Back to business, remember that in part I we discussed everything involved in the background, or before the website; part II we discussed the planning and naming of the website. Well in this article, we are going to get into the building, publishing of the website for your home business, or any small business looking to go global.You will find this section is loaded with useful ideas for building the right site for you. From posting useful content to processing credit card orders online, everything you need to consider is included here.Building It-First, let us start with building it. It does not matter if you use one of the sources in the appendix; to dynamically and instantly create your pages with your input, or you go it alone. Just a heads up though, if you do decide to go at it alone and not use a webpage builder, then be prepared to do some studying on HTML, java, and a few others to help get your site off the ground. A FREE guide to barebones HTML programming is available at werbach.com/ barebones/. Remember HTML is very easy to learn, it just takes a little effort.Building it means creating content and coming up with a design that works well for you and your small home based business. The content of the website decides the design and layout of the site, for example, if you were going to get into a drop-shipping home business (Be cautious of a dropshipper who requires that you pay a fee to access their product line. A legitimate dropshipper should not charge to set up an account.), then you would want to go with a merchant style website. One with columns and drop down menus, and maybe a quick search box for the site (for the advanced). If it is a site to talk about cars then maybe you want to have a car watermark behind the words, and some articles on certain models; whatever the case may be it is all up to you and the way that you want to go about it. Here some guidelines to help you along the way:Tip # 1 Layout/DesignLayout and design are a very subjective topic, but the important thing is to make sure that there is a layout…as opposed to just putting information up, make an effort to display it aesthetically. The web makes it possible to control how your information is presented, there’s no reason not to do it. Some general guidelines you can follow are:· split your information into logical sections· make sure your starting page is attractive and well laid out· try to have a consistent theme throughout the entire site· try to use colors, styles and fonts that complement each otherTip # 2 Get To the PointTry to get to the point on the first page, or at least give people an idea of what your site is about. If people have to go hunting, they may move on. There is nothing more aggravating than a site that forces you to navigate for ten minutes before even figuring out what they do, let alone offering you the information you’re looking for. Remember, if somebody is visiting your site, they are probably looking for something…try to make it easy for them to find it. Ask yourself what things people might be looking for in general, and try to make those things accessible easily from the main page. Make sure that visitors don’t have to wade through endless links to get somewhere, and conversely, make sure they don’t have to scroll down thirty screens worth to find what they want. Keep in mind that a frustrated visitor probably won’t be a visitor for long.Tip # 3 Total Page SizeOne of the most frustrating things to a person browsing the web is waiting for a site to load…make sure that your site is relatively quick to load, no matter what you put on it. There are obviously a number of factors that can affect how quickly a web site loads, but try to make sure that excessive file sizes isn’t one of them. As a rule of thumb, a main page shouldn’t be a whole lot more than 30K or so. This, under normalconditions, will load the page in a few seconds, but still allow some fairly good use of graphics. If you have significantly more text than that, consider separating it onto separate pages. Fact: the average person won’t wait longer then ten seconds for a page to load, then they are out. Tip # 4 Keep It FreshMake an effort to keep your web site fresh, especially if you want to get repeat visitors. If a site remains stagnant, people will stop visiting it again and again, but if there is always something new, people will drop by often just to see what’s changed. You might want to think about doing a complete site redesign every few months, as it not only keeps it fresh, but it also gives you the opportunity to take advantage of newer technology as it comes out. This also helps to improve your site as time goes on, as you’ll invariably learn better techniques through each iteration, be sure to take advantage of technologies that will allow you to create and manage your web page without needing to know the coding.This all goes back to the SEO that has been previously mentioned. You have to try your best to keep your webpage’s optimized, the meta-tags are important, they have to be typed just right that’s the space just below on the HTML form view of the site. This is where it gets important so pay attention-
Starts here--
this is where the title of the page would be example: Online Home Based Business (be descriptive, use some keywords)
Content="This is where you are going to put in a page description, again be sure to use your keywords, but don't play repeat either Google don't like that">
Content=”now this is where you put all your keywords, use different forms. Some examples are: home based business, work from home, work online, home business, small home based business…” you get the picture.
Keywords are important, if the keywords do not match the content then you will not make any rankings, and that is important, because that is how the searcher looking for the product of your home business is going to find you. Fact: When the average person goes online and does a search on a topic, they rarely go past the second page! With that being said, then it is safe to presume that you want to be on the first page. We will get a little more in depth when we get to the optimization section of the website.
If you are doing drop shipping, then you are going to need a form of way to complete transactions online. In the world of shopping carts, the prices can vary anywhere from free to $600 or more. You need to remember that you get what you pay for, and stay away from free shopping carts. They are out there; however, they can cost you a lot in the long run. You may have to spend money on programmers to make your “free” cart work the way you need it to, you will most likely not get any upgrades or documentation, and they usually limit the size of your business. A “free” shopping cart is not worth the time and money that the hassle will cost you.
ASP shopping carts usually charge a monthly fee of around $30-$60. Depending on the company, they may also charge you a set up fee, and/or an annual fee as well. You may also need to purchase your merchant account and payment gateway through the ASP, which will cost you around $150-$200, but you may be able to get a discount by going through the ASP to purchase these.
Licensed software costs around $200-$600 to purchase. It is a one-time cost that you can even spread out over time by leasing. Leasing arrangements usually take your payments to around $40-$50 a month for two years. Once the licensing fee is paid, you will own the software and no longer have to pay for it. You will need to pay for your payment gateway ($20-$60 per month), and you will need to purchase your merchant account which can cost up to $300 or more. There are many different shopping carts out there, and you need to focus on what will best serve your business. Here is a list of several options that I recommend to get you started on your research.
Tradeworks -They can handle your merchant account, payment gateway, and an easy-to-use shopping cart. Tradeworks will handle your compatibility issues and get your cart up and running quickly. They also have great customer service.
Quikstore – This is a licensed software package that is hosted on your server. It is a great product and costs only $199.95. The flexibility is good. The payment gateway costs extra, but Quikstore suggests one that will be compatible with the software. Contact them at quikstore.com.
Miva Merchant – Another licensed software, but it can be hosted either on your own server or remotely. It also offers good flexibility and allows for good growth. The license fee is $595 and they can be found at miva.com.
GoEmerchant – An ASP that is all-inclusive. The merchant account is provided, as well as tools that will help you customize the look of your cart. GoEmerchant charges $59.95 per month and a $29.95 annual fee. goemerchant.com.
Securenetshop – This is another ASP that offers flexibility and a “total” package. The cost of this ASP is $229 per year, plus $149 for the merchant account and payment gateway.
I still suggest that unless you are sure that you have a killer product and you have the funds to invest that you should go with some of the free choices to start, then later up grade.
Publish it
Next, you take the Web address you have set up and publish your pages to that address. It’s sort of like moving your belongings into your new home or office. You will get basic insight into how your pages and files go from your computer to your Internet space and. If you used the built in website builder at website.ws, then you won’t need this part, on the other hand if you used something like Microsoft publisher, or some other build your site from scratch deal then read on. Publisher has its own FTP (File Transfer Protocol) built in, in case you used another program then you might need to get one. Something simple and free for now will do such as FileZilla. Just don’t forget to make sure that all the files loaded correctly, once you upload all the files to the server, then go through and using your browser, click and check each link. This is important, in order for your site to survive it has to have integrity, you do not want to go to a site with a bunch of dead links, right.
This is your chance to go through and make sure that all is well and the links work. Because once you start to market your home based business website it is going to be difficult to fix dead links that are already in circulation.
Well that is all for now. Let us recap; all right in this section we talked about building of the website, remember HTML is your friend, so try to learn a little of it; we also brushed up on the type of content with some ideas as to how to approach it, be keyword rich and specific. A shopping cart can either make you or brake you, it represents your drop-shipping home business, so do some research on what you want to do, and they have tutorials on these things. Lastly, we talked about publishing and checking your site for link flaws, this is important as previously stated, you DO NOT WANT DEAD LINKS!
Well I wish you the best of luck, keep practicing and studying I will be back soon with part IV optimization and marketing.