The Website Design Process: Setup
There are three processes worked through to launch a new website:
- Setup;
- Strategy; and
- Functionality and Design.
Each of these processes will be discussed in separate blog posts. Today I am going to talk about setup.
Setup
The setup process involves creating a hosting account and registering a domain name for your website.
Hosting
Hosting is a storage service for your website. Your website files are stored on a hosting provider’s equipment and internet users access that equipment to view your website. The Light Bulb Factory’s hosting service is Australian based, which ensures your website loads quickly.
Hosting is generally quite inexpensive.
The Light Bulb Factory’s hosting packages start at $95 (excluding GST) per year. For this price, you are allocated 500MB of storage as well as 5GB of data transfer (uploads and downloads). Data transfer is used when people access your site and download content to their browser, it is also used when sending and receiving email through the account. Most websites for small businesses will find 500MB of storage and 5GB of data transfer sufficient for their needs. Large images and video may consume your storage and transfer allocation.
Your storage and data transfer allocation can be upgraded at any time. The difference in cost is added to your account. Your storage and data transfer allocation can also be downgraded at the start of your billing period.
Hosting services are paid for in advance and for a minimum period of 12 months.
Domain Name
A domain name is your website’s address on the internet and therefore how users access your website. When choosing a domain name it is important to consider the following.
- Is the domain name easy for users to remember and spell?
- Consider your domain extension (.com, .net, .com.au). Which one is your audience more likely to remember or trust?
- Generally domains are displayed in lowercase and as one word. Consider how your domain will look when formatted in this way.
- Avoid using hyphens. These tend to be associated with spam sites and are therefore less trusted by users.
- Is it easy to communicate orally? Often your domain name and email address will be communicated verbally, for example, over the phone or in a radio advertisement. Del.icio.us is a fully functional domain name and quite easy to understand when written. But, is difficult to communicate verbally.
- Consider using relevant keywords in the domain. Search engines tend to rank websites higher when the searched keyword is included in the domain name. For example, if a user searched for ‘painters’, prestigepainters.com.au would display before prestigedecorators.com.au (all other things being equal).
It can be difficult to find a domain name that isn’t already taken, so this process might need to involve some creative brainstorming! Australian domain names (ending in .au) must also be related to your business trading name or be strongly related to the goods and services offered.
It is also important to note that you can register multiple domain names which all direct users to your website. This can be useful to account for common misspellings of words and to capture users who may forget parts of your domain name, for example, users might type in .com instead of .com.au.
For example, The Light Bulb Factory registered the following domain names.
(All .com addresses were already in use, as was thefactory.com and thefactory.com.au.)
All users are redirected to the main domain name.
Domain name registration is an ongoing cost but is generally quite inexpensive. The Light Bulb Factory offers a limited range of domain name extensions (.com.au, .com, .net.au, .net) for $20 per year (excluding GST). Domain name registration is paid for in advance and for a minimum period of 12 months.
Am I Locked In?
You can change your hosting provider and domain name registrar at any time. The transfer process can be quite confusing, but your new host should help you copy your website files across and redirect traffic to your new hosting service.
If you transfer your website away from The Light Bulb Factory you would not be refunded the remaining part of your hosting package. It would therefore be best to do this close to the expiry of your hosting period.
I hope you found this information helpful.
