So you would like to get a web page up and going? Great. There are a few steps that need to happen along that road. Some of them are very easy, and some of them a challenge. Here’s what needs to happen:
Choose a domain name
I recommend using mydomain.com as a domain registrar – it’s easy to use, provides domain name resolution (DNS) services for free, isn’t cluttered with tons of ads, and has great features. And it’s cheap. You can use that site to choose and register your domain name. You’ll need to sign up for the DNS service, as well as email forwarding as well, but you need a hosting account too where you will actually put your website.
If we will be working for you, please set us up as a technical contact for your domain: Purple Ivy Web Design, 110 Oakland Dr, Black Mountain, NC, 28711. 828-686-8231 is our contact phone.
Choose a Web Host
We recommend Hostgator. If you want to order and set it up on your own, feel free, or we can handle all that for you. Once you have your web host set up, you (or we) will point the domain name to the host. They’ll give you an IP address, and you need to tell your domain registrar (mydomain) where people can find your website (the IP address at Hostgator).
For a fairly simple 3-page site that you want to do yourself, we recommend you use Google Sites – you can skip the CMS step below if you do.
Set Up Email
We recommend gmail. Just set up a new email address and then go into your mydomain account and have them forward all email to that address. You can set up gmail to automatically reply using the right email address as well so that your messages don’t come from gmail.com but appear to be coming from your website address.
Install a CMS
CMS stands for Content Management System – software on your web server that makes page editing and site maintenance easier. Installing a CMS can require some technical expertise even if your web host provides one-click “installation.” You still need to put your logos and images in the right sizes and places in a skin, or template, that you choose. With access to your web host, we’ll do all of this for you.
We use Wordpress or Drupal because they both have really nice blogging plugins. Wordpress was designed for that purpose, actually. Drupal is more of a CMS framework – you have to install plugins to make it work well. We can also recommend SilverStripe.
Upload Your Web Content – Photos, Logos, and Text
Of course you have to have some content to upload! Keep Photos to below 100k unless they are full-page photos. Then, 300k is big enough. Keep text tight, easy on the eyes, easy on the brain, and loaded with search phrases you want people to use to find your site.
List Your Site on Search Engines
At the minimum, you should list your site in DMOZ, the Open Directory that Google starts with. Read more about basic search engine placement tips if you like.
And that’s it, you’re good to go!
Design Guidelines
Let two over-arching principles guide your website. These principles are from Steve Krug’s book…
- Don’t make me think! Make everything obvious to use your site. Don’t make me read to figure out what is where or what stuff is.
- Ask a few friends to use your site and to talk about it while they do. Consider it cheap usability testing.