The
Website Workshop has been created mainly due to the great
response
we received to the article “Designing Your Website
for Web 2.0”. The Workshop will run for 6 months, each
month giving you the next step to create a cutting edge Web
2.0 website for your business or personal site. Your feedback
will be much appreciated to determine any future Workshops.
At the end of the Workshop using all the tutorials given
you should have a website that looks similar to our version
below (Click to enlarge):
What benefits will
i get from having a website?
- Increase product awareness
- Communicate with customers and partners more efficiently
- Sell products directly
- Generate and qualify leads
- Improve customer service
- Gather feedback
- Decrease cost of sales, support, marketing, and training
- Expand distribution
Step 1 - Planning
Your Website
Planning your Website design
Even if you are just creating a personal home page that
only friends and family will see, it is very important to
plan the site carefully to make sure everyone will be able
to use it easily.
Website structure
The structure of your website needs to be thought out thoroughly.
If you create documents without thinking about where in your
folder hierarchy they should go, you may end up with a huge
folder full of files scattered everywhere. Also it is a good
idea to create a navigation tree (flow chart) of how you
want your pages to link to each other, for example:
The next step is to plan your design and layout. Simply
create a quick drawing on paper of how you want the site
layout to look and then follow it as you build your site.
Make sure all your pages have the same or similar design
and layout. If all the pages have a different look, or the
navigation is in a different place on each page, it might
confuse the user.
Organise your website's
assets
Once you have completed the above you will need to create
and gather assets such as images, website text, and media
like Flash etc. Make sure you have all of these ready before
you begin developing your site.
If you don't already have one then you will need a domain
name for your site.
Domain name
Commercially the right domain names will
help improve the profile of your business and ensure you
strengthen it on
the Web. Domain names produce a feeling of professionalism.
If you are trying to do business on the Web, a domain name
is essential. There is a perception that sites hosted under
their own domain names are more professional than free sites
or ISP-hosted sites with long convoluted addresses. Ensure
that your domain name is both memorable and enduring.
When registering a domain name you must ensure your name
is something that is easy to remember so customers can find
you when they need you. The easiest way to do this is use
your company name in full. If you are known by numerous names
then ensure they are all registered as domain names and pointing
back to the main site to ensure you don't miss out on business.
Domain names can be a maximum of 67 characters. By using
shorter options or initials you could be cutting out some
of your customers who don't know these.
Hard to spell names - register all possibilities to ensure
your customers get to your site.
Use your domain name at every opportunity. On the bottom
of all emails, business cards, headed paper - mention it
on every possible occasion.
To register a domain name visit the Telivo
website http://www.telivo.com. Type the domain name into
the search
box and follow the links.
Web Hosting
You will then need a web hosting package
for your website. Visit http://www.telivo.com/web-hosting.html for more information on our hosting packages.
Next Month - Step
2 - Designing Your Website
 Next
month we will be using GIMPShop a free Open Source image
editor that is similar to the popular Adobe Photoshop.
You can download GIMPShop from the following website:
http://gimpshop.blogspot.com/
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For
resellers looking to provide their own bespoke hosting packages
a VPS is the ideal starting point. The Plesk control panel
software is designed to simplify the management and administration
of web sites allowing non-technical users to manage complex
server tasks with point-and-click simplicity. 
