Website Building and Management Basics - Part 2

Here's my to-do list for this morning: brush my teeth (check), do my leg exercises (check), build a website (aaargh!).

The task of constructing a little "shack" on the world wide web can be overwhelming (there's so many moving parts that have to be figured out!) but luckily I'm being guided through it by a super knowledgeable instructor, Maisha Walker (that's her on the right), who is teaching the course that I started blogging about in my last post. She's come up with a checklist of what a typical website needs, which you can find on her website. She spoke about it in detail during the class, and here's some of the notes I took:

Domain Names - Maisha stresses that it's important to have a domain name that matches the name of your company, so that people can find you. If the domain name you want is not available with a “.com” ending, consider alternate names. Maisha said it took her two years to come up with a domain name she liked for her company: messagemedium.com. She strongly recommends registering your domain name under multiple endings - “.com”, “.net” and “.org” - as well as plurals and common misspellings of your company name. Two companies that offer that service: GoDaddy.com and Register.com. This will allow you to have your own e-mail address with your domain name - for ex., janedoe@janedoe.com - which adds credibility to your business. When registering your domain name, make sure that you or your company are the REGISTRANT for the website because that is who legally owns the website.

Logos - Your logo is a representation of your company which will go on every piece of written and web material. It is worth the investment to hire a logo designer. When you hire a designer make sure to have a contract that provides you the rights to the artwork. Make sure to get the original files so that you will be able to use your logo in many different formats and sizes. You can also look at Logoyes.com and Logoworks.com to design your own.

Photograph-Invest money on a good photographer

Site map - It outlines the structure of your website

Site content – What information (images and text) will you be providing in your site? Here's an example of sections you might include: Mission Statement, About Us, Products/Services, Contact Us, etc.

Site Design - Will you do it yourself using a template or hire a web designer? Also check my earlier post for more on this.

Site type or purpose - Is your objective to generate leads, make money from advertising, sell products/services, or something else?

Site construction - Who will build it?

Maintenance plan - Check my earlier post for details on this.

Tracking tools and goals - Know what your financial goals are and figure out how much traffic you need to generate to achieve them. Track your marketing, for example how effective was your email campaign, ads, newsletter?

(That's Maisha in the left chatting with the Mogulettes after class.)

Coming up next: what are the requirements for proper site design?

Til soon,
Your chief Mogulette-in-the-making.