If you’re reading this article, you’ve been probably been thinking about launching a website for your business but you’ve not been sure on how to go about it. Most people tend to back off especially when technology is the keyword oblivious of the massive impact it can bring to your business when embraced. For the purpose of this article, we are going to focus on websites. To get started we are going to look on types of websites:-
a) Static website-This is a simple website that typically consists of a few pages e.g. pages dealing with an overview of your products and services, your contact info, business vision and mission statements, management and may be a photo gallery. This kind of website is easy to set up and it’s basically gives your business an online presence.
b) Dynamic website-these types of websites are more complex than their static counterparts e.g. e-commerce, hotel and airline reservation websites form the bulk of such websites but can vary widely, and usually have a back end database. Basically the content viewed on this kind of websites are user defined or predefined for example let’s say you have a motor bazaar, you can set up the online version of your motor bazaar in which the user can search for content e.g. by defining year of manufacture, model of desired car, colour e.t.c. This websites’ content is ever changing and can always incorporate a wide range of value added services e.g. online payment gateways, mailing lists e.t.c. This website is also more expensive to develop compared to their static counterparts.
Now that you have an idea on the type of website that you might want for your business, we’ll take a look on the players that will bring your website to light:-
Website designer-so you have decided on which kind of website you will need for your business, your search for a web designer starts. A web designer is a professional whose line of expertise is the web and related services. He/she will guide you through the elements of your website e.g. graphics, colour themes, logos, content. e.t.c. You can choose to hire a web design company or a freelance professional to do the work for you.
Web hosting Now that your website has been developed and it’s ready for public viewing your website designer will seek the services of a web hosting company i.e. if he is not already one. Basically a web hosting company is a specialized company which offers space to multiple websites on their servers for public viewing. They often do offer a wide range of related services which might include domain registrations for multiple TLDs, online security solutions, resellers .They offer a variety of hosting packages .For a list of Kenyan accredited registrar by. Below is a list of key terms you will probably encounter in regards to web hosting-:
Domain name-your website exists on the internet under a unique name .e.g. www.biasharapoint.com is a unique name. You will have to purchase one that reflects your line of business or one that is similar to your offline business name. Pricing of domain names will vary according to the registrar and the Top Level Domain (TLDs) name. A TLD is the last part of a website address separated by a period e.g www.biasharapoint.com ,the .com part is the TLD. Some TLDs are usually more expensive than others e.g. country specific like .co.ke for Kenya. (For a list of Kenya accredited Web Hosts and Registrars.)Don’t choose a domain name that is too long and choose one that is catchy so that users can remember it easily. You will discuss with your website designer the most appropriate TLD for your website. Domain names are usually renewable every year. If you are not ready to invest in a website, you can register a domain name without necessarily building a website on it, a practice known as domain parking. Bandwidth- This is the maximum data content your web host will serve to your website visitors in regards to your website for the specified time period e.g. 96gb per annum bandwidth means they will serve up to 96gb of data for the whole year, if you surpass this limit especially this happens if you have lots of multimedia (videos, images) on your website or you have loads of visitors you will have to renew your bandwidth.
Disk space This is the size of storage space that the web host allows you to upload to their web servers. This usually includes your website files (pages, images, videos) that run your website and user generated content for your website e.g. file uploads by your website visitors. After choosing the most appropriate hosting package for your website, you are good to go. Probably after launching a website you will need to update or improve sections of your website to make sure that your website visitors always get the most current info about your company. Now that your website is online, you will have to market it like any other new feature you add to your business. On our next article we’ll look on how you can go about marketing your website.
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