OGF: Website Design Considerations

Offlist, I've been communicating/free consulting with a subscriber who is considering setting up his own website.

He suggested that I post some of my suggestions here in case any of our readers are thinking about doing the same thing.

So I figured, why not? The worst that could happen is that all my brilliant ideas, years of research, creativity and motivation could be sucked dry by all the trolls and lurkers that take stuff and never contribute anything (you know, those guys that are secretly planning world domination by being too focused on piping design only), causing me to lose all faith in my Superman-like abilities and decide to live in a cardboard box in the sewer feasting on irradiated rats that haven't yet been eaten by the sewergators because I don't have a competent business manager.

So, without further ado, ta-dah!, Paul's excellent, way-cool, somewhat-useful guide to getting your own semi-professional, almost-worth-it website on the internet!

1. Write stuff about your company as if you were going to produce an advertising brochure or pamphlet. You have to do this yourself, because I don't know anything about your company or you. The more pages, the better, since I charge a flat rate per page. If you need more than one language version of your website, all the better for me, since YOU have to provide the content and I get to charge you double!
2. Send me money. That's it! That's all you need to do!

But first, the real initial costs:

1. A domain name will cost about US$30/year to rent (probably less) and you'll need hosting for that domain name. Figure on a minimum of about US$5/month for hosting. So that's like, what, US$80 per year if your HP-11c's batteries have run out like mine have.
2. You still would have to keep whatever internet service provider that you already use in order to be able to access the internet. Having your own domain doesn't give you any freebies in this regard.

But, you say to me, "Paul, why would I even *want* my own domain, isn't that for geeks like you only?". Well, first of all, I wouldn't have to battle sewergators for food if you pay me to set it all up for you and I'll be able to continue operating this free discussion list.

Well, OK, let's assume you are not altruistic and are a parasitic info-sucker as mentioned above and think I actually deserve to combat underground alligators because it would be a character-building experience and will make me more sharklike in my marketing. There are also advantages for you as well, but I'll only tell you about them later. Maybe.

Whatever you do, make sure you have your content ready before talking to a web designer. If you are unsure about the style/presentation/appearance that you want for your site, don't let that stop you; get it done in preparation anyway. Don't hire a relative's nerdy nephew to work on it for you for cheap, and conversely, don't look for a web designer in the Yellow Pages. You may think you need a fancy, all-dancing, all-singing, flashy-blinky site so that yours will stand out from the others, but this is wrong. If you are a specialist, you can find a niche and dominate it if you have good content. Don't listen to people that promise great search engine rankings, All^^^most of them are scams to take your money.

Maybe I'll post more about this later when I'm not wrestling alligators.

Paul Received on Fri Jan 16 01:39:00 2004