Build a Home Page the Right Way

So you have decided that you want to start a website, or even an e-commerce site. You have managed the site design, and have even purchased a domain name, but now what? You will never get any visitors to your site if it isn’t accessible via the web. The only way to do that is by using a server. The server will maintain a permanent connection with the web and on the server will be stored all the information about your website. In effect, users will come onto the server access your website and then when they decide to move to another website they will access information from another server. So, the real question is, what type of server do you need?

For all individual users and most small e-commerce users, virtual web hosting is the way to go. The other option, having a dedicated server, means that you will actually go out and purchase a big and very expensive piece of hardware that will be used for your website alone. Virtual web hosting is, essentially, renting a small piece of someone else’s server. Virtual web hosting which is also called shared hosting, because it usually means many different sites are all located on a single server, and is vastly more economical than owning and maintaining your own server. But beyond just economics, there are a great number of reasons to use virtual web hosting rather than dedicated hosting.

One primary reason is downtime. Running a server is often quite a bit more complex than running your own personal computer. There is a real need to stay on top of technological advancements, watch for usage spikes, and maintain adequate bandwidth access. A server is hardware that must stay in constant contact with the internet if people are to be able to access your site. As a result, trying to manage all of the aspects of a server, in order to ensure that the individuals are able to access your website all the time, can easily be a full time job. A job which, for most individuals and small companies, is simply unreasonable.

Consequently, the virtual web hosting industry has flourished. With easy to use interfaces, individuals who have no experience with internet hosting, or building their own website for that matter, are able to set up an account with a virtual web hosting company. These companies also often provide one stop shopping services such as email forwarding, data transfer, backup services for your website in case of a crash, technical support, and often your own set of email addresses specifically for your website.

All of these features are ultimately designed for one purpose, to make the process of putting up and managing a website a realistic possibility for individuals and small companies that would otherwise find the prospect of hiring a full time staff to maintain hosting impossible. The ease of use and the affordability of virtual web hosting have harnessed the power of economic collaboration to provide individuals and companies with a practical way to get and keep their site on the web.

What Exactly Is Virtual Web Hosting? / Paul Herbert

Paul Herbert writes about a variety of web development topics and recommends Net Explorers ( http://www.hosting-netexplorers.co.uk/ ) for UK web hosting.

Build a Home Page the Right Way

A home page is basically the main page of a website which is the first thing that an internet browser or surfer first sees once he/she visited your site. This is part of a web page (though in this case since it is termed as “homepage” stands for the very first page or the ‘home” of the site) that features clickable links, illustrations and graphics displayed on the computer screen via web browsers.

In building a website, it is important that you have basic knowledge of programming or html coding; although this concept has now become obsolete with the emergence of new types of website builder tools that enables the user – even if he or she does not have a single idea with regards to programming and web designing – to create visually pleasing and professional looking websites in an instant. For both the seasoned graphic artists and newbie web designer, these web building tools that can be obtained online provides added ease and efficiency in making their websites.

Key Points to Remember When Building your HomePage Elegance and over-all appearance counts. If you want to get positive feedbacks and responses from your site visitors, then keep in mind the following pointers when you build home page.

1) Use animations and graphic effects in your website (especially on the home page where this is commonly seen) as sparingly as possible and only when necessary.

This factor can be attributed to the fact that web surfers can tend to be impatient and loose interest once they discover that your website takes much too long to load. The reason for this can be found on the excessive use of graphic effects and animations on websites which, sometimes requires higher bandwidth to be downloaded fast; well what if your visitor – read: Potential Customer – has a slow connection? Definitely, you can say “adios” to possible sales and traffic for your website. Also, compatibility of your website with regards to the different web browsers must also be checked since, some websites cannot be viewed on certain web browsers.

2) Use only the needed features and applications for your home page – but this advice is also applicable for the rest of your web pages since functionality is the main keyword here.

You try browsing some websites on the internet. What do you see? Yes, basically you will encounter websites with homepage designs varying from the pure text and colored images down to interactive graphics made possible with Flash effects and other multimedia applications. But more or less, they all have one thing in common: the scroll bar found on the side or sometimes on below the screen area.

This scroll bar is one of the features necessary for operating a webpage, in this case the home page. It enables the user to discover more links as he or she continues to browse the site; while for the site owner, enables him to place more links farther below on the lower part of the page where they are available. With vertical scrolling, it is relatively easier to operate the page thus facilitating ease and fast execution of operation; while vertical scrolling on the other hand, is a big no because, instead of enabling the user to see everything that your homepage has to offer, he/ she would need to scroll to the right in order to see the rest of your content and graphics.

Besides, using both is impractical also; just try to imagine where your page will land in terms of functionality once you do this.

3) Make sure that all links are present and can be easily found by the site user when you build home page.

Some sites make it a practice to put the links on either the left or side panel so the user can easily find what he/she is looking for. While others would rather incorporate the links as part of the content (yes, that is one usefulness of content – and you thought they are nothing but mere decorations huh). They are both good choices actually; you can adopt whichever fits the way your site was built as long as you are sure that the links can be easily found and is fully functional.

Build a Home Page the Right Way / Jay Peterson

Jay Peterson writer, web designer. www.TicTacWebsites.com is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web No programming or design skill required. Get your small business online in just 5 minutes with www.TicTacWebsites.com loaded with 30+ business features.

The Importance of Building a Professional Web Site

There are various requirements in building a professional web site. The best part of building a web site is that everything you need is available for free in the internet. There is no need for any huge amount of money to spend on expensive software packages and programming manuals. Plus, there are loads of simple tutorials to guide and assist novice web designers.

Nevertheless, some basic knowledge are required like computer skills, access to a personal computer, internet access, a free HTML editor which is an important web page construction tool and of course a place on the internet to publish the web site.

Building a professional web site offer countless benefits provided of course that goals are set and are clearly defined. The goals set would be the focus of the content as well as the design of the web site. More and more people are building personal web sites to promote business, social, cultural and other objectives which they deem is significant not only to themselves but also to others.

Skills and knowledge of web page development can help and assist in developing careers and business. Most of the businesses today have taken part of their operation online not only to provide their business with additional exposure but also to share corporate information with other businesses. The used of the internet in communication has become a valuable tool for most business owners as well as entrepreneurs.

Building a professional web site is also a way of generating additional income. This additional income is the result of publishing interesting pages that entice a large number of visitors to purchase goods or services or even buy an advertising space on the web site.

Nonetheless, it seems that some web owners have not really fully comprehend the benefits that may be derived from building a professional web site since there are a huge number of poorly designed web sites which just seems to congest the internet with meaningless information that does not contain any clear objectives.

Building a professional web site is very important in providing a business with a good image. Knowing exactly the purpose and the objective of the web site will enable visitors to appreciate the web site. Mood is also an important factor to be considered in building a professional web site. The mood depends on the theme of the web site and should be maintained all throughout the site.

Textual content is also a part in building a professional web site. The content of the web site must be able to add value and should provide visitors with relevant information to entice them to visit again the site. The contents are also written based on the objectives of the web site. Likewise, never forget to double check the spelling as well as the grammar since there are no rooms for flaws in building a professional web site.

Creating contents for a professional web site is very much different from writing for example for a newspaper. The difference lies on the application of multimedia capabilities. Graphics, music, video and photos may also be included on the web site to make it even more interesting. However it is important not to overdo it or else the web site will no longer be effective in retaining the interest of visitors. Aside from that, using too much graphics may slows down the downloading time and when this happens web visitors are likely to leave and never to return again.

The Importance of Building a Professional Web Site / Jay Peterson

Jay Peterson writer, web designer. www.TicTacWebsites.com is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. Get your small business online in just 5 minutes with www.tictacwebsites.com loaded with 30+ business features.