Creating, Managing and Marketing Your Own Web Site

by Andy Crowther

BCS Belgium Section WebMaster

Contents

• 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• 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• 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– 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– 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

• 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

• 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

– 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

• 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:

Andy@CoursesForFree.Co.UK