James Boyle
Elemental Services
Many businesses see the web as a mysterious and potentially expensive place to be. However – there are just three things that need to be arranged to achieve a positive web presence. This article explains these three components and shows that getting a web presence is not only easy – but also very economical.
A typical web site is a collection of pages, text and images that are interlinked to form a document that visitors on the web can view and interact with. A website can also include files of any other type including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, movies and audio files, all of which can be downloaded and viewed.
Websites can also consist of more than just a static set of pages and images. Many sites now are highly interactive, and allow surfers to view dynamic and up-to-date information, join on-line clubs and go shopping to name just a few. Extra functionality such as this typically requires programming, and the complexity of your site dictates how much programming will be required.
Web design and development on the surface look fairly easy. There are a number of tools that allow you to graphically create web pages (much like using Word to create documents) without needing to know HTML (the language that web pages are written in). For some businesses this may be an acceptable way to go.
However professional web designers bring a wide range of associated skills and services to the table:
The cost of a website is entirely dependant on the size and complexity of your site. Different web designers have differing pricing structures. At Elemental Services we price websites based on the number of pages and images (as this indicates the site’s size), plus an hourly rate on an estimate of the number of hours of programming work if required (indicating the site’s complexity). Another common pricing structure used by other developers is a flat hourly rate for everything. The most important thing is to get a fixed-price quotation after comprehensive discussions about what the site will contain and how you expect it should operate. This way you won’t receive any nasty surprises when you get the bill, and it also ensures that your developer is fully aware of what you want to achieve.
Once you have your website developed, you are going to need an ‘address’ or ‘URL’ (Uniform Resource Locator) for your site so that potential visitors on the web can get there.
The best way to do this is to register a domain name. By registering a domain (ie. elementalservices.com.au) you are then able to register your web site at ‘www.elementalservices.com.au’. Domain names are commonly used to identify business, organisations, brand names, trademarks and products on the web.
Technically you do not need a domain name if you can host your site on a section of someone else’s, and often your ISP will give you some space to host a website. However, domain names are so cheap that it is almost always worth getting yourself a unique and identifiable way to find you on the web. You will also give your web presence a certain amount of authenticity, as well as allowing you to use your domain name in email addresses and on advertising and promotional material.
t is worth spending the time choosing your domain name carefully, and if possible it should be as close to your business or product name as possible so that potential visitors can guess your domain name if they don’t know it.
The price of domain names differ depending on where the domain is located and the type of domain. Click here to view our current prices for all domain names. Below are some examples of domain names that we are able to register, for the full list please visit our prices page.
The most common domain suffix in use in Australia by businesses is ‘.com.au’, so if your customers are primarily domestic then this is your best bet. If you are targeting international customers then a ‘.com’ address may be more appropriate.
All ‘.com.au’ addresses are administered by a group called ‘auDA’ and they have rules stipulating that you must have some demonstrable right to a domain name before you can buy it (such as a registered business name or trademark). This differs for example with the US (.com) where it is a free-for-all and anyone can buy any name.
OK, so you have your site developed, and you have registered your domain name. The last thing to do now is to find somewhere to host your site. To host a site means that you are placing all the files associated with your website onto a computer connected to the Internet. Whenever someone goes to your site on the web using your domain name, they are connected to this machine and download the pages for your site. In theory you could host your website on your own computer – however in practice it is more economical and practical to use a professional hosting company.
A hosting company gives you some space on their systems, or Web Servers, to place your website files. Typically you will be sharing the machine with a number of other websites, but this is fine – you don’t really need the whole machine, and this is where hosting companies can use economies of scale to make the cost to you cheaper.
Hosting companies typically charge a monthly or annual fee to use their services. The cost is based on a number of factors but runs around $200-$500 per year for a typical business site.
So there you have it – just three things needed to get yourself onto the web. In terms of ongoing cost, renewal of your domain name and your annual (or monthly) hosting fee are the major ones. You should also budget for the fact that you will probably need to make changes to your site occasionally. Keeping information such as prices, contact details and product information up-to-date will ensure that your web site does not become stale.
