with your auction template, you will be able to at least edit html on web pages.

Here are result of my search on Ebay today on auction templates,
there are some cute ones, and so darn cheap! :

http://stores.ebay.com/EliteTurnKey-Websites-and-Templates
http://stores.ebay.com/Grammys-Country
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZbrookes_boutique_shopQQhtZ-1

You get the idea, just do a search on ebay, keyword: auction template'

Another first thing that is good to do now, is to learn to upload pictures. I use www.photobucket.com, its free. Just sign up, and start uploading your pictures. Its good to start from here, so you wil get used to this.

:waving:

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[born2snooze]

Laurie, clean your PM inbox! Its full! :waving:

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[Laurie L]

Thanks Adeline for the above info - PM box cleared out.

[sislonski]

Don't submit you domain to the search engines until your website it built because if the search engine goes to your site and it's not up and running then you will get booted and have to relist all over again anyway.

At least that is what I was told by the company that built my first website.

[Laurie L]

Thanks Shari ! One question I had for you or anyone who knows is the SEO - search engine optimization. I am a little confused. Do I pay someone to put my website in a SEO or do it myself. What kind of price should I be paying for this and how does the SEO work. ???? HELP !

[sislonski]

Laurie, I'm not really sure what an SEO does. They kind of keep it a secret. But heres my basic idea or understanding of what Search Engine optimiation is.

When you have a website you or the website designer will submit it to the search engines, there are many search engines, but you only need to submit your website to a few of the larger ones and it will generally get picked up after that by many of the hundreds of others search engines that people use.

Why do I need to submit?
Well if you dont' submit your site to the search engines, you site will just not be seen by anyone.

Why do I need SEO? (SEarch engine optimization) and what is it?
Well there are billions of websites on the internet. If you just have a family type website to show family photos, you don't really even need to submit it or optimize it, you only need to tell family members what your site is so that they can check out your photos or blogs once in a while. It only needs to be hosted by a server.

But if you have a business and you want potential customers to see it and purchase from it, it needs to be seen and it needs to be ranked high (on the first page) to really get your ROI (return on investment)

As I said their are billions of websites (businesses) to compete with but you don't need to be competing with all of them. So for example, you wouldn't want to compete against someone who sales cars if you're selling t-shirts. And you don't want to even compete against the thousands of businesses who sale all kinds of t-shirts because you only sell red t-shirts. So the idea is to optimize you site so that if someone is looking for a particular kind of shirt (red t-shirts) that they find your site first. By being particular about the keyword that you optimize you are cutting down the competition. By being general you with your keyword or optimization you end up competing against billions of websites rather than only a few hundreds. So the more particular you get the more you cut down your competition for searches.

So you would want to optimize your site the best you can so that the search engines find it quite easily and post it as one of the first sites that gets seen when someone does a search on the search engines for "red t-shirt" You would want to have this search term "keywords" used in the html part of your website. In the headers and descriptions and the meta tags.

By taking these steps, when the spiders of the search engines crawl through the internet, looking for the keywords "red t-shrits", they are specifically looking for these keywords. When they find them, they list your website by order of importance or how well you have optimized your site.

Search engines have a technique or I guess you could say pattern of how their spiders crawl or search or what they are looking for as they crawl. It's called algorythm. Every once in a while, the search engines change their algorythm (pattern) as to how they search, so if your website was at one point in the top three for that search term (keyword) it may now have changed and now be say on page three instead of page one. It may lose it's importance.

So from what I understand is that by hiring a SEO person, this person, constantly (on a monthly or weekly basis) checks on the position of your website and if it has lost it's ranking they change your optimization on your website in accordance to knowing the pattern or algorythm that the top search engines are using to keep your ranked in the top position.

Apparently it's a complex thing knowing the algorythms of the search engines, the SEO guys don't like to share this knowledge or they'd be out of work. It's such a gaurded thing, that if you know the secret behind figuring out the algorythm's that you could basically get a job at Google and be paid well for it. Which is why you get charged a lot for it. Also I think they constanly resubmit your site to the search engines, something that is very time consuming.

At least this is what I know, but I don't know it all.

All I know, is that I don't know what exactly I am paying for except that fact that my website stays ranked in the top three of the search engines for the keyword that I've optimized.

Having said that. I recently made the decision that I couldn't afford SEO any longer. My site is still ranked high, but then Google hasn't changed it's algorythm in a while either.

It's easy to optimize your site yourself and it's easy to submit it yourself, but it does take time out of your day. You don't want to submit it too often (not a good thing) and you don't want to use gateways to optimize your website, this can get you blacklisted from the search engines. Kind of like spamming only on a website level. Also having link farms isn't really benenficial unless the links you have on your website are compatible to what you sell. So for example if you are selling red t-shirts having other websites linking to yours, that sell red t-shirts is beneficial but doesn't really make sense because they are also your competition. So it's better to get other people to list your site on theirs. I think? or at least that's what I heard.

Some SEO companies will call you on the phone and promise you top ranking and in actual fact they only create Gateways for you. If you get a phone call by a company it's usually a sign that they are desperate for your business because they lose business constantly, because they are creating gateways and people are getting booted from the search engines. So don't get ripped off. Go with someone local and investigate the company, question their clients and educate yourself before ever signing on with anyone. If they are coming to you making all kinds of promises, it's along the lines of scammers. If it sounds too good to be true it isn't true.

Lets see what have I left out?
Hum.....I don't know.
Kandice may know more as she optimizes her site herself. I'm only sharing what I know, and i can't promise what I say is the fact. It's only what I've been told or learned.

any questions just PM me.

Good luck

[Laurie L]

Thanks SIS - I greatly appreciate this info !!!! Cost wise what should I be expecting to pay.... and is it monthly yearly etc. I will PM you later about this.

[sislonski]

Well I was paying $99/month, even that I think is too high.

But I would check around at a few different places.

shari

[Laurie L]

Thanks Shari - sorry I didnt get around to PMing you yet. Just to busy and I ran short on time.

Yeah $99 / month is pricey. I think I will ask Kandice for some help on what she does. Might be a good idea early on to get established, but I wouldnt want to fork over $1200 a year for that.