A website or a webpage is the cornerstone of every company's e-strategy. It is often the first impression potential customers have about your business. But what do you have to do in order to have one of your own?
1. Domain Name - What are you going to call your website? The name of your website should be something simple and easy to remember. It should also have something in common with your website. So if your website is about space, then a good name would be astronomy.com (probably taken).
2. Find a Web Hosting Company - You'll also need a web hosting company in order to start your website. A web hosting company allows you to place your files on their servers, which will then enable your website to appear online after you've purchased a domain name. Be sure and do some research on how reliable the company is. If your web hosting company ever develops technical problems, then it's quite likely that your website will disappear. And that's not good for business.
3. Build Your Web Site - You can either design it yourself or a hire professional. Professionals know what they are doing but can take a big bite out of your budget. An option is to hire a web design student who is anxious to put his design skills to use in exchange for a token sum, experience, and a website credit he can add to his portfolio.
4. The Cost - The price tag for your website will depend on how popular it is. The domain name you pick will probably cost you about ten to thirty dollars per year. Keep in mind that if you elect to renew your domain name for less than five years, then the major search engines (like Google) are less likely to give your website a high ranking. A website that has not been renewed for at least five years will generally be viewed as a spam site by search engines. This will not necessarily doom your website, but it is something to think about. Renewing your website for five years will probably cost you between fifty and a hundred fifty dollars. So it's not that expensive.
