The Three P's of the Web
The first step towards building a successful web site is extremely
straightforward. Simply put: Plan it out.
Planning your web site is remarkably straightforward. Provided that
you already have a general idea what content you would like to include
in your web site, everything else is child's play.
First and foremost, you will have to decide what the topic and scope
of your web site will be. It is very important that you carefully
think through your objectives and ensure that your reach doesn't
exceed your grasp. Often times, it is much more effective to start off
small and build up to something larger than it is to try and launch
the next supersite all at the same time. Remember, even the current
mega-sites like TUCOWS started off with
only a few links and minimal information. But it was enough to keep
people coming back while the webmaster worked on creating something
larger over an extended period of time.
Next, you have to pick out a name for your web site. Most companies
looking to go online go with a domain name that reflect's their
companies name. For example, IBM has chosen www.ibm.com for the name of their web
site. Even if you are not as large as IBM, you can still name your
site in this manner using domain names. For instance, I have a web
site up that is named www.byte.org.
Using a domain name in this fashion make's it very easy for your
clients and other web visitors to remember and find your web site. On
Do-It-Yourself Web!, the default name for your web site will be
something similar to web.idirect.com/~username, (If your company's
name isn't UserName Inc., replace "username" with the name of your
company.) Although this can be a very effective way to get online with
minimal expense, it doesn't look that great on a business card,
nevermind trying to explain to someone over the phone what a ~ (tilde)
is.
Another consideration related to the previous suggestion is to
determine whether or not you would like to have email addresses
associated with your domain name. It is much more effective to have an
email address that looks like sales@yourcompany.com that it is to have
one that says 763283.009228@youronlineservice.provider.com. Either
way, if you do wish to register a domain name or have email accounts
setup, be sure to call one of our sales representatives at (800)
798-1114.
