ABOUT
My name is Niccole and I am an
artist. Have been for as long as I can remember. Helping businesses and
individuals add their products and ideas to the WWW (World Wide Web)
gives me great joy. I realize most people looking to the WWW to expand
or promote their products or services are very apprehensive with little
or no knowledge of how things work. Maybe they have tried other website
designers, hosting companies and the like, and found that it is just a
business to them. I do not do this to get rich. I do it because I love
the work and enjoy helping people out.
Most web design companies will try
to tell you what you need without regard of what your vision is. In my
opinion, YOU know your business and I know design. Together we can
satisfy your wants AND create something that is not only professional
and beautiful to view but also easy and functional for your potential
clients and customers.
Here is my simplified
explanation of HOW to get your business online:
#1 Have an IDEA -
You do not have to have a physical
storefront to have a website. You don't even need an existing business
to have a website. All you need to do is "see" something someone
in the world might need and put it on a website for informational
purposes or to sell. Although it seems this way, not every website out
there "sells" something.
- A word about ADS -
Even with information only
sites, you can still make money by selling advertising space on it.
Advertising is a good thing because nothing on the internet isn't
paid for in some way. If we didn't have ads, we wouldn't have the
vast amount if information available on the net. I don't know too
many independently wealthy people who just sit around all day
posting things to the Internet.
#2 Have someone take your ideas
and make a design for your website -
Be careful! Don't fall into the
trap that most of my clients have. I get a lot of clients that come to
me, not only because I am pretty cheap, but because their nephew,
sister, brother, uncle, or a friend of a friend SAID they could put
their ideas online and never finished, didn't give them what they
wanted, or just pain had no idea how to. Please don't misunderstand.
There are a lot of people out there that know how to put a simple HTML
website up on the WWW. It is my policy never to do business with family
or friends. It usually ends badly. You want a professional website.. so
go to a professional.
#3 Stuff you NEED to have to
get a website onto the WWW -
- A Domain Name -
A domain name is like the address of your home. When you get mail it
is addressed to you with your address right? Well, it is the same
way for your website. The HTTP (Hyper text transfer protocol)
recognizes your DOMAIN NAME as being the address of your website and
sends people to it when your domain name is entered into the search
bar of your browser.
- Webspace Hosting -
Hosting is like the land where you build your house. You cannot just
have a house without a plot of land to put it on can you? Same with
a website. Hosting is usually offered by companies that have a
physical SERVER or are a reseller for server space. Servers are
important because without them there would be no Internet. They
"keep" all the information and code that you see on the Internet.
They STORE it till someone tried to access it. You can get hosting
from just about anywhere on the Internet but be careful. Cheap
hosting can mean server DOWNTIME is more than a moderately priced
hosting company. Downtime means just that, the SERVER where your
website is hosted goes DOWN. Not a good thing. You don't need
expensive hosting, just RELIABLE hosting so read the fine print when
purchasing it.
- A Website -
Your website is like your house, sitting on your land (hosting) and
has an address (your domain name)
There is a lot more to owning a
website like promotion and maintenance. Although I do not do advanced
SEO, I do add enough META to allow search engines to pick your site up.
Here are a few notes on
PROMOTION and MAINTENANCE -
First, your website should have
the basic META tags in the HTML code. There are several places on the
net where you can generate these with some ease. Simply fill out the
form and it pops out the code. Copy and paste it into the pages of your
site and you are done.
- SUBMITTING your website to
search engines -
Each search engine has a different way of listing or suggesting a
site for inclusion in their database. Some search engines don't have
databases and just crawl through the META on the Internet.
Here is a description I found from
WEBOPEDIA
Search engines are the key to
finding specific information on the vast expanse of the World Wide Web.
Without sophisticated search engines, it would be virtually impossible
to locate anything on the Web without knowing a specific URL. But do you
know how search engines work? And do you know what makes some search
engines more effective than others?
When people use the term search engine in relation to the Web, they are
usually referring to the actual search forms that searches through
databases of HTML documents, initially gathered by a robot.
There are basically three types of search engines: Those that are
powered by robots (called crawlers; ants or spiders) and those that are
powered by human submissions; and those that are a hybrid of the two.
Crawler-based search engines are those that use automated software
agents (called crawlers) that visit a Web site, read the information on
the actual site, read the site's meta tags and also follow the links
that the site connects to performing indexing on all linked Web sites as
well. The crawler returns all that information back to a central
depository, where the data is indexed. The crawler will periodically
return to the sites to check for any information that has changed. The
frequency with which this happens is determined by the administrators of
the search engine.
Human-powered search engines rely on humans to submit information that
is subsequently indexed and catalogued. Only information that is
submitted is put into the index.
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Questions? Comments? Contact
Me...
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