Other Services We Provide:

• Picture Scanning
• Picture Editing
• Logo Design
• Graphic Design
• Site Submission
  
  

1. Register your domain name:
   

   The first thing you will need to decide is whether or not you want to have you own domain name (i.e. www.yourname.com):
   
   

   1. Don't Want a Domain Name:
      
      If you decide that you don't want to do this, then you will need to find someone that will "sub-domain" host your site for you.  What this means is that your site would be in a sub-directory under someone else's domain.  I.E.:
      
      http://www.newrain.com/yourname/
      
      Newrain provides sub-domain hosting for small websites.  An example is:
      
      http://www.newrain.com/alperry/
      
      
   2. Do Want a Domain Name:
      
      If you want your own domain name and know what it is, then you will first need to see if it is still available.  You can use our look-up form to see if it is.
      
      Once you have found a domain name that is still available, you will need to register it with Internic.  There are several sites on the web that will do this for you automatically for a small fee.  HostMySite.com offers free domain names with their annual hosting account.
      
      
2. Find a Hosting Service:
   
   
   1. There are several very good Hosting Services on the web.  We suggest going out to TopSites.com to find out what sites are ranked amongst the top 25.  (It is very important to find a good hosting service because it can mean the difference between your site being up most of the time or 98% of the time.  I don't know about you, but if I spend good money to have a site designed, I want people to be able to get to it).
      
      
   2. Once you find approximately 5 hosting services that you think you'd like to go with, make sure they will be able to provide the services you need.  I.E.
      
      
      1. Are you going to have a site with a database behind it?  Then you will need to make sure the service allows the type of database you will be using.  (i.e. Microsoft Access, SQL Server, etc).
         
         
      2. Do you want to sell items on your site?  If so, how many?  Some hosting sites only allow a minimum number of products on their site.  Make sure any shopping cart program they provide allows for the number of products you want to sell.
         
         
      3. Are you going to need to do special programming on your site? I.E. will your developer be programming in ASP, Cold Fusion, Java, or Perl?  If so, you need to make sure your hosting service provides an NT or Windows 2000 server for ASP, and a Unix Server for Perl, etc.
         
         
      4. How big will your site get?  Will you need more than 5 Megabites of space?  Some sites charge extra for anything above 5 Meg.
         
         
      5. and so on and so on ....
         
         
3. Find a web developer:
   
   Once you have the domain name and hosting issues worked out, you will now need to find a web developer (you may want to find the developer first so that you make sure your hosting service is on a platform that the developer programs for.  I.E. Unix or Windows). 
   
   
   1. Where do you go to find a good developer?  And who can you trust?
      
      I have had so many clients tell me how they hired another web developer, but they never finished the site for them.  I have several sites that I had to "finish" because the prior developer skipped before completing the site.
      
      
   2. What is the going rate for web design?
      
      This is a good question.  Because you can find all kinds of prices for website design, ranging from $49.00 to several thousand dollars.  But what kind of site are you going to get for $49.00?  I'd be afraid to ask.
      
      The going rate in the Sacramento area, which is where I'm located, according to the "Brenner Hourly Rates" manual, is $45.00 per hour.
      
      We charge $35.00 per hour.  Which means a six page static site (without a database backend), with approximately 15 images and a logo will cost you around $385.00.  It takes us around 11 hours to design a small 6 page site.
      
      
   3. You can design the site yourself.  
      
      There are many, many web design software packages out on the market that will take you step-by-step through the web design process.  You just need to decide whether you have the time and the patience to do this on your own.  If you do, great!  Because you will save yourself a lot of money!  If not, then you may want to consider paying someone to design it for you.
      
      
4. Upload your site to the server:
   
   Now a good web developer will include this in his/her web design package.  But not all do.  If you go with a less expensive designer, or decide to design the site yourself, then you will need to obtain the FTP information from your hosting service, along with an FTP program (there are several free one's available on the internet through sites like "www.twocows.com" or "www.builder.com").  And once you have both, you will then need to upload your site to the hosting company's server. 
   
   
5. If necessary, setup an online merchant account and shopping cart program:
   
   If you are going to sell your product online, then you will need to get an online merchant account and some kind of shopping cart program.  And you will need to connect the two programmatically.  This sometimes only requires limited HTML programming knowledge, but usually requires some kind of cgi scripting knowledge like: ASP, Java or Perl.
   
   
6. Submit your website to the major search engines:
   
   There are several sites on the web that will do this for you for a fee.  You can use them or you can buy a site submission software package and do it yourself (prices range from $49.00 to several hundred dollars).  However, just submitting your site via a site submission software package does not guarantee that your site will be listed on the major search engines.  Some of the search engines require manual submissions, and will reject your site if you don't follow their instructions, step by step.  Also, you will need to make sure your web pages contain the proper META tags containing your site description, title and keywords.
   

Feeling a bit overwhelmed?  Well, that was not our intention.  But it is important to understand just what goes into putting a website on the internet.  And if you know, step-by-step what is required, then the whole process will go much smoother.

If you would like for Newrain to provide more detailed consulting services for you, please use our Contact Form and someone from Newrain will contact you right away.  Good luck!